Why time is of the essence for inbound leads

With a successful inbound marketing strategy in place you should now be starting to see a consistent influx of inbound leads. That's great right? Well yes, but the job is far from complete! One of the biggest mistakes we see businesses make with their inbound leads is the time to respond.

It's absolutely critical you get back to your leads asap, and we mean as soon as possible as in minutes not hours. There are several studies which show the sooner you reply to a lead the better chance you have of speaking to and then going on to close that leads. However the numbers aren't small differences, we're taking you're dozens of times more likely to close a lead if you respond to them in 5 minutes compared to after 24 hours.

Even if you consider the anecdotal evidence, imagine you enquire about a service. You've done so at that particular time because you have a need and interest to learn more, if a company responds to very quickly you're likely still in that mind frame and more open to discussing their solution. In the busy, distracted world we live in even just a few hours later and certainly days we've likely moved on and much less open to the same discussion.

Also consider that prospects will have likely reach out to a number of potential providers and the chances are they'll proceed with one of, if not, the first company to reply to their enquiry.

Of course, it's not always easy to respond to all your leads within minutes. We're working on other things, may be in meetings and enquiries could come outside of working hours. Therefore it's a good next step to look into setting up automated responders. These won't replace the personalised response you'd normally provide but if it means you get back to lead quickly it's worth it, and you'll then follow-up with a more personal response as soon as you can.

In summary, inbound marketing can be great for driving new leads but how quickly you get back to them can determine the financial success of your inbound strategy.