As you know from my previous post where I go on and on about my love of BlueHost (kidding) – I’m now searching for a new hosting service for my various blogs (basically this site and Tchochkes) Some people who were obviously paid by other hosting services started to message me advertisements for hosts on Twitter and after checking their stream (and seeing the same message over and over) I blocked them for spam.

However, there were a few who did it right. One guy wrote to me simply “Can I help?”, which started a discussion. It turned out that he has a small hosting company, and while Tchochkes is too large and growing too fast for his hosting service (we have a ton of photos – it is a design site after all), had that not been the case he would have closed a sale right then and there. He was nice, helpful, personal, attentive and obviously on Twitter (i.e. available) much of the time.

Others were friends who recommended the hosting companies that they use – always a winner. I already trust the source.

A hosting company also approached me in a nice way. Instead of sending me uninvited spam they simply followed me. I then checked out their account, which led me to check out their corporate site (my need for a hosting company is already apparent, so they didn’t need to ask me to do this), and I then followed them back. Unfortunately, this is where they dropped the ball (hence no name here) – had they written to me after I had opted-in for their connection they might have had a sale. However, I haven’t heard from them since. By following back my actions are showing that I’m interested in their service – I have given my permission to be contacted. They obviously aren’t tracking who they are following and when the follow back happens. This is a pity. They should have a formal approach set up when approaching targets on any network – because it’s all about follow through.

How to create that formal approach? There are multiple sales tools available for companies to record this information, but if you are a one person organization who doesn’t want/need to invest in such a tool, it could be as simple as an excel spreadsheet with the columns: Target, Need, First Contact, Response, Second Contact etc…

For example:

Target   –   Need   –        First Contact   –     Response   –                          Second Contact
Shira     –    Hosting   –  Follow Jan 10   –   Follow back Jan 11th   –   Message (URL of tweet) Jan 12th

This way you can track the effectiveness of your work and see if there’s something wrong. How many people follow back? Of these – which end up buying and why? There should be a methodology to it all. It takes a bit of time, but it gives you valuable information for your efforts.

Are you tracking who you contact and how you are contacting them? Have you looked at the methods you have used and analyzed which are the most effective and why?