Let’s play a little game. Give yourself one point for each of these scenarios you’ve experienced. Ready? Here goes:

• You fill out an interest form at the bottom of a website. When you hit submit, nothing happens; the form isn’t working.
• You select text message as your preferred mode of contact and receive a phone call an hour later.
• You sign up for the weekly version of a company’s newsletter and begin receiving daily messages that hold no value for you.
• You submit your interest form and then wait…and wait…and wait for someone to get back to you. No one ever does.
• You call a business’ main line, make it through their endless phone tree (press 1 for… and 2 for… et cetera), only to finally connect with someone whose only job is to answer the phone—they can’t actually answer any of your questions.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that you gave yourself five points. Am I right?

Too bad, because each scenario represents a mistake made by too many businesses to count, all of whom have just lost your interest.

Well, guess what? Your potential clients are playing this game too, and if you aren’t taking the steps to ensure a seamless internal follow-up system to your online calls-to-action (CTAs), you’re running the risk of losing all kinds of customers.

Developing Your Content Plan

Of course, content marketing needs to be a big part of your business plan. Formatting effective CTAs or investing in a content strategist or content writing service to do it for you, is a must but it won’t mean anything if you don’t have the internal follow-up.

“Internal follow-up to CTAs?” you’re asking yourself. “In all my years of experience, no one has ever stressed that to me.”

Exactly. That’s why so many potential clients win the little game we played at the top of this post and so many businesses lose. Don’t let your business be one of them.

Offering invaluable insights into what businesses can do to avoid this trap is Kathleen Rinchiuso, the Director of Operations for The Writers for Hire. Rinchiuso has been in this business for close to two decades and has seen her fair share of internal strategies that work and those that don’t. She has ample experience helping businesses ensure that their internal system of CTA follow-up is shipshape.

“I think it’s overlooked a lot,” Rinchiuso says. The it in question being the development of those internal strategies that reliably convert leads into clients.

“There should be a follow-up procedure, like replying to all leads within one business day,” for example. Rinchiuso continues: “It’s important to assign a person to do that, so you don’t have any question that [the leads] are getting followed up with or who followed up with them.”

Overall, Rinchiuso feels strongly that having some sort of lead-management system is crucial.

You can follow all the content marketing tips, or hire the best content writers in the world, but if you’re not taking the time to follow up with each individual lead, those investments won’t matter.

Is your website designed with the client in mind?

“It’s important to make sure it’s easy for people to figure out whom to call or email and how to get the information they need,” says Rinchiuso. Equally important is making sure that your website is accessible for all the different people who will visit.

“Some people, all they’re looking for is a phone number,” says Rinchiuso. “These people just want to call someone. They hate websites, they hate forms, they hate those little chat boxes that pop up…”

The flip side of the coin is the person who won’t buy from you if they do have to talk to someone.

“They hate the phone, they hate calling people, they don’t want to do it,” according to Rinchiuso. “They want all the information on the website—including some kind of ballpark pricing. Everybody, in this day and age, should have some sort of ballpark pricing on their website, even if it’s just a starting point or an estimate.”

Designing a website that will satisfy both of these potential clients is key to ensuring the happiness and satisfaction of your clients.

Making sure all the forms and links on your website are in working order may sound like a no-brainer, but it’s another crucial step that Rinchiuso has noticed falling by the wayside for too many businesses. Understandably, this costs them clients: After all, would you stay on a website whose links don’t work?

Who should be in charge of internal follow-up?

Now that we’ve established just how important it is to have a follow-up plan for your leads, the question is who should be in charge of that follow-up?

“If you have a small company,” says Rinchiuso, “it works great to have one person managing the lead-development system.”

Larger companies benefit from having more than one person sharing lead-development duties, but “having a very good system in place for multiple people and very specific assignments for who does what” is key.

Another important point, according to Rinchiuso, is making sure that “whoever takes a lead should take it from start to finish, because it gives the potential client more continuity. They know who they’re dealing with, and they don’t have to repeat information.”

These points, like the points about website design, all follow one guiding principle: Put yourself in your client’s shoes.

Pretend you don’t know anything about your business. Is it easy to find what you need? Do the contact people know how to answer your questions? Is it a seamless experience, from start to finish?

If the answer to these questions is yes, you’re well on your way!

Any other key considerations?

Rinchiuso emphasizes that “response time is hugely, hugely important,” as is making sure that anyone who answers your phone has sufficient knowledge about the company. “Making sure things are very easy and very clear is important, so people don’t get confused and give up.”

The bottom line for Rinchiuso? “With the amount of competition out there, if anything is frustrating about buying from you, people are just going to give up and go somewhere else. There are just too many choices out there for a company to get away with shoddy lead handling.”

Content Writers Have Their Place…

…but without a good follow-up strategy, it’s like they’re screaming into the void.

Invest in a solid strategy. Your bottom line will thank you.