Have you ever had a sales lead fall through the cracks? Maybe a bride emailed you about her wedding, but her email got pushed down so far in your rapidly-filling inbox that you totally forgot to reply to her? We all know this feeling; it’s frustrating for you AND your prospective clients!
Losing track of leads can cost your business – big time. You may lose jobs when you don’t respond quickly to leads, or when you simply forget to follow up. How can you ensure that you’re keeping tabs on your leads, so you can turn them into paying clients?
I. Centralize your notes
When you get a new lead, enter it into some kind of system (ShootQ, Excel, etc.) ShootQ is ideal because it checks for date conflicts and automatically fills out all the fields for you and creates a contact card for that person.
You can use this central place to create notes when you have conversations with leads, and also make notes to yourself – especially if you left a voicemail, or when you need to follow up.
II. Use templates
Responding to leads can be very time-consuming, so create a few templates that you commonly use. Make a standard reply email with your basic information and whatever you would normally tell a lead if you’re available. Have a standard reply for leads you aren’t available for, and a standard follow-up email to check-in with ongoing leads. In ShootQ, you can create email templates that will auto-populate certain variables (names, dates, etc) so it’s easy to create these standard replies.
Templates not only save you lots of time replying to lead emails, but also ensure you can get back to leads promptly – because it’s easy to!
III. Set up lead workflows
Once you’ve replied to a sales lead, whether via email or the phone, you’ll need a basic workflow for staying on their radar. While you certainly don’t want to nag a lead with a barrage of emails or phone messages, following up consistently shows that you’re interested and want to work together. (And that they can count on you for reliable communication!)
Within ShootQ, lead workflows make this process easy and automated. You can create statuses for leads for easy sorting (follow up, waiting for proposal, etc.). If you wish to automate the process, you can do that as well and have a certain status trigger the sending of a certain email – from one of your preset templates!
These are just three ways you can keep tabs on your sales leads. What are some methods you’ve used in your studio to stay in touch with leads and nurture them to the final booking stages? We would love to hear your ideas in the comments below. In the meantime, check out this awesome case study from Atlanta-based photographer, Anne Almasy, who uses ShootQ to take care of sales leads and manage bookings!
