Frequency of Contact to make an impact

At an afternoon meeting today I was handed a sheet with some statistics from McGraw Hill.

• 48% of sales people never follow up with a prospect.
• 25% of sales people make a second contact and stop.
• 12% of sales people only make three contacts and stop.
• 10% of sales people make more than 3 contacts.
• 80% of sales are made on the 5th to 12th contact.

As most of you know, BizQuack is an advocate of frequent touches as a means of gaining new, repeat and referral business. The easiest method of communications is an e-newsletter, which is sent out monthly to your “I know who you are” data base. This list is comprised of people who know who you are, recognize your name and know what you do.

Obtaining a name and e-mail address may not be enough information. In some cases, touches may have to be personalized in order to produce results. This requires having more knowledge about individual potential customers or great referral sources. Take the time to add the following information on your key data base members: type of business they are in and position within a firm, hobbies, sport interests, vacation spots, other interests and perhaps a little about their dreams.

Armed with this information, the touches, in addition to the monthly newsletter, may include a personal touch, such as an article about their profession, or vacation spot, etc. These touches are made by phone or snail mail.

A good way to analyze the value of this type of concentrated touches is to know the value of a new customer, the cost in obtaining that new customer and the methods used to secure that new customer.

You will find that the implementation of an organized touch marketing campaign will become one of the most effective marketing tools that your company has.

Make sure to stay in front of your potential and current customers.