Why Timing Matters in Sales Automation for Dental Labs

It's all about timing. Even the most well-intended sales automation strategy can fall apart if you don't reach your leads while they're most receptive to your message. And after reading this post, you'll understand just why this timing is so crucial, while learning best practices that help get you to better Sales Automation for your dental laboratory.

Timing Matters For Your First Email

Sales automation, as you might be aware, begins with the first email a contact receives from you after signing up and becoming a lead. And at this early stage, timing is already crucial: a study by the Harvard Business Review found that leads are no less than seven times more likely to become customers if they're followed up with in an hour or less. 

Unfortunately, most businesses do not take advantage of this fact. The same study also found that the majority of businesses don't follow up with their leads until at least 12 hours after the initial sign up. As you can imagine, this delay can result in a significant opportunity cost. But it's also an opportunity! If you follow up with your leads quickly and efficiently, you will not only increase the likelihood of turning them into customers - you'll also stand out from and make a better impression on potential customers than your competition.

Timing Matters Throughout the Funnel

Of course, the timing of your emails is not only important during the first part of your sales automation process. Instead, you should take special care that your automated emails are timed just right in order to optimize your lead nurturing efforts. That's true both in terms of the frequency with which you send emails, and the actual times at which your emails arrive in your audience's inbox.

There's a fine line between persistence and pestering. While most leads will welcome an email about once a week with dental industry and company updates, they will frown upon daily emails that keep pushing them toward making a sale. The best frequency will depend on your exact industry, but according to research firm MarketingSherpa, there is a clear correlation between an increase in frequency beyond once a week and a decrease in email performance. In general, once a week is a good goal to shoot for - as long as you have interesting content to share.

Timing Matters When Closing the Deal

Thanks to a fast follow-up email along with well-timed emails throughout the sales automation process, you're getting plenty of sales-qualified leads. As it turns out, timing matters one more time: when closing the deal. Put simply, you don't want to miss out on sales opportunities by missing the perfect window to make that sales call.

That's where lead scoring comes in, a process that allows you to determine which leads are ready to become customers based on their interactions with you. We've covered lead scoring extensively on this blog, but would be remiss not to mention it as a crucial mechanism to get the timing in your marketing automation just right.

Sales automation, in short, is all about the timing: from sending your first email to scheduling your lead nurturing efforts all the way to closing the deal, taking action at exactly the right time means increasing your chances of growing your customer base. And a good CRM can help with all of these efforts! Contact us to learn more. 

DentalLabSupport.com Sales & Marketing Platform Developed For Dental Labs 1.888.715.9099 - info@dentallabsupport.com