Is there anyone more slow on the uptake than the poor British direct marketer? Send an inquiry to one, and you’ve got a 25% chance of never getting a reply, according to a study by the British DMA.

The DMA emailed 100 companies to request brochures. A quarter failed to respond. And the average reaction time for those that did fulfil was 3.6 days (although that’s a slight improvement over 2005).

Worse yet, 14% also failed to react to a reminder. And only 34% personalized their replies.

“Incredulous as it may seem, companies are falling at the first hurdle and turning away potential sales,” said John Dyson, from the DMA’s Response Management Council.

It would be nice if these findings applied only to Great Britain. But things are just as bad in the U.S., judging by anecdotal evidence.

B2B marketers, who should know better, often fail to follow up with subscribers and Webinar attendees. And many Web sites are not geared up for a quick turnaround.

Are you losing valuable leads because of failure to follow up? EpostDirect can help.

For starters, we offer customized Web forms for your email campaigns. Using our forms, you can get information on the prospect’s habits and preferences, then fulfill the request.

It doesn’t matter what the hand-waver wants— to buy a product, download a demo, subscribe to a magazine or register. You need user-friendly forms that will not scare people away.

We host the form on our servers, collect the data and provide timely reports.

Want to find out more on the prospect? Use our reverse email append service to determine the person’s postal address. Then you can match the name against our BEN/BRAD postal-email response database and learn even more.

Don’t waste money on lead generation campaigns, then let the leads sit there.