HVAC Contractor Newsletter

Fixing Follow-Up Failure (2:57)

We take a typical HVAC marketing promotion and compare the benefits of using an automated email sequence as compared to direct mail.

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Hi, Brian Starzec here. Last week, we discussed how the lack of follow-up severely hurts sales. This week I want to talk about how follow up can be made easier, cost less and result in more sales with Internet technologies.

Let's take a look.

Here is the chart from last week. As we can see, most sales people quit following up well before the overwhelming number of customers are ready to buy. There are many excuses - it is too difficult, time consuming or costly.

But what if there was another way? What if you could automate your follow up?

Let's say that you are offering a limited-time discount for a new service agreement. A traditional approach would be to send a letter, flyer or postcard about the offer. Typically you would mail it only once, since it costs money to mail a second time. Furthermore, most of the time there is no follow-up after the initial mailing was sent. Most companies take a wait and see approach.

With the right software, you could actually automate the entire process and have multiple follow ups all for one fixed price. For example, an email marketing sequence for the same offer can be automated to do the following:

• Day 1 - Email - Announce that in one week you should check your email for a special offer on service agreements
• Day 7 - Email - Send the offer, good until end of month
• Day 14 - Email - Discuss benefits of having the system maintained
• Day 21 - Email - Discuss why service agreements save money in the long run
• Day 28 - Email - Link to testimonials on your website
• Day 30 - Email - Send a deadline reminder
• Day 31 - Email - Last Chance (summarize benefits and make final pitch)

With this system, you "touched" your potential customer a total of 7 times within one month without spending an additional minute or dollar in the process. Without any additional cost, you communicated with and gave your customer 6 more opportunities to consider your offer and buy.

Customers will buy for different reasons. With direct mail you are essentially focusing on one reason. With an automated email, we have touched upon several reasons and as a result, the entire sequence, has reached a broader audience.

One company used this technique to sell ICE 22 (an advanced, air conditioning oil) and had a 15% purchase rate for a campaign targeting new prospects (non-customers). This is not a response rate, but the actual purchase rate. FYI ? a typical response rate for a direct mail campaign is less than 1%.

Imagine if you applied these techniques to your existing customer base!!

Next week, we will discuss two software programs that can make this a reality.