Great Sales Leads? You Already Own Them!

Let’s face it. The cost to generate a fresh, qualified lead these days is high, and getting higher. That leaves more and more home improvement dealers looking to stretch their lead generation investments. And that means they’re looking to work leads they already own: that is, previous customers and past prospects.
The math works. As a home improvement dealer, your cost for these leads is zero: you’ve already got these leads. In fact, you’ve already had contact with them, and (hopefully) turned a bunch of them into sales. If you can cross-sell or up-sell your past customers, and re-hash your old prospects—bingo, you’ll hedge yourself against the ever-rising costs of new, qualified sales leads.
OK, I know I’m telling you what you already know. But the question I keep hearing is “How do I contact my previous customers and prospects”?
By e-mail, of course. Do a quick search on Google, and you’ll find many inexpensive services that let you easily send a professional-looking e-mail to a list of e-mail addresses. The service we use here at Keyword Advisors is called Constant Contact, a popular e-mail marketing service for small businesses. It’s easy to use and simple to understand…even if you’re not computer-savvy.
E-mailing former customers and prospects is the least expensive way to reconnect with them. You can pitch your past customers on a new product you’re selling. You can tease back old prospects with a compelling new offer. It’s worked for the big home improvement players, and it can work for you.
Constant Contact offers several different packages, starting at $15 per month. They handle all of the details involved in formatting and sending out your e-mails, as well as compliance with anti-SPAM laws and opt-in/opt-out best practices.
Hopefully you’ve been collecting e-mail addresses from your customers and prospects. If so, you’ve already got a great start. And if you’re not collecting e-mail addresses, you need to start! A service like Constant Contact can help you with that as well.
Leveraging e-mail is a great way to coax more value out of your marketing investments. And, it puts you back in touch with homeowners who already know you.
It’s simply a must in today’s wired world.