Amazing 9 Word Email To Revive Dead Leads

95
Shares

People spend far too much time and effort chasing after fresh leads when they usually have old leads that they have given up on. This 9 word email – which I originally learnt from Dean Jackson – can quickly flood you with new clients at absolutely zero cost.

Free Cheatsheet: Download a free cheatsheet that shows you exactly how to use the strategy from this post (step-by-step).

But first the reason why this works:

100 Typical Leads

When looking at leads that come into your business first of all think about a group of 100 leads.

Rather than focusing on 1 single lead and putting a lot of pressure on that 1 lead converting, think about what happens with 100 leads.

Of those 100 leads there are 3 possible outcomes for each lead:

Some will buy right now
Some will buy later
Some are not going to buy at all.

That’s really the only 3 possible outcomes that can come from anybody in that group of 100 leads.

There is a good chance you haven’t looked at a group of leads like this and worked out your numbers but it is important to know the numbers in your business.

Now, 100 leads is a relatively small number – but we are thinking about it as a typical group.

The good news is there has been some really interesting research already done on this and how many people are likely to buy. And this research has been done at a massive scale.

The Percentage of People That Will Buy

You see there’s a company called The Inquiry Handling Service, and they are a company where at trade-shows or in trade publications or magazines, people can fill out a business reply card, and they send it in and the business will send that person information about something.

So, if you’re customers are looking through a home improvement magazine and were interested in say a particular type of tap, they can circle that on the card and send it in, and the Inquiry Handling Service will pass that on to the company, to send them information about that particular tap. There is the same sort of thing at trade-shows/expos and The Inquiry Handling Service also handles inbound telemarketing leads.

So, this company literally handle millions of leads across all kinds of different industries including the home improvement industry.

And what they found, by doing an analysis of when people buy, was they were able to identify patterns which applied to the home improvement industry.

Did You Buy?

The way they would get this data is they would do what they called “Did you buy” surveys.

They would call people up after 90 days and they’d say, “Hey, you inquired about taps a few months ago. Have you bought any yet?” And the person would say yes or no.

And then, they would follow up again, in 6 months, 9 months and 12 months. They follow up with a sampling of people all the way to 18 months after the initial inquiry.

And what they found was that just over half of the people, 50% who inquired about something, will buy what it is they’ve inquired about within 18 months.

Now, what they also found, which is the other important part, was that only 15% of them were going to buy in the first 90 days.

In other words, of all of those people that come into contact with your business only a small percentage are ready to buy now. And these are generally the very motivated customers that are already contacting you.

The Massive Value Hidden in “Dead” Leads

So, that means 85% of the value of a bundle of say 100 leads, is in being able to communicate and extend the relationship beyond those first 90 days.

That’s where the real profit lies and which 99 out of 100 businesses completely ignore.

Be Patient and Consistent and Reap The Rewards

Most of the time, people are largely impatient with leads.

They want to kind of squeeze the most they can out of the leads right away. And if they don’t buy right away, then they often get discouraged and think, “Those leads are no good. They were unqualified, or they’re just lookie-lou’s, or they’re not going to buy”.

So think about all of the leads you’ve already been generating.

All the leads that maybe you’ve got an email from or have written in a notebook, or did a quote for, or have in your calendar, or in your desk drawers, or whatever scrap pieces of paper most people use to write down leads or collect business cards, all those people.

If you even just start connecting with those people that you already have contact details for.. there’s a good chance that if it was more than 90 days ago, they might be getting ready to actually buy now.

So here’s what to do:

Collect Their Details

Gather up the name and email for all of your “dead leads”. All of the people that you have been in contact with at some stage that haven’t become a client. Even if this is someone you haven’t heard from in a couple of years.

Sort through all of your notes, drawers, scraps of paper, emails etc and collect the details of all of these people.

You might be surprised just how many names you can collect.

Send The 9 Word Email

You are going to send each of these people a very simple email.

The subject should just be their first name, ie. “Bob”.

The body of the email should be these 9 words:

“Are you still looking at getting [insert] [your] [service]?”

For example:

“Are you still looking at getting your kitchen renovated?”
“Are you still looking at improving your home security?”
“Are you still looking at getting a new patio?”
“Are you still looking at getting your house painted?”

Here is an example of how the whole email should look:

From: Renovating Business To: [email protected] Subject: Bob Body: Bob,

Are you still looking at getting your kitchen renovated?

– Paul
=========
That’s it!

Don’t add anything else to the email.

There is no need to include a phone number or your website or add in a reason.

Part of the reason this works so well is that it creates curiosity for your prospects. They wonder why you are asking and this and if they are still remotely interested in what you have to offer there is a good chance they will reply.

You may have noticed that the last example was actually 8 words! It isn’t specifically 9 words that is important. What is important is that the email is short, it creates curiosity and is open ended and it is asking a question. If yours ends up being 12 words that’s okay.

Focus on The Best

Sometimes people are worried about sending an email out to people they haven’t been in contact with for a long time. But this shouldn’t be a concern.

When you send this email 3 possible things can happen:

They don’t respond – in which case you are no different from having not sent the email.
They reply and say no (or some variation there-of) – this is not a bad thing because now you can remove them from your prospects list and at least you definitely know.
They reply with something other than no.

Now quite often for the people that are still interested they won’t actually reply with yes. They are a bit hesitant and scared of being sold to.

Instead they might reply with something like “why do you ask” or some other non-committal response.

This is just as good as a yes because it means you have re-opened the conversation and can reply to them with more information just the same as if they had said yes they are still interested.

Have a Conversation

A key when sending emails to prospects is to take things slowly and not try to force everything in at once.

I think a lot of time people are worried about not including some information and that if only they include it then the prospect will be convinced to move forward.

But that’s not the way people work.

Emails should be like any other interaction with a person and they should be a 2 way conversation.

Think about if a door-to-door salesperson knocks on your door.

They usually jump straight into their sales pitch and you stand there for a good few minutes trying to get a word in and tell them to go away. As soon as they start on their pitch you aren’t even listening to them because you know they are trying to sell you something and all you are thinking is how you can get rid of them.

On the other hand think about if you run into someone at the shops. Maybe someone that you think you used to know but are not sure.

They might start the conversation by asking how you are – and then you reply. And you ask how they are. And they reply and ask you about how you know each other or what you are up to now. And you reply. And there is a 2-way conversation that slowly leads in a certain direction.

So when you are sending this email – the goal is to get a response and to start a conversation. That’s it!

Don’t try to sell them on anything in the first email. Don’t include any more information. Just a short, simple email that is expecting a reply.

And when people do reply with something other than no – you can continue the conversation (not sales pitch) and slowly lead them towards engaging in your services.

But My Situation is Different

Think your clients or your area or your business is different and this won’t work for you?

Wrong!

Every single business has different clients and works in different areas and do things differently.

But this isn’t about you, it is about human nature and humans are humans are humans.

So get to work, gather up your old leads and send out the 9 word email.

The worst possible thing that can happen is you will get no-one reply or get people replying saying to not bother them. Wow! Life changing!

The best thing that can happen – you are quickly flooded with new clients and cash in your business.

I would love to hear how this works out for you. To help you implement this strategy, I’ve created a Revive Dead Leads Cheatsheet that you can use to get your own 9 word email written and sent.

The checklist will show you:

How to quickly gather up your “dead leads” so you have lots of people to send your email to
How to prepare your own 9 word email include examples and templates
The 4 steps you need to follow to get this implemented in your business
…and more.

Click here to download the checklist.

95
Shares