Tending to Hot Leads

So far, the series "How to Master Sales with Mailbutler" has covered the topics of email targeting and outreach as well as how to follow up on cold emails. In today's blog post, I will focus on hot leads.

Defining hot leads is easy with the tracking features that Mailbutler provides you. In this post, you will learn:

1. How to perform a first evaluation of a lead
2. How to make a follow-up phone call
3. Valuable experience-based tips to boost your calling soft skills

Using Mailbutler can help transform the difficult uncertainty of knowing who to call into tangible information that guides your sales strategy.

Just remember: every person will react differently to your emails. They may turn you down or write no response at all.

Whatever happens, chances are lower that your leads will become clients if you don’t define your hot leads in advance with a tracking feature.

Instead of wasting time and becoming frustrated, you can improve the efficacy of your sales pitches with Mailbutler.

You will be able to bridge the gap between the influence of a personalized email, and the scalability of mass communication.

Like to know more? Here are the remaining blog posts from the series "How to Master Sales with Mailbutler":

• Cold Emails: Targeting & Initial Outreach
• How to Follow-Up on Your Cold Emails
• Handling Hot Leads & Evaluating First Batch of Cold Emails

Evaluate to identify hot leads

If you have followed the first two posts, you will have already sent two emails. Both were tracked using Mailbutler's Tracking feature, which shows you: who has read the emails, how many times the emails have been opened, and how many times the links in your emails were clicked.

These data are crucial to defining your hot leads.

Go to your sent folder and search for the emails with the subject line of your campaign (the first and second emails you sent).

Open the emails with blue checkmarks and click through and within the individual emails to see the email tracking details.

Then, go to your list of leads, and add three columns: first email opens, second email opens, and links clicked.

Fill these columns with the data from Mailbutler, and find your hot leads by sorting out the recipients who opened your emails the most, and who clicked on the links you sent.

Extra tip: Don’t dismiss leads who click less often. Sometimes, people just don’t find the time to read an email, or they forget it is there. Only dismiss cases where both emails were never opened.

Prepare to call

Look back through the opening sentences of the first email you sent to your hot leads. What made that potential client an interesting lead? How did you find a connection with them?

Go to their website to try to understand what their business is, and what they are about. Don't get lost though, try to take no more than 2 minutes for that.

Plan a day to give your leads a call before a week has passed since your last email — although avoid holidays.

Choosing a day that would seem to be less busy will avoid some early- and mid-week stress that so many people feel.

Recommended Reading: 6 Types of Marketing Emails That Actually Generate a Response

Extra tip:

Fridays are generally good days for calls. But you will still need to get to know your target group. You will find out on a case-by-case basis their needs, habits and communication styles.

For example, I will never wish self-employed photographers “a great weekend” again. Most of them don’t have one and respond with “What is that?”

No one call is like any other

Prepare yourself before you call anyone. Have a plan and a list of things to say — talking points — for the leads who are ready to listen.

Especially important is to write out an introduction for when they do pick up the phone.

The best way to keep this organized: have a piece of paper in front of you with their information. What are they interested in? How does your product fit one of their needs?

Take notes while you are speaking as well: what takeaways came from the call? What should you avoid or stress next time?

The soft skills of talking on the phone

Calling a stranger needs patience, tact, and social skills.

Engage with the person on the other end of the line by asking about their interests, busy schedule, family, or dog (just like you do).

Ask them about where they are and what they do for the company. Take your time to relate to what their situation might be.

A good conversation takes patience. Be polite and respect that they are opening up time in their schedule for you.

Respect and hear what they say — whether they are interested in your product or not.

Attracting business comes from building trust and rapport. This comes pretty fluidly from mirroring how they seem to engage with you: match their energy, volume and tone (unless they are combative, of course).

In case they are calm, match it. If they are very extroverted, be present with them.

If your lead doesn’t pick up the phone, that’s okay too. Stay patient. Wait at least a day to give them space and then try calling again.

Stay organized

Go back to your list of leads and mark those who answered your call as a lead to be followed or abandoned. Do the same in your Customer Relationship Management system (CRM).

In Hubspot, “Abandoned” and “Lead” are categories you can use. Hubspot also allows you to put the notes you took directly into the lead’s data.

After you’ve done this, you can follow up with an email to your lead, going over what you discussed and thanking them for their time. Mailbutler allows you to set follow-up task reminders, which really helps you stay on top of your conversations.

Hot leads FAQs

What is the meaning of hot lead?

A hot lead means someone who is highly interested in purchasing your product or service and is ready to get in touch with a sales rep.

Hot leads tend to be people who have familiarized themselves with your product or service and know exactly how it can help them solve a particular problem.

What is a hot lead in business?

In business, a hot or qualified lead is the perfect sales opportunity.

Hot leads are people who have the budget to accept your offer and have a clear idea of when they want to close the deal, which is why they take much less time to convert into sales compared to warm leads.

How do you deal with hot leads?

You can convert hot leads into sales by:

• Making them an offer they can’t refuse. One of the most effective ways to turn your hot leads into paying customers is to offer them a demo of your product or a free trial. Allowing your hot leads to see for themselves what your product is all about or use it for a short period of time for free will likely pique their interest further and entice them to buy it. Another option is to offer your hot leads an incentive like a discount, voucher, free gift, or free ebook.
• Harnessing the power of email marketing. Some hot leads need just a gentle push to become customers. You can convince them to buy your product or service by sending them a thoughtful and relevant email explaining how they can benefit from it.
• Calling them as soon as possible. Research shows that businesses that pick up the phone and talk to their prospective customers within an hour of receiving a question from them are much more likely to convince them to place an order than businesses that do it later.

How do you approach a warm lead?

There are numerous ways to approach and nurture a warm lead, but the two safest and most effective are:

• Respond to them as fast as possible. Warm leads often show their interest in your product or service by submitting queries. When this happens, you need to reach out to them as soon as possible if you want to turn them into hot leads and eventually paying customers.
• Send them clients’ testimonials. This can be in the form of positive customer reviews or case studies. Reading about other people’s experiences with your product or service can quickly get your warm leads ready to buy from you.

In summary

In this post, I described how to follow hot leads. Here's a summary of today's learnings:

1. Evaluate the leads using the tracking feature
2. Identify hot leads
3. Prepare for a call
4. Be patient and engage with the person on the other end of the line
5. Stay organized by marking the leads as to be followed or abandoned

Interested? Get in touch!

If you are interested in trying Mailbutler to help you with your sales pitches, feel free to try it out for 14 days.