The Importance of Follow-Up Calls to Direct Mail Campaigns

Follow-up calls are one the most important factors in a successful direct mail campaign. In fact, no matter how well executed your direct mail campaign, hot leads are almost certain to turn cold without effective follow-up calls.

And don’t be fooled into thinking that a cursory call is all that is necessary. After all, if you have invested a great deal of time and effort into a lead generating direct mail campaign, it only makes sense that you would work equally hard on making sure your follow-up calls are equally well executed.

If you are wondering if your follow-up calls are being handled the way they should be, here are some questions to ask yourself:

1. Following a direct mailing, is a call made to qualify prospects in a timely manner?If a prospect has a hard time remembering the direct mail piece you are referring to in your follow-up call, it has been too long.
2. Are requests for more information followed up within hours?If a prospect contacts you after receiving information in the mail, you need to respond as quickly as possible. The longer you wait to follow up, the less your chances of connecting with a prospect and, ultimately, earning a customer.
3. Do you mistakenly consider follow-up calls a form of cold calling?If you consider follow-up calls a form of cold calling you are not making good use of your data. You need to know who you are calling, what information has been sent to that prospect and when that prospect received it. You also need to understand why that prospect was targeted in the first place.
4. Do follow-up calls help me to convert non-responders?Research shows that direct mail followed by a phone call will increase response rates from two to 10 times. If you are not finding this to be true you will need to do a thorough evaluation of your follow-up methods to see what adjustments need to be made to your telemarketing call script.
5. When you follow-up with a prospect is your first impulse to sell?This is almost always a mistake. The purpose of a follow-up calls is to initiate a relationship, not make a quick sale. Remember, most quick sales fall under the umbrella of one and done. Instead, you want to make sure that you are focusing more on building the type of relationships that lead to a long-term relationships, i.e. loyal customers.