Questions

I have created a database of prospects who have used services in the past similar to what we offer. I understand the traditional ways of prospecting but in search of ideas which can give us maximum traction. All leads are qualified and don’t want to lose out on any single. What kind of response can I expect from 5K contacts? Thank in advance.

No one can give you a legitimate answer to this question.

First, while you have pre-qualified your leads somewhat they are not qualified yet. You and I have no idea whether they still need services like what you offer, or are open to talking about another supplier if they are.

Second, not all prospects are a fit on personality. You are not going to get along with everyone, and you do not want everyone as a customer.

Not wanting "to lose out on any single" prospect is a dangerous and frankly impossible mindset. Again, some people will be "Clients From Hell" and you do not want them in your business. And as above, you are simply not going to get "everyone" as your customer. So every time you do not, you are going to view that as "failure", which is disempowering and incorrect.

Third, the message of your offer and how well or poorly it matches up with that target market will determine who even talks to you. So there are many factors here outside the scope of this answer, such as who writes the copy, how good the pain points are and the level they resonate with the target market, the media/distribution channel you use to reach them, and so on.

Now if I was in your shoes, I would qualify further and then test.

You can certainly estimate what you want as an outcome. However, you will probably get it wrong at least the first time and probably the first several (most of us do, and anyone telling you otherwise is a liar. The best copywriters in the world only succeed sometimes. The rest of the time their efforts fizzle...and the smart learn from that feedback and adjust.)

So say out of these 5000 leads you qualify further for size and another pain point or two in your copy. Maybe you have a great call to action that separates the wheat from the chaff and gets engagement. You estimate--because that is all you can do at this point; you don't have any data to plan with, but as time goes on you'll collect some and be able to plan with increasing accuracy--30% will do the action...take a survey...sign up to watch a video...request a white paper.

Now you're down to 1,667 better-qualified prospects. If you get 10% of these to buy, you'd be doing well and that's 167 sales.

This kind of estimating immediately shows you two things:

1 > Does this level of funnel flow support your money needs? Is 167 X $sale price$ = enough revenue for the period?

2 > Is this a sufficient activity level? The most common thing people discover on a coaching call with me is that they do not have enough leads going into their funnel to generate the revenue they need out the other end. They're flying by the seat of their pants and hoping.

Then you run the test and see what happens. Your feedback tells you how pre-qualified your traffic source really was, and how good or bad your conversion tool is.

Compare Planned to Actual results, hone in on where you can get your greatest bang for your buck, and adjust. Let me share a secret with you: it's usually the Traffic source. You can work on Conversion until you're blue in the face, but if Traffic is poor quality, you're only going to develop a trickle of sales no matter what you do. But a moderate change in Traffic quality can have a huge impact on Conversion, no matter how poor your conversion tool may be.

I've given you indicators to look at here and concepts to think about. But again, no one can tell you truthfully what kind of response you'll get from your list. You have to estimate, test, and adjust.


Answered 8 years ago

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