How to Bring Cold Networking Leads Back to Life

You made a new business connection and followed up. Perhaps there was some back-and-forth, or maybe not. The point is that, at the end of the day, nothing really happened. In other words, your lead didn’t convert.

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Is all hope lost? Should that networking lead be forgotten about entirely?

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Sometimes—but not always. This post details how to determine whether or not reviving cold networking leads is worth your time. If it is, we’ll then explore how to create the greatest chances for networking success.

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Is reviving cold networking leads worth your time?

There are a million things you could do to potentially improve the success of your business. The question, really, is if you should do something.

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It’s not always an efficient use of your time to revive cold networking leads. To demonstrate this point, imagine an extreme situation. You have three scalding hot leads—all you need to do is pick up your phone and call them to get their order information. Instead, you use your time to revive cold networking leads, and the scalding hot leads go cold themselves.

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Most situations aren’t as cut and dry as the one above. Use the three criteria below to determine when it may be worth your time to pursue reviving cold leads.

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When circumstances change

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When you’re deciding which leads to revive, you generally want to pursue the cold leads that were, at one point, at least somewhat warm. A common situation is connecting with another individual, but then learning your business interests simply didn’t align at that time for some reason.

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One example could be if the product you were selling or the service you were offering wasn’t comprehensive or targeted specifically enough to the other person’s needs. Then, improvements in your offerings are made. Your very first step should be to comb through cold leads and see if the new improvements will appeal to any cold leads. If they do, those cold leads can quickly become conversions.

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When there’s a good chance you might come across this person again

Imagine you attend a conference in December, and make a new connection. You go back and forth with this new connection for a month or two, then things fizzle out for one reason or another.

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Suddenly, it’s November, and you plan on attending the same conference again. Reaching out to cold leads is a great way to establish some sort of rapport before you two see each other again, even if you don’t make any direct progress with converting the other individual in your electronic communications. As long as the two of you are in communication before the event, reconnecting at the event will be significantly easier and seem much more natural.

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When you’re stuck

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We’ve all been there—everyone has experienced the natural ebb and flow of business. If you’re drawing a blank on what to do next to reach your goals, going through your cold leads is never a bad idea. After all, you aren’t being efficient in the first place—so there’s no real risk of wasting time by doing something potentially inefficient like reviving cold leads.

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Steps to Take

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Cold leads still have value. But, if you don’t think about the best approach, it’s possible you might not get any results from your attempts to revive them. 

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When it comes to cold leads, it’s critical to nail the opening message. Use the three guidelines below to give yourself the best chances of getting a reply.

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• Remind them who you are. You remember who they are, but you have no guarantee the reciprocal is true. Start the message with this important reminder so that they have context for the rest of the message.
• Craft a personal message. If it’s a cold lead, chances are, the two of you aren’t best friends. Still, if you remember (or were proactive enough) to write down anything about this person, be sure to include it. When someone remembers key details about us, we’re far more likely to give them time of our day.
• Make your case. Be succinct and direct about why you’re reaching out. No one likes a time waster. End with a call-to-action to prompt the other individual to not only respond, but also respond with something helpful that you can build off of and develop the relationship further.

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Prevent Cold Leads with Mobilo

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The best way to revive cold networking leads… is really to not let them get cold in the first place. 

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Mobilo is your solution to keep leads consistently warm, especially throughout the critical opening phases of a business relationship.

Imagine you’re at a conference and you exchange contact information with someone on the first of three days. It goes into your stack of business cards. You’re busy until the end of the conference, so two days go by. Then you need to fly home and recover from jet lag—another day gone. You have existing business obligations to attend to the next day, too, which eats up all of your time. 

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Finally, at long last, you reply to the connection you made… four days later. They won’t always remember who you are. Imagine, in this case, you get lucky, and they do. You made a lot of new connections at the conference—so suddenly, you’re swamped with replies from everyone. And you want to make sure everyone gets a proper reply, so you leave your new connection hanging for days on end.

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This type of sporadic communication is simply not conducive to forming strong relationships with people you just met. Sure, there may have been a spark when you first exchanged information—but that quickly faded. It’s not your fault. Manual labor takes time. Luckily, Mobilo completely removes the need to commit manual labor into nurturing new business relationships. 

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Instead of bringing paper business cards to the networking event, imagine you bring your Mobilo card, set to Lead Generation mode. You meet a new connection and pull up the lead generation form on their smartphone by tapping your Mobilo card against it, which they then fill out.

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They will instantly receive a text with your information, and you with theirs. All they need to do is click the link in the text and a new contact entry with your information already filled in will appear on their phone. All they have to do is click ‘Save’.

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Even better, Mobilo integrates with 2,000+ CRM platforms. You can create an automated funnel for new connections before the conference, and as soon as you get their information, they’ll start receiving followup messages from you. Not only does this prevent the lead from getting cold, but it helps maintain uniform followup practices that are most likely to lead to conversions.

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And this is all ignoring the “WOW” factor of Mobilo—which is guaranteed to help you stand out from the dozens or hundreds of new people they might meet.

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In summary, reviving cold networking leads is often effective—so long as it’s the right time to do it, and as long as you take the right steps to make your followup count. In the future, start using a Mobilo smart business card to nurture business connections as soon as they form, without the need for manual labor, and prevent leads from going cold in the first place.

‍Click here to explore options for your next Mobilo smart business card.