When your leads don’t respond to your outreach at all, are they bad leads? Or are they just having a bad day? 🌧️
Well, let’s just leave these questions to the philosophers. Because unlike them, you don’t have to keep asking yourself “What if?” when planning your first outreach to new leads. Once you know what makes people go silent, you’ll know what to say to make them hit the ‘reply’ button.
Here are 4 reasons your leads aren’t engaging with you, and 4 pro-tips on how to overcome them. 😉
1. You’re using the wrong communication channels for your first outreach.
There are many ways to contact your leads – phone call, email, SMS, WhatsApp, iMessage, Telegram, etc. However, some channels are noticeably better than others at getting your prospects to reply.
The recent trend we’re seeing in B2C communications is that people are far more responsive to a text message than a phone call. That’s mainly because it takes people significantly less time and effort to text back than to pick up a call (from an unknown number).
Even so, before you start messaging your leads, you should also consider how you would message them. Is it through SMS, WhatsApp, iMessage, or any other apps? It’s an important choice to make because the right messaging channel will help you get more replies.
In countries where people primarily use WhatsApp to chat with friends and family, you should also be getting on WhatsApp instead of sending an SMS. Most of the time, they only use SMS to get their bank OTPs or delivery tracking information – and they would never respond to those. Similarly, emails are usually reserved for bills, order confirmations, and newsletters. People read emails, but they don’t necessarily respond to them.
🛠️ How to fix it: Try messaging your leads instead of calling them, and choose the right channel to do so. Generally, the best place to start is using the most popular messaging app in your country, like WhatsApp or iMessage. Your leads should feel like that it’s extremely convenient to get in touch with you, and they’ll be more likely to reply and want to do business with you.
2. Your message looks like a scam or spam.
When your message looks like it could be a scam or spam, your leads won’t even bother to read the entire message, let alone reply. Remember that most people read their messages from their notifications, so they’ll only see a short preview of your message first.
If your leads can’t immediately identify why you’re messaging them from the short preview, you’re likely not going to get their full attention. They’ll go on autopilot and ignore the text, just like they would with all the scammy, spammy, or even generic messages they receive daily.
🛠️ How to fix it: Give context in the first 10 words of your message so that your leads want to read the rest of it and reply. Generally, you should include their name, and the product or service they expressed interest in. Learn more about how to message new leads so that they actually reply to you.
3. You’re reaching out to your leads at the wrong time.
Whether you’re calling or texting your leads, they won’t respond if you reach out at a particularly busy time in their day. In these moments, they might have bigger priorities to focus on (their job, their friends, their doctor’s appointment, etc.).
But since we’re not mindreaders, how are we supposed to figure out the best time to contact our leads? The answer is simple: It all boils down to how quickly you’re contacting them, so you don’t have to guess what their active times are. The best time to reach out is immediately after they have submitted interest in your product or service.
🛠️ How to fix it: Try to reach out to your leads within 15 minutes of them submitting their contact details. They’re likely still scrolling their social media and generally being free after filling out your lead form, at least for the next 15 minutes. This rule works best for text messages – most people certainly won’t accept a call after midnight!
4. Your message is too difficult to read and respond to quickly.
When a lead reads your message but doesn’t reply, the issue could be the message itself. You might have included too much content in one message. Or you’ve asked questions that your prospects find difficult to answer, especially if they’re still in their “I’m just shopping around” phase.
If they’re unable to respond immediately, they’ll just put your message away for “later” and forget about it entirely. That’s why every great B2C salesperson follows the 10-Second Rule when messaging leads for the first time.
🛠️ How to fix it: Your leads should be able to read and reply to your message within 10 seconds. If it takes more than that, the lead will likely go cold, which might give you the impression that they’re a “bad lead” when they’re really just too busy to reply. Find out whether your message is easy to respond to in our article on the 10-Second Rule of Messaging.
