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Long Term Follow-up - Does it really matter?

@David Marod - :thumbup: thanks for your input and for your willingness to share your data. Despite the fact that you would not be comfortable dislosing sources, if you would be willing to indicate if the lead sources are 1st party (dealer controlled web properties), 2nd Party (VIN Specific on various sites) or 3rd Party (Generic, non-vin specific leads) I would be most grateful. :bow:
Absolutely-
D
 
When you look at various industries. The majority seem to have a very different approach when it comes to this and is something I am adopting. Which is to return a Sales Qualified Lead back to a Marketing Qualified Lead.

What does that mean?

Well, after our 30 day of solid follow up I am enrolling the prospect in to our monthly email newsletter that I produce using Mailchimp and a RSS feed from our blog http://heroautogroup.com . Its not always about cars, or car related stuff. it can be partly about lifestyle, health and other profile related topics.

I think it's important to acknowledge and separate your database and work on things like growing the % of Marketing Qualified Leads to Sales Qualified Leads.
 
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Looking forward to seeing the data generously offered by @David Marod - also still looking for feedback from all of you -

Have you ever dug into how many of the ghost leads you receive every month ever engage with long term followup efforts??

My analytics person is back Wednesday. I took this as a deliverable and will get some stats for you. Sorry if the timing is inconvenient however you'll be happy I had the data aggregated vs did it myself for you :)

D
 
  1. Of these 100 Ghost Leads, what engagement rate are you able to achieve by conducting Intermediate or Long Term Follow Up?
    I'd estimate around 5-10% engagement. My "Are you still shopping for a car?" type emails and text messages around day 15 tend to get a high response rate mostly consisting of "I already purchased."

  2. Is anyone tracking this metric?
    We are not, there are bigger fish to fry.

  3. What engagement rate would you rate as worthy of devoting resources to these Ghost Internet Leads?
    Minimum of 20% and the resources would have to be very inexpensive.

  4. If you are performing this Intermediate and Long Term Follow Up, is it causing any unforeseen negative impact on either productivity or morale of your team?
    No, we have a seasoned team that has learned not to take negative responses from potential customers personally.

  5. Are you even tracking Engagement Rate??
    Nope, but this is an interesting topic and thank you for bringing it up!
 
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@jakewirth - thanks for your thoughtful and detailed response - I really appreciate the feedback!

On number 4 it is not so much the negative customer response as the futility of the effort which may erode enthusiasm and morale, or even worse, making these efforts could be taking away from the all important initial response and the first 72 hour engagement activities.