Managing your sales fulfilment – a new DMA survey

A recent survey from the Direct Marketing Association has looked at how companies deal with sales enquiries.

It analyses at how quickly from receiving an online enquiry was a brochure dispatched, how professionally was it presented and whether it was personalised or not. In addition it looked at how well the company followed up the dispatch of the brochure, whether through email or direct mail, and whether it integrated that lead into their ongoing marketing programme.

The best brands acknowledge the receipt of the brochure request immediately and dispatched the brochure the same day. They included a personalised letter with it and presented the fulfilment pack professionally. And crucially they added the enquiry into the communications plan using email and direct mail to continue to follow-up on the initial enquiry.

Common sense you might think. However what was surprising the number of companies sending the fulfilment pack very late – in excess of 30 days in several cases and those who didn’t bother at all to follow-up the sales lead.

You can read the full tracking survey by clicking here