The weak link that might be causing you to lose leads

Some of your leads never make it from your website to your inbox. And, there is a good chance you don't know about the missing leads.

Let me explain...

In most cases you get your leads via email. Someone fills in the enquiry form on your site or landing page and you get an email with their details.

That email is a weak link, a single point of failure. If you don’t get the message you can't make the sale.

The most common reason for missing lead delivery emails is when they get marked as spam. Spam filters aren't perfect. Sometimes spam gets into your inbox. Sometimes genuine email gets caught in the spam filter.

Lead delivery emails are particularly prone to being mistaken for spam. This happens because:-

• If your web form isn’t protected against bots you’re likely to be getting a bunch of spam from submissions. The timing and the content of the spam enquiries looks exactly like spam to the filter.
• Genuine leads can look like spam because of the lead's email address the used or the words that they typed into the form.

Some internet service providers (ISPs) delete a lot of spam without ever putting it into your junk folder. You'll never even know that they've done this.

I had a client miss out on a very nice deal because the lead came from someone who worked at a bank. They used their work email address and the filter decided it was phishing and deleted the message. They also deleted the next lead delivery emails till we were able to talk to one of the techies at the ISP.

Obviously we want all our leads to be delivered so we can can get a fair chance at making a sale. This means we need a way to strengthen the weakest link - provide some redundancy so we don't have a single point of failure.

We also need a way to check that the number of leads in our inbox matches the number of leads.

Unfortunately typical website enquiry forms don't allow for this. There is usually a place to put an email address in and that’s all.

I've built this redundancy into the SalesMotor lead management software I'm working on. It delivers leads by email (to multiple addresses) and by SMS (to multiple phone numbers). It also has a real-time leads dashboard.

But, you don't need to use SalesMotor, you can wire something similar up with Zapier. (I have no affiliation with Zapier but I’ve used it for years and like what it lets me do.)

Here's an overview of how it'll work.

You’ll have your website send your lead delivery emails to Zapier instead of your regular email address.

Zapier will then:-

• Forward the lead delivery email to as many email addresses as you want.
• Send an SMS with the lead’s information to one or more mobile phone numbers.
• Add your lead to your CRM system if it's one of the CRM systems supported by Zapier. Otherwise add the lead to a Google sheet so you can audit to make sure that you've received and dealt with every lead.

To do this you’ll need:-

• A paid Zapier account. Prices currently start at $30 per month. You might need a more expensive tier if you've get more than about 200 leads a month.
• A US or UK mobile phone number. There is a workaround for other countries but it's more complicated.
• A CRM system supported by Zapier or a Google account so you can use Google Sheets. If you're using Google Sheets set up a new spreadsheet with 2 columns: Date and Enquiry.
• Access to the settings on your website contact form to change the email address.

The Zap (Zapier’s word for automation) consists of 4 steps:-

1. Receiving an incoming email. Zapier will give you an @zapier email address to send your leads to. Put this email address in the form settings. Fill in your enquiry form to test it.
2. Sending an email to your regular email address. You can send to up to 5 email addresses this step. If you need to send to more than 5 addresses I guess you could add another email sending step.
3. Sending an SMS. Enter your mobile phone number. Zapier will send you a code to prove that you own the number. Once you’ve entered the code you’ll be able to receive your leads on your mobile phone.
4. Create a row in your Google Sheet. Zapier will ask you to authorise access your Google account. Once you've done that you can select the spreadsheet you just created. Zapier will add the lead to the spreadsheet or to your CRM.

Congratulations. You've now reduced the chances of your leads getting lost.

Zapier is not complicated once you’re used to concepts, but if it’s the first time you’re using it, it might look difficult. If enough people want to do this and want some help I might put on a free workshop over Zoom to show how to do this. Let me know if you’re interested.