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somarco

GA Medicare Expert
5000 Post Club
36,597
Atlanta
For those working shared internet leads, or telemarketed for that matter, what kind of message do you leave initially? How about the 2nd, 3rd, 4th or later time?

I call 4 - 7 times over 14 days before dropping them into Constant Contact.
 
Tell them...."the local psychic says she sees white lab coats in your future". Call Me before you need me.

Of course my favorite is the pre-need cemetery salesman line.....Do business with me now or do business with me later...but we will DO BUSINESS!
 
For those working shared internet leads, or telemarketed for that matter, what kind of message do you leave initially? How about the 2nd, 3rd, 4th or later time?

I call 4 - 7 times over 14 days before dropping them into Constant Contact.

I notice several people mention Constant Contact, how can you be using this as an effective autoresponder? You first must create the email and then before your prospect reads your message, they are sent a verification email and they must first accept your message. AWeber is the same way.

Even though you have permission to contact a shared lead. Constant Contact does not work that way, I doubt your clients are reading the emails you are sending, using this system for an autoresponder. Great Tool for your existing clients to send quarterly newsletters or periodic emails to stay in touch.


Constant Contact is a permission-based email-marketing tool that follows the strictest permission-based philosophies:
  • Verification - Constant Contact automatically sends all of your new contacts an email confirming their interest in receiving emails from you. Additionally, if your contact changes his or her interests or unsubscribes, Constant Contact automatically sends an email confirmation.
  • Unsubscribe - Every email generated from Constant Contact contains an unsubscribe link which allows your contacts to opt-out of future emails and automatically updates your contact lists to avoid the chance of sending unwanted emails to visitors who have unsubscribed.
 
I used to use MS BCENTRAL which had NO OPT IN until they went belly up and left me high and dry (Thank you Mr. Gates - and yes I am enjoying my new MAC's).

Double opt in - you must be joking?

I use my own in house server based drip marketing , it was not cheap I had it custom built off of an existing platform (around $3000 one time). It integrates with ACT and has an unsubscribe. All messages are CAN SPAM compliant.

I am of the opinion a voice mail after the initial contact is a complete waste, or even for that matter.

We do not leave voice mails (very rare). If you want to really upset someone leave them 14 voice mails. Sorry but I want my voice when I am 80 years old, and automated messages despite what others may think from my research are indeed illegal.
 
Leaving voice messages is a horrendous waste of time and effort. Calls are almost never returned - I get much better response from my emails. I will indeed leave one message - never another one.

When you call after leaving the 1st message and go to leave the second message that "L" needs to start creeping up towards your forehead. Yes, they got your first message and aren't returning it for a reason.
 
I email five times over a three week period. I will leave two messages and send a hard copy in the mail the day the lead comes in.

I receive a fair amount of returned calls, mostly from people that live within 20 minutes of the office.

I also send a letter to all persons that did not respond (60 days after my last email).

I don't use anything like "constant Contact", but perhaps I should.
 
Leaving voice messages is a horrendous waste of time and effort. Calls are almost never returned - I get much better response from my emails. I will indeed leave one message - never another one.

When you call after leaving the 1st message and go to leave the second message that "L" needs to start creeping up towards your forehead. Yes, they got your first message and aren't returning it for a reason.

I have to disagree on this 100%, emphatically. I (like Somarco and probably many others) leave about 3-5 messages over an initial 10-21 day period and I think it is this, and the pleasant/fun/odd(?) way I leave these messages that results in me getting a high close percentage over time. I know this because MANY of my customers say things like:

"That message you left mimicking a computer voice and then calling yourself a loser cracked me up(I'll describe in a sec)...I wanted to call you back instead of some of those others..." etc etc. I have NEVER, in the years being involved in insurance sales had someone call/email and tell me "Yeah, it was your 4th email that really got me". Now, I am sure sending those email followups work but how on earth does that distinguish you from the competition with the average email box being flooded with crap everyday anyway?

Obviously whatver works for each person should be continued but I am a big believer in personalized Voice Mails and have had great success with them and couldn't fathom giving them up even if I go to a semi-automated system at some point.

A common message I leave on like the 3rd/4th try:

(In mock robot voice) "Hello Mrs._________, this is Dave-bot from the Massive Insurance Cyberspace Annoying Corporation. We wanted to tell you we have prepared 476,325 health quotes for you and we will be downloading them straight to your toaster as we have found your email box to be full. Please toast 2 slices of wheat bread and you will then see the quotes revealed. Please do not burn them or pricing could be affected...Hey Mrs. _________, this is Dave from [my office] and hopefully things haven't gotten that outrageous for you but I know online Health Searches can be maddening. I have emailed/mailed you sent rates, I hope you did get them, and please call me back if I can offer some no-pressure guidance/advice for ya. Have a great afternoon, and please excuse my lame attempt at comedy."

Cheesy? maybe. A little long? Could be. Does it work? Absof**kingloutely! I have had women in their 60's call me back a month later and say "That message was great...your message/number was the ONLY one I saved..." etc etc. I find this kinda stuff works across the gender/age lines generally and only very rarely do I eventually reach someone and they seem put off by it. It's not for everyone, I understand, you have to be semi-nuts like me, but it DOES work.
 
To me - complete waste of time and energy that needs to be spent on people who actually contact me. Onto the next lead.

I find that agents who go nuts trying to hunt down every lead are not getting enough leads.

My time and headache also has a price. I'll take a slightly worse ROI and have a life.
 
When you call after leaving the 1st message and go to leave the second message that "L" needs to start creeping up towards your forehead. Yes, they got your first message and aren't returning it for a reason.

Word on "the Street" is that you're a guy who knows his sh*t, so let me ask you how can you make that statement?? Entire Sales Training theories have been built on the idea of repeated calling and "you need x number of no's or no responses before getting a sale", etc. Hell, the entire multi billion dollar telemarketing industry was built on HAMMERING with phone calls. I hate telemarketers and I would still say in 20 years (since I was 18) I have bought at least 5 things or more that way (Invisible Fence, my first Mortgage!, a couple different newspaper/mag subscriptions, chartiable donations, and one round of "Herbalife" products. F**k those bastards NEVER leave you alone...what a mistake!)
 
To me - complete waste of time and energy that needs to be spent on people who actually contact me. Onto the next lead.

I find that agents who go nuts trying to hunt down every lead are not getting enough leads.

My time and headache also has a price. I'll take a slightly worse ROI and have a life.

I get where you're coming from in regards to ROI, meaning "Why dick around with EVERY cold lead and keep trying to reach them on the phone when you can buy more, be more automated, probably make more sales, etc etc." That is not a bad premise but here's where I disagree:

I feel that a "worked" sale, if done right, results in far more referrals (which are FREE!) and better retention where simply having more sales, based on website ads resulting in auto-sales or apps done through web links and having never spoken to them result in very little referrals and a MUCH lower retention rate. Based on the fact that a huge part of our business is Residual Income, I want cases to stay longer and I want referrals which I don't have to pay for.

In a perfect world I would just clone myself and have all 5 of us make calls and leave wacky messages all day but at some point, if I truly want to take it to the 100+ apps a month level, I am going to need to automate more...bummer though.
 
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