Before you spend more on marketing, look at your last ten enquiries

When you want more customers, increasing your marketing feels like a sensible place to start.

Run more ads. Post more often. Improve the website. Get more people interested.

But before you increase the spend, look at what happened to the people who already contacted you. Did they get a useful response? Did someone follow up? Do you know why they bought, went elsewhere or stopped replying?

You might need more enquiries. You might also have opportunities sitting unanswered in an inbox.

Find out where the conversation stopped

Take your last ten enquiries and follow each one through the business.

Include people who bought and people who didn’t. Use the information you actually have, rather than filling the gaps from memory.

For each enquiry, record:

• What the person wanted and where they found you.
• Who responded, and when.
• What happened next.
• Whether there was an agreed next step.
• The outcome, or the last point of contact.

Ten enquiries won’t give you a complete picture of the business. They will give you something concrete to examine.

Perhaps people ask about price and receive a brochure that doesn’t answer their question. Perhaps an owner handles every promising conversation personally, then struggles to respond during busy periods. Perhaps proposals go out promptly, but nobody takes responsibility for following up.

Each situation calls for a different change. More advertising won’t resolve the unanswered questions or assign someone to make the next call.

Make the next step useful

A response can be quick without helping the customer make a decision.

Consider a fictional enquiry to a coaching business. Someone asks about support for a new manager. The reply lists three packages, includes a booking link and ends with an invitation to get in touch with questions.

That might be enough. But the prospective customer could still be unsure which package fits, what the first session involves or whether the coach understands their situation.

A more useful response could explain which option appears relevant and why, then offer a short conversation to check the fit.

The follow-up has a purpose: helping the person resolve a question. Repeatedly asking whether they’ve made a decision adds much less.

Give someone responsibility

If several people can respond to an enquiry, it’s easy for each to assume someone else has done it.

Agree who owns the conversation, what happens when that person is unavailable and how the next action gets recorded.

Keep the process simple enough to use on a busy day. A person looking at an active enquiry should be able to see what the customer needs, what has already happened and what they’re expected to do next.

For a small business, that could begin with a shared tracker. A larger team may need a CRM with tasks, reminders and a clear view of outstanding work.

Set up the process before automating it

Salesforce and HubSpot can help teams manage enquiries and customer relationships. Shopify and Klaviyo can connect purchases with relevant customer communications.

The implementation still needs decisions from the business.

Who should receive which message? What should happen when someone replies? When should an automated sequence stop? Who checks that a handover happened?

For example, a customer who has already booked a conversation shouldn’t continue receiving messages asking them to book one. A team member needs to be able to recognise that change and act on it, whether the system handles it automatically or flags it for attention.

Those details are part of making the software useful.

Keep learning after the first sale

Once someone buys, there are more questions worth understanding.

Did the handover match what was promised? Does the customer know how to get help? Is there a suitable reason to check in, discuss a renewal or offer further support?

That will look different across businesses. An ecommerce customer might appreciate a relevant replenishment reminder. A business client might need a review before a contract ends. A professional practitioner needs follow-up that fits the client’s needs and their professional responsibilities.

Plan those communications around the service you provide. Avoid treating every customer as a candidate for another sale.

Choose one change you can make this week

After reviewing those ten enquiries, pick a specific problem.

Assign unanswered enquiries to someone. Rewrite an unclear response. Add a next-action date to active opportunities. Agree when and how proposals should be followed up.

Then check whether the change is being used and what happens to the next enquiries.

You may still decide to invest more in marketing. You’ll be making that decision with a clearer understanding of how the business handles the interest it receives.

Need help connecting your marketing, sales follow-up and customer systems? Talk to Deanick.

Reading that prompted this article: Louis Grenier’s conversation with Billy Broas on Everyone Hates Marketers, “Funnels Don’t Build Businesses: Here’s What Does.” Their discussion of relationships and follow-up provides a starting point for the practical review above.