How long does a prospecting campaign take?
We get it: you need new customers, and you need them now. But when it comes to your prospecting campaigns, there are three crucial things to remember:
- Prospecting takes time
- Prospecting takes consistency
- Prospecting takes effort
Let’s look deeper.
1. Prospecting takes time
Prospecting isn’t a quick fix for dry spells in your business. It’s about setting up a steady queue of new potential customers so that you don’t experience those dry spells in the first place.
Prospecting is a “hello”. A way to warm someone up and get them to speak with you. Once you’ve got their interest and got them on a call, then you can work your selling magic!
All of this takes time. And if you have a longer sales cycle (the entire selling process – from finding a customer to closing the deal) then it’ll take longer for you to get new customers as a result.
2. Prospecting takes consistency
Consistency really is key. As mentioned above, prospecting is about setting up a steady and reliable flow of potential customers for your business.
Think of it like going to the gym to build your muscles: you won’t see results from a single workout! It takes consistent effort over time to build up your strength and endurance. It’s the same for your prospecting. You’re not going to get customers if you don’t keep at it.
Continuing your prospecting throughout the year (even in slower seasons) and you’ll start to build up a pipeline of potential customers – and increase your chances of converting them into paying customers!
And in our years of prospecting experience, it’s only when you start chasing and following up that you start getting real interest. In fact, only 24% of leads are generated from the first email you send!
When building a campaign in Outbase, you’ll be prompted to set up a sequence of about four emails. So if we do some rough calculations, each email in the chain has about six days between sending, and you’re limiting the number of emails sent per day (best practice for not getting flagged as spam!), then it can take at least a month before your first round of prospects are all engaged.
So keep at it, and you’ll have a channel that continually generates great leads for your business.
Start building the momentum right now! Try Outbase and engage your first 100 prospects for free.
Prospecting tip
Don’t stop your campaigns, even in the slower months!
Don’t hibernate your prospecting for the winter… or send it on holiday for summer! It takes time to build momentum, and you don’t want to lose your progress by going back to a standing start every season. As we’ve said before, consistency is key. So keep at it, all year round.
3. Prospecting takes effort
You’re reaching out to new prospects consistently – fab! But you also need to put in the work to get them to turn into a customer at the end of it.
It’s no good getting lots of leads if they’re just not buying. And with so many competitors out there waiting to snap them up, you can’t get complacent.
That’s where lead nurturing comes in. Nurturing is the process of building a relationship with your potential customers so that when they’re ready to buy, they’ll think of you first because you took care of them.
We’ve written a whole blog about lead nurturing and how to do it (bonus; it’s gardening themed 👩🌾).
And the best part: Outbase has tools to help you nurture your leads and speed up the buying process. Our platform gives you clever suggestions for actions to take next, and you can store all of your sales tools within the platform (pitch videos, objection-handling notes, sales scripts etc) giving you everything you need to help turn prospects into customers, faster.
Is there a way to speed things up?
There are steps you can take to make the buying process as quick as possible. However, the best thing you can do to start seeing results is to follow our advice:
- Give your campaign time
- Stay consistent
- Put in the effort
It’s as simple as that.
Prospecting tip
Categorize your responses!
Sometimes, a “no” is just a “not right now”. Categorizing your responses into common themes will help you understand what to do next in the sales process. That way, you can pick things up at the right time and start building relationships with potential customers.
For example, if someone gives you someone else to talk to, or asks asked to be contacted again in X amount of time, that’s a lead! Learn more about categorizing responses in our How to respond to potential customers article.
So how long does it actually take, then?
Well, the answer is… it really depends. It depends on your unique business and what you’re selling (more expensive and custom services will take longer than smaller and simpler products).
While some businesses might sign up their first customer within a few weeks, others might start seeing the results after six months.
It also depends on how consistent you are, and how much you’re nurturing those leads and encouraging them to turn into customers.
Think of prospecting as setting up a reliable way of getting new potential customers – not a quick fix – and you’ll get far more out of your campaigns in the long run.
Getting results with Outbase
Outbase was built to get you results. Our gorgeous and user-friendly platform gives you the tools you need to find your ideal customers… and reach out to them in a way that gets you noticed.
Try Outbase for free today and your first campaign could be live in just five minutes.
