Leads are potential customers who want to buy your products and services. However, aged leads differ slightly; they were once potential customers but have since disengaged for various reasons. These reasons might be long waiting times, lost interest, customers’ confusion about your product or service, and many more.
Businesses often prioritize fresh leads because there is an assumption in sales that if a new prospect contacts you, you need to get back to them within the hour. Thereafter, your chances of winning the sale drop exponentially. If you go more than 24 hours without contacting them, there’s a high probability that they’ve moved on from you to your competitor. So, businesses stay busy dealing with fresh leads most of the time.
Sales teams often do not take their older leads seriously because they believe they are no longer viable. But in reality, they have the potential to revive, become warm, and even hot again because you’ve already talked to your sales agents or they’ve expressed interest in your product or service. That means it’s time to take a different approach. In this post, we will discuss a step-by-step process to convert aged leads into loyal customers.
Steps to Convert Aged Leads into Loyal Customers
Although converting aged leads into loyal customers is a hectic task, it does not mean you have lost the opportunity to warm them up. But for conversion, you have to adopt a different strategy than the one you used to reach out to your fresh leads. Let’s discuss how we can enhance the chances of converting aged leads into customers.
1. Changing Your Mindset About Aged Leads
Sales teams usually think that aged leads are cold and need more effort to convert than generating and converting fresh leads. In fact, these leads already showed interest once, and the right strategy and timing can reengage them.
As a salesperson, your task is not to convince everyone to buy but to identify who truly needs your product, who is still interested, who needs time, and who mistakenly showed interest.
Once you identify it, it becomes comparatively easy to convert your aged leads into your loyal customers. Taping aged leads is more of a filtering and sorting process, not a persuasion task.
2. Collect Data Related to Aged Leads
To start the reactivation process, you need data about the potential customer who visited your website, signed up for a form, or showed interest in your services and products but never turned into a customer.
There are many ways to get that data. One of the most approachable ways is to look into your CRM, spreadsheets, call logs, submitted forms, and marketing dashboards.
Another way is to get it from your marketing campaigns. Collect sign-up data from older promotions. Moreover, you can buy aged leads from lead generation companies. They have giant databases of older inquiries from different industries.
Once you have data, you are good to go to the next step which is grouping and organizing the leads
3. Segmenting Aged Leads
Once you have data, it’s vital to segment it into groups, as treating all leads equally will lower conversion chances.
So, it’s better to group them on the following basis:
Age of leads
Segment the aged leads into the following groups:
- 30–60 days old
- 60–180 days old
- 6–12 months old
- 1-year-old
The more recent ones, like 30- to 60-day-old leads, have more chances of conversion as compared to older ones. Moreover, the age of the lead helps you customize the follow-ups accordingly.
Past Intent or Interest Level
Group your data into high, low, and medium intent.
- Some of them might have asked about quote pricing or filled out a form. Place them in the list of high-intent aged leads.
- Some might have clicked the ad, visited a website, or left the form partially filled. Mark them as medium intent.
- In contrast, some individuals may have signed up and provided only basic information. Group them as low-intent leads
As higher intent leads have more chances to revive and convert, it will be better to keep them in higher priority.
Product or Service Interest
Group the leads on the basis of the services and products they were looking for out of your service or product pool. This helps you send industry-specific messages to improve the chances of conversions.
Past Behavior
Group the leads on the basis of how they behaved previously because behavior tells you how warm or cold they are now.
Aged leads easily become cold; therefore, it’s very important to manage them via customization based on interest. This fosters a more intimate connection and reopens the possibility of conversion.
4. Personalizing Your Outreach
Aged leads are difficult to convert, as they are near to becoming cold or almost cold. So, it’s critical to personalize outreach to make messages specific and relevant.
By doing so, you contact aged leads based on their past interests, information they shared, their needs, or their past behavior.
Generalization won’t catch their attention. But when they receive a message that reminds them of their past inquiry, then there are more chances that they reply, re-engage, and convert.
Suppose there is an aged lead that filled your form about 4 months ago during the home services and solar installation promotion but never converted. You can reach it in the following way:
Hi! You filled out the solar installation form 4 months ago at our home services website. We are still offering 40% off our solar system products. Are you still interested?
Here you see that I have mentioned where we got their information from. It’s crucial because it keeps everything transparent and eliminates confusion. However, avoid over-personalization because the available data might not be 100% accurate. Therefore, it’s more reliable to stick to general details that convey your understanding of their potential needs.
5. Utilizing Multiple Channels for Outreach
People use different communication platforms and have different behaviors and preferences. For example, some people rarely open their emails but reply instantly on WhatsApp and text messages. While others may ignore calls, they respond quickly to emails. You haven’t contacted them in weeks or months, so one channel isn’t enough to get a response. It lowers visibility and reduces the chance of getting their attention.
You can start the outreach with an email. They are low-pressure tactics, as they don’t demand immediate attention like calls or messages.
In the next step, make a follow-up call. If the lead does not answer, it’s beneficial to leave a voicemail to reinforce your email outreach.
With proper consent, you can also send a text message to the lead because it’s a more direct way and most people prefer to respond to messages earlier than any other communication form.
To make your outreach process more efficient, you can create a custom audience of leads with similar preferences and needs on social media platforms like Facebook or Instagram and target them with customized ad campaigns. You can use Facebook Ads Manager so Facebook can target only specific people you want to reach.
6. Offering Value and Incentives
Aged leads are comparatively less motivated to respond. So by offering them incentive or something valuable in the form of a discount, an additional service, or guidance, you might build their interest and excitement.
Aged leads often didn’t convert the first time because of some barriers. These barriers can be a high price; maybe leads were unsure about your product or service, or they did not feel urgency to buy.
Offering them value helps them overcome these barriers and makes them feel like they are getting something valuable or a good deal.
7. Automating Follow-Up to Ensure Consistency
Aged leads mostly do not get warm or hot to convert after one message. They need consistent and steady reminders.
When the sales team is following up manually, there are higher chances that follow-up might not occur on time, agents might forget to send a message, or they don’t follow a consistent schedule. These inconsistencies result in irregular and unreliable communication, which may fail to motivate leads toward your products or services.
You can use CRM software for automation to schedule email campaigns, set personal reminders for consistent follow-ups, and track which of the contacted aged leads showed interest.
FAQs about Converting Aged Leads into Loyal Customers
1. Why should businesses try to convert aged leads?
Businesses should try to convert aged leads because they once showed interest in your products and services by either visiting your website, filling out the online form, clicking ads, etc. You missed the chance to engage these potential customers for various reasons, such as not contacting them at the right time or using the right conversion strategy. But there are still chances that you can warm them up with the right strategy at the right time via the right communication channels.
2. How do I collect data about aged leads?
There are many ways to get that data. One of the most approachable ways is to look into your CRM, spreadsheets, call logs, submitted forms, and marketing dashboards. Another way is to get it from your marketing campaigns. Collect data on sign-ups from older promotions. Moreover, you can buy aged leads from lead generation companies. They have giant databases of older inquiries from different industries.
3. Why is segmenting aged leads important for better conversions?
Segmenting aged leads is informative because it helps you to classify the potential customers on the basis of their preferences, needs, interests, and the age of contact. This categorization helps businesses to develop personalized outreach strategies based on their information and segmentation type. Personalization is very important to provoke their interest and make them feel understood
4. How does personalized outreach help in reengaging older leads?
A personalized outreach helps in re-engaging aged leads because these leads are either cold or near to becoming cold, so grabbing their attention through generic outreach messages is impossible. Therefore, tailored strategies are necessary to remind them of their past inquiry, address their requirements and needs, and make them feel understood.
5. Why do aged leads need consistent follow-up and automation?
Aged leads need consistent follow-up and automation for two main reasons. Firstly, aged leads are near to becoming cold and have almost lost their interest and motivation in your products or services. Secondly, if follow-up is done manually, there are pretty high chances that it might not occur on time, agents might forget to send a message, or they don’t follow a consistent schedule. Such inconsistencies lead to irregular and unreliable communication. As consistency is a key to warming up your aged leads, consistent follow-up and automation are necessary.
