7 Tips for Communicating with New Business Leads

You spend a lot of time, energy, and money to drive leads to your business. You may use a lead generation platform like Modernize or HomeAdvisor, or you may have been working on your SEO and getting your online advertising machine up and running. 

Either way, when you get a new lead to your business, it’s important to know how to make the most of it. After all, you’ve already put in so much work to get it! 

We broke down some of the most successful communication strategies that we see home improvement companies using. Here are our top 7 tips for communication with new business leads.

#1 Message the lead within 5 minutes.

Customers today expect quick communication. In fact, a lead is 21x more likely to move forward with a business if they are responded to within 5 minutes. 

#2 Use details submitted to create custom messaging.

A webform should always ask for the name, email, and phone number, but asking for additional details will allow your business to customize messaging after the lead is submitted. 

For example, if your business offers multiple products use a “Interested In” Dropdown to better understand for the lead is submitting information for. Then, use that detail to cater your messaging to address specific questions and resources around what the lead is interested in. 

#3 Collect website visitors phone numbers in web chat so that you can continue the conversation offline

On average, a website visitors spends less than 2 minutes on your website. If they interact with your web chat, it’s important to be able to continue the conversation even after they leave your site. 

Collect their cell number and continue the conversation over text, or start by texting in the first place. 

To see this in action, check out Hatch Chat. Hatch Chat will start a text conversation directly from the website with just a few clicks. 

#4 If using web chat, be available to respond. 

Web chat is a powerful tool, but customer that use it are expecting someone from the business to get back to them quickly. 

Make sure to have someone available to respond to incoming web chats, or at least communicate when your team is not available. 

Sending an automated message that says “Hello, we have received your text. We will respond shortly” is better than not sending a message at all. 

#5 Continue to follow up. 

Even new leads go dark sometimes. People get busy, or they might be talking to multiple businesses at the same time.

Continue to follow up with messaging until you hear back from the contact. They submitted information, they were interested in something!

Especially when using Lead Generation tools like Homeadvisor, or Modernize. You are already paying for the lead, make sure to get your money’s worth! 

#6 Qualify from wherever the customer chose to engage. 

If a customer responds back to your messages through text, continue to dig into their needs with texting. If a customer responds with email, continue the conversation with email. 

Here at Hatch, we have seen our users try to get the lead on the phone immediately after receiving a text. Instead of pushing the lead to get on the phone, continue to message them where they feel comfortable until you have to change communication channels.

#7 Use text, email, and voicemails to create a multi-touch approach. 

In order to get the highest response rate, engage contacts through different communication channels. Text is the most popular right now, but people still use calling and emails to communicate so don’t leave contacts on the table by not engaging through their preferred channel! 

In Hatch, on average 70% of responses are text. We recommend starting with a text message and then following up with a voicemail to make the interaction more personal. 

More Resources You Might Be Interested In

• The 4 Best Performing B2C Emails Your Remodeling Business Should Be Using
• Enroll in our Messaging Master Class to learn more about responding to new leads.