Five leaks to fix before you buy more traffic

Most companies lose leads they already paid for. These are the five places I check first, and the research behind them.

When a company wants more leads, the first idea is usually more ads. I look first at the leads and customers they already have. Most of the time the cheaper win is to stop losing them.

These are the five places I check, in order.

  • Speed to lead: answering a new inquiry while they’re still looking
  • Reactivation: going back to past customers and old leads
  • Milestone upsells: offering the next thing when it makes sense
  • Onboarding: making the first weeks easy, so new customers stay
  • Churn detection: noticing a customer drifting before they leave

Speed to lead

In 2011, Harvard Business Review audited 2,241 US companies. Each got a web inquiry, and the researchers timed the reply.

23%

of the companies never replied at all. Source: HBR, 2011.

Only 37% replied within an hour. And the companies that did were nearly 7 times as likely to qualify the lead as the ones that waited even an hour longer.

So this is the first week I build for a new inquiry:

  • Under 60 secondsa text goes out
  • 2 minutesa call
  • Day 1first follow-up
  • Day 3second follow-up
  • Day 7last follow-up

All of it stops the moment they reply, book a time, or text STOP.

Reactivation

People who already bought from you, or already asked, know who you are. A short note asking if they still need help costs almost nothing to send.

Milestone upsells

When a customer hits a milestone, like a finished project or a first result, that’s when the next offer makes sense. Earlier, it reads as a push. Months later, they’ve moved on.

Onboarding and churn

The last two are about keeping the customers you have. Onboarding is the first weeks: does the new customer know what happens next, and does it happen? Churn detection is spotting a customer drifting away, and reaching out before they’re gone.

5%

higher customer retention raised profits by 25% to 95%, in research by Bain’s Frederick Reichheld. Source: HBR, 2014.

The same piece puts a new customer at 5 to 25 times the cost of keeping one you already have.