In the rapidly evolving landscape of marketing and sales, scheduling meetings with potential clients is one of the keys to creating mid-market to enterprise pipeline. However, getting ahold of people with calls and emails is becoming increasingly difficult. To empower marketing and sales leaders with effective strategies, Kronologic released new data around using the calendar as an engagement channel to make the buyer's experience much easier than ever before. These valuable data insights showcase how offering a specific time either in an email or by sending and invite with an email for high intent inbound leads, allows buyers to accept a meeting much easier.
By analyzing the number of touchpoints and days needed to secure accepted meetings by proposing a specific time, you'll understand: how many less touchpoints and days it takes to secure a meeting, which weekdays are best for sending a request, which days to propose a meeting, and how many days out to propose a meeting based on lead source. This process is revolutionizing the scheduling process, how many meetings a sales and marketing teams are able to drive from their efforts, and how fast those meetings can be scheduled.
No longer are you beholden to the time it takes to chase people down with calls and emails, then provide them a meeting link, asking them to do the work of scheduling for the rep.
1.
The Number of Touchpoints and Days Does It Take to Get an Accepted Meeting based on Lead Source
This data highlights the effectiveness of using the calendar as engagement with leads starts with understanding the ideal touchpoints and timeframes. Kronologic's data reveals fascinating patterns:
Demo Requests: When someone completes a demo request, contact us, or pricing request form they aren't looking for a phone call at a random time or an email to go through a scheduling process, they just want the meeting. When automating or manually sending a meeting invite upon a completion of a form like this, both the buyer and the seller get what they want, a meeting on the calendar.
In-person Events: This number is attainable because Kronologic enables people working event booths with the ability to schedule a follow up meeting while the rep is still in the conversation with them. Most events last two to three days, so it makes sense that the data shows the average days out for event-based follow up meetings is four days.
Webinars: Most leads from webinars are just people looking for the information you are presenting without any buying intent. However, there are those who watch your presentation and do become interested in your solution. In this case, providing an easy way for people to say yes or no with a meeting invite, converts high intent leads faster, without wasting the sales team's time chasing down a yes or no by chasing people down with calls or emails.
Cross Selling / Renewals and Quarterly Business Reviews: This new engagement tactic is shows some of the highest conversion rates because there is already an established customer relationship. Customers typically already know the sales rep and a level of trust and expectation has already been established.
Rep's Next Meeting: Often times, the last five minutes of a call are reserved for scheduling the next meeting. When a rep is empowered with the process of just sending an invite to schedule the next call, those precious minutes are no longer wasted.
2.
Unveiling the Ideal Weekday to Send Meeting Requests
Timing is critical when reaching out to leads. Kronologic's data reveals the optimal weekdays to send the meeting request based on meeting acceptance rates. Because this is when a meeting request is send, not when the meeting is proposed for, it might also apply to when any engagement channel could be sent.
Wednesday: This mid-week day boasts the highest meeting acceptance rate of 17%. Traditionally, Tuesdays are the best, but this new data shows that Wednesday's are when marketing and sales leaders should prioritize the launch of their campaigns to attain maximize results.
Thursday and Friday: The data shows that the end of the week is going to get the best responses when sending your communications. Though this data doesn't identify this, when sending on Friday, perhaps try Friday mornings first.
Monday and Tuesday: While Monday is notoriously a bad day for launching campaigns, Tuesday morning used to be the "gold standard." Perhaps this best practices has been too widely used, causing the response rates to significantly drop.
3. M
Data Shows the Weekday You Propose a Meeting for Doesn't Matter Much
Marketing and sales leaders often wonder if proposing specific meeting days makes a significant difference in Acceptance Rate. Kronologic's data provides clarity:
The acceptance rates for meetings proposed on different days of the week are relatively similar. This highlights the importance of personalized communication and value proposition, regardless of the proposed meeting day.
4.
Optimal Timing for How Many Days Out to Propose a Meeting for Based on Lead Source
Maximizing meeting acceptance rates involves understanding the ideal timing for different lead sources. Kronologic's data presents the following recommendations:
Demo Requests: Propose meetings right away, as early as one to three days out. When someone completes your demo/contact us form, they want a meeting ASAP, not random calls or emails.
In-person Events: Most events last one to three days, so it makes sense that the average time to propose a meeting for is four days. This allows for the attendees to get settled back home and back into their regular routine.
Webinars: Seeing that most meetings are accepted around four days out shows that, though most registrants just want your content, there are active buyers who are ready for a discover call.
Cross Selling / Renewals and Content Downloads: When someone accepts a meeting from your cross/upsell or renewal campaigns, the data shows meetings are accepted around five days out. This is likely because the entire buying committee's schedule are taken into consideration and/or they need time to review their current contract.
Free Trials: Leads generated through free trials respond best to a longer lead time of about 9.5 days. This duration enables prospects to explore the product or service thoroughly.
Empowered by this new sales engagement process and data-driven insights from Kronologic, marketing and sales leaders can revolutionize their meeting scheduling strategies to build more pipeline faster. By understanding the ideal touchpoints, weekdays for outreach, and optimal timing for proposing meeting times across various lead sources, leaders can create highly effective engagement plans that build stronger relationships and unlock unprecedented business growth.
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