Until recently there has been no solution to help manage the complex tasks involved with multi-step, multi-media follow up campaigns.
People have been forced to come up with “creative” ways to get the follow up done… and I’ve seen some amazing creativity.
And now, just for you here are…
5 Mistakes Small Business Owners Make when considering Follow Up
1. “I’ll Just Try To Do The Follow Up When I Have Extra Time”
This is the most common really bad idea of small business owners in America today. After all, is it really worth your time to sit down and start stuffing envelopes? I see a few problems with that:
• First problem: “Extra Time”… yeah right! When did any entrepreneur you know have any “extra time”?
• Second problem: What is your time worth? If you’d wanted to be stuffing envelopes and licking stamps, that’s the job you’d have gone for, right?
• Third problem: Complication. It’s too hard to keep track of all of this stuff on your own.
• Fourth problem: It’s not scalable. If you get a big response one day, you may not be able to keep up. Your tongue will fall off.
2. “I’ll Create A Card/Folder Tracking System”
Oh yes… there have been some pretty creative tracking systems built using multi-color file-folders, index cards, and multiple sheets of pre-printed labels. I’d love to see you try managing a 37-step multi-media, multi-step, multi-branch campaign to a list of 137,343 and not end up in the crazy house.
Come on… can you imagine what 137,343 index cards even looks like? Where the heck are you going to keep them all? Under the stairs?
3. “I’ll Hire Staff To Manage The Follow Up”
Once people burn out of doing the follow up themselves, they usually hire more staff to help get it all done.
And the really funny thing about staff is how quickly business owners hire someone to “fill a hole” and pay them $30,000 or $40,000 a year but then shudder and moan and gnash their teeth at the thought of investing 1/5th that amount in the tools to make their marketing successful! It’s insane!
Now, there’s no problem with hiring more employees if that is what you want to do. But when you hire people you have a couple of things to deal with.
• First problem: Payroll
• Second problem: They aren’t perfect. They get tired and cranky. And they don’t suffer quite the same way you do if they get it wrong. They’ll phone you at 7:00am and say “I’m not feeling too well, pity about those 10,000 stamps you’re going to have to lick yourself now, isn’t it?”
• Third problem: Burnout and cost of training new employees
4. “I’ll Just Outsource It”
I’ve seen people create relationships with vendors who will manage their marketing for them. I have seen this work fairly well for small runs of really Really REALLY simple print-only follow up.
But there are problems with this, as attractive as it sounds:
• First Problem: I haven’t seen anyone who can handle an effective follow up that includes mail, email, phone, fax, etc.
• Second Problem: List maintenance becomes a problem because they don’t know when people are buying and can easily send follow up pieces to those who have already purchased or who have opted out.
• Third problem: I bet you can’t show me one single outsourcing firm who cares as much about getting your mailing right as you do.
5. “I’ll Pay To Have Follow-Up Software Built”
I’ve known entrepreneurs that hire software developers to create a program to manage all this follow up and keep it all straight.
Some people make the mistake of hiring a college student, or some guy who’s “taking a break”, or a programmer who just doesn’t “get it”… and they end up with something resembling half a car battery and a microwave held together by a few rubber bands.
Listen, you need a solution like this… like a fish needs a bicycle.
And even if you find competent programmers who “get” this direct marketing thing… you still run into problems.
• First Problem: Cost. They can easily drop $20,000 to $100,000 trying to develop a comprehensive software package. Heck, they can easily drop $20,000 to $100,000 just coming up with a “feasibility study” (in which they’ll tell you it can’t be done without another feasibility study).
• Second Problem: The project drags on forever. If you’ve even been involved in software development, you know what I’m talking about. It’s called “feature creep”. A good way to calculate how much a software project is going to cost is to ask the programmer for his “absolute maximum” and then multiply by 4.791.
• Third Problem: Technology becomes obsolete so quickly that you should plan on rebuilding within a couple of years to keep up. That’s going to be another $20,000 to $100,000 for the feasibility study. You did know that, right?
6. “I’ll Buy ‘Off-The-Shelf’ Software To Manage This”
Now we’re getting warmer… It does seem like with all of the technological advancements we have made that we should be able to go into a store and pick up a software tool that will help us follow up. Makes sense, right?
I hate to be the one to break it to you, but you should expect to be disappointed for a few reasons:
• First Problem: Most entrepreneurs really don’t “get it” when it comes to direct response marketing and follow-up, so what kind of a chance do you expect software geeks to have? If they don’t “get it” then how are they going to build you a tool that will work for you?
• Second Problem: You lose TONS of efficiency and effectiveness because you’ll have to build a patchwork of computer programs to do all of the things you need to with your follow up. You’ll need a “Contact Manager” like ACT or Goldmine, plus a “Shopping Cart” program, plus an “Email Autoresponder” program, plus an “Order Processing” system, plus a “Lead Management” tool for your sales reps and you’ll still probably need Microsoft Excel or some other spreadsheet program to manage the data you couldn’t find any other place for!
I get a headache just thinking about it!
Then you’ll still have to find vendors to send voice broadcasts, fax broadcasts, direct mail, etc. As you can see, this really starts to be a big mess!
• Third Problem: Orchestrating your follow up becomes almost impossible because you have your prospect and customer information in a gazillion different systems. How would you send out carefully timed sequences where the email, voice broadcast and direct mail are all synchronized?
The End
(but, hey, you can always try again!)
About Infusionsoft
provides award-winning marketing software that centralizes, organizes and automates lead generation, lead conversion and client fulfillment. Unlike any other software available on the market today, Infusionsoft is an “automated follow-up marketing” solution built specifically for marketers, entrepreneurs and successful small businesses.