In the world of sales, an aging new business lead stinks faster than a dead fish. No one wants to handle them, but that attitude can cost you business, as Philip Baltazar of mortgage lender American Funding explains.

MarketingSherpa: How to Convert Old Leads Into 11.07% New Sales. 2007-Nov-14 (subscription required)

The new system of refreshing old leads was a huge reason why they increased sales by 11.07% compared to 2006. … "If we were not using the system for aged leads, we’d be like the rest of our competitors that’d be shut down or depleted of a significant amount of volume." Under better market conditions, Baltazar says this contact strategy will be a bigger boon. Due to the performance, they now use the system for all leads, and it’s bringing in around 19% of their closed loans.

What American Funding did was develop a special multi-message email campaign for people who had completed an application but not responded to the sales person within 15 days. These emails included surveys and fresh information–they did not repeat themselves!

• Emailed on Day 21: Offering help for a stalled loan
• Emailed on Day 25: Incentive
• Emailed on Day 49: Testimonials
• Emailed on Day 56: Rates update
• Emailed on Day 62: Humorous ecard

The unsubscribe button was big and easy to find, but the re-activation rate was awesome. So here’s the bottom line: if your email campaign doesn’t stink, neither will your slow-to-convert leads!