Measure Franchise Lead Response Times in Seconds Not Days

Proper timing is a crucial part of any marketing venture. Frankly, proper timing can make or break a marketing campaign’s performance. For example, a company attempting to target simply adults will find themselves purchasing TV spots late into the evening, well after the rest of the family has gone to sleep. (Think about the commercials on David Letterman’s show.)

Similarly, a restaurant would opt to display food related social media ads minutes before a user’s lunch break.

The impact timing has on marketing makes sense.

However, when it comes to following up with franchise leads, we often forget how critical timing is.

In fact if I could make a single recommendation to improve the return on your lead generation dollars, I’d tell you to focus on call response times.

It’s a very common question we get here at Franchise Help: “When should we call our franchise leads?” Our answer is always, “as soon as possible”.

At this past weekend’s IFA, one of our account managers was having a conversation with a current client. The client was asking for some tips to help improve her lead contact rates.

After asking her how quickly she followed up on leads her response was, “usually within 24 hours”. That, right there, is a major problem.

Lead response time should be measured in seconds, maybe minutes. Never hour or days. Here’s a quick example of why...

From February, 1st, 2015 to February, 19th, 2015, we sent 3,695 call verification calls for one of our new products.Initially, these calls were set up to send 60 minutes after a lead was submitted. However, call verification rates were shockingly low!

We decided to move this to a 15 minute delay. The result? A +123% boost in call-connect rate!

If a 45 minute change resulted in a +123% boost to call-connect rate, can you image the impact a five or even ten hour delay would impact our results?

Think about that! A +123% higher call connect rate is almost like getting 123% more leads or in other words a 55% discount on each lead! With that kind of performance increase you could...

• More than double your marketing ROI
• Grow your franchise twice as fast
• Impress your CEO and get a promotion
• Finally convince your boss to give you that bonus
• Take a company trip to Argentina

(Ok, maybe that last one is a little aspirational!)

And that’s just lead follow-up 101.

What about asking yourself about something like call frequency?

If you really want to improve your franchise lead ROI, one call simply is not enough. It’s not nearly enough. The Industry standard is to call a lead at Least 6 times! A study conducted by Inside Sales and published in the Harvard Business Review, using over 100,000 call attempts, found that by calling a lead up to six times, they we able to increase contact rates from about 40% to over 90%! That’s another 100%+ boost in lead performance.

Put the two together, you’re talking about a 200%+ boost in lead value and Marketing ROI… How could you not get that promotion now…

And this is just the beginning!

If you're interested in learning more about follow-up, check out these other resources:

• Turning Leads Into Candidates Home Page
• Optimizing Your Franchise Lead Follow-Up Process
• What We’ve Learned Sending 6,636 Text Messages in the Past 4 Months

Also, if you want to speak about your franchise's follow up process, shoot us a note and we can chat!