Don't Let Your Leads Disappear!

Future leads typically start as potential buyers excited about building a new home with your company. So you get to work answering questions, navigating options, and learning their wants, needs, and desires. By the time the next step arrives, you’ve become virtual besties, and they seem ready to move forward. But sometimes, that potential lead disappears, vanishing into the online abyss and leaving you wondering what went wrong.

Customers ghosting us is common. If we know anything about our buyers, it’s that if they’re not ready or don’t move quickly, they continue to research, let fear creep in, and settle for their current situation. Just like anything else, we need a process. Otherwise, the lead that marketing has worked so hard to acquire will go missing in your CRM.

What's the process?

Before we get started, make note that as long as the lead is still engaging with you, you should continue to set manual follow-up tasks until they either:

• Move forward with that hard-earned appointment
• Disappear (then you start the process below)
• Confess they’ve bought elsewhere or are no longer interested

Once your customer officially goes cold, it’s best practice to follow up three to five times within about a month before changing their rating to a nurture rating. This allows them to fall into your long-term monthly prospecting. Below is an example of what I’ve done in the past, but feel free to make it your own. Remember, you should cater your process to the most recent conversation between you and your prospect.

The multi-touchpoint dance

Silence is the enemy after the initial contact. Here's your multi-touchpoint strategy to stay top-of-mind. This process continues as the lead remains unengaged in your outreach attempts.

Touchpoint one: The follow-up phone call should occur one to two days later. It should briefly recap your conversation and end with a clear call to action to invoke their response.

Touchpoint two: The piggy-back message happens three to four days after. Just ensure your text reminds them who you are, why you’re reaching out, and what’s in it for them.

Touchpoint three: The targeted video email follows seven to ten days later and discusses specifics about what you told the customer about, like specific homes in their preferred location or price range! Bonus points for their name are displayed on a whiteboard or phone app to increase clicks to open.

Touchpoint four: And last is sending an expectation-setting email template two to four weeks after to let them know that moving forward, you’ll be reaching out to them monthly, but to reach out anytime.

If they still haven't responded after your fourth touchpoint, move them to a "responded nurture" rating. Here, they'll still receive your monthly prospecting emails, which look personal but are sent in mass with valuable content during their decision-making process.

Conclusion

By implementing this multi-touchpoint strategy and tailoring your outreach to the specific needs of online home buyers, you can turn those “ghost” leads into engaged prospects and, ultimately, (hopefully) proud homeowners! You’re the experts in lead nurturing; make sure you have a process for ALL leads, even those who leave you on “read!”