Last month I talked about following up person to person by phone, email, direct messaging, etc. yet there are some automated ways that some note brokers have been marketing and following up that need to be addressed as well. Marketing automation can give us behavioral tracking, an automated marketing engine, and the power to follow up on every action of every note holder. These actions include web pages visited, videos watched, white papers read, and keywords searched for. This information is super powerful for us when marketing to note holders and helps them to be relevant on a different level. You can easily over market to note holders on the internet if you’re not careful. Many note professionals are having a hard time using this data without being “creepy.” So I have come up some solid tips to avoid creepiness with your automated marketing and follow up efforts.
Honor thy e-mail subject line. Your e-mail subject lines are critical to creating a great follow up. The key is relevance — and knowing what someone just downloaded or looked at gives you something relevant to talk about. The question is how to do it without being too forward. Here are two good tactics to do this – Focus on the trend, not the action. Look at what the action says about the prospect, not just at what the prospect did. For example, if someone downloads an early-stage piece of content, you should know approximately where that prospect is in the note seller’s journey. Your e-mails should therefore be relevant to early-stage issues. Don’t reference the prospects past action, but propose something else that other people found helpful in that stage.
Write like a person. Yes, add a personal touch. Don’t make your e-mail seem as though it came from a mass e-mail sending. Following up on an action and having it not come from a person can kill your branding and alienate your prospect. Remember that the e-mails you send to your friends have the highest e-mail open rate of any e-mail you send. Find out why, and follow those same techniques when writing personal follow ups.
Follow up with note leads. Marketing automation isn’t just for marketing. It also gives many note professionals potential transaction intelligence. Many note professionals aren’t sure how to use this information, however. If you can see lead activity, you need to learn how to follow up on this information. Here are two tactics to use to avoid being creepy with potential transaction follow-ups – Don’t focus on the action. Call the note holders but avoid asking about the e-book they just downloaded or other action they took. Note professionals should ask about the problem the note holder might be having, not the action. Put the focus on being helpful. Identify the best actions for follow-up. Try not to pounce on every action a prospect takes. Many note professionals want to call and e-mail on every little action a person takes. This is not good for you. Learn how to understand actions so that you know which actions deserve a call. If someone is looking on your Request a Quote page, that person usually deserves a call. If someone reads your article on why a note is discounted, that prospect might not deserve a call.
The best way to determine these actions is to keep statistics, test and figure out what good actions and appropriate follow-ups will be for your business. If you can follow these few basic keys, you’ll be on the road to success. If you’re not following these rules, the odds are you’re being creepy. Statistics show that up to 65 percent of people say that a company’s e-mails shape their view of the company. If you’re not in the business of being creepy, don’t be. Remember, Success Demands Action! Keep on marketing, it’s going to work! TWITA!