While lead generation is a huge challenge in itself, lead conversion is an even bigger one. You’ll be stunned to know that only 12% ⁽¹⁾ of marketers are satisfied with their process of lead conversion.

So, once your digital marketing efforts have culminated in inquiries and your inquiries in leads, now how to convert those leads into sales?

Remember, the more involved your leads are throughout the entire sales funnel, the more likely it is that once they reach the bottom, they will become your loyal customers. But what exactly is a sales funnel? The process that potential customers go through before making a purchase makes a sales funnel. The four stages of this funnel are- awareness, interest, evaluation/ decision and lastly action. Now that you know how this works, let’s see how to convert leads into customers.

Below are Some Lead Conversion Tips:

1. Segment your Leads

Organizing your leads into categories will make it a lot simpler to build a follow- up plan. This way you will be able to build conversations that are focused on their needs, industries, turnovers, readiness to buy etc. Talking about the readiness, you can make three groups out of the leads: hot, warm, and cold.

Cold leads are individuals or groups that have no interest in buying your services/ products. It may be necessary for you to inform them and further persuade them to make a purchase from you.

Warm leads are the ones that demonstrate some level of interest in your business. You’ll just have to make them believe that you’re the best option to work with.

Hot leads are potential customers who have a need for the goods or services you provide and are prepared to make a quick purchase from you. To be specific, hot and warm leads are the ones that are “leads” in true sense.

2. Follow up as soon as possible

All your efforts will go in vain if you do not follow up with the leads once they have shown interest. Be it via phone or email, the follow-up should be made just within a few hours or a day, otherwise, there are high chances that either the leads will forget why they contacted you or your competitors might attract their interest.

Would you believe if we told you that after an hour, the prospect’s level of interest drastically decreases? If there are too many inquiries at once, you can always employ Customer Relationship Management Software to avoid any delays. Some of the most popular ones are Salesforce CRM, SAP CRM, Oracle CRM, Microsoft Dynamics CRM etc.

3. Aim at Offering Effective Customer Experience

According to Forbes, 77% of consumers say that having ineffective customer experiences lowers their quality of life. Thus, it’s safe to say that one of the most important conversion strategies is to think about how the products/services you offer will enhance your customers’ experiences.

Through all your communication with them, it should come across that you are not just trying to make a sale but you genuinely want to make their lives/ businesses better.

4. Make your Sales Pitch a Two-way Conversation

In order to convert leads into customers, it is important that you make your customers feel heard and important. This is only possible when you make it a two-way conversation instead of going for a cliché sales pitch.

To make this process easier, you must do some research and figure out the common challenges of their industry. This is a useful technique to start a conversation and find out if the prospect has any queries or worries.

You should also ask them what they are expecting out of you and mention client stories and showcase to them how your products/services have been of benefit to so many in past.

5. Make Sure that you Keep your Leads Warm

The fact that the close rate for warm leads is 14.6%, compared to just 1.7% ⁽²⁾ for cold leads, is enough to highlight the importance of keeping them nurtured. As we mentioned earlier in this blog about making your leads reach the bottom of the funnel, lead nurturing is what expedites this process.

By lead nurturing, we mean the process of fostering leads who aren’t quite yet ready to buy.  You can reach out to your customers through numerous channels and provide them with the information they need to advance in their buying journey. Just do not go too overboard as that could do more harm than good!

6. Make the Buying Process Easy

Make the buying process as simple as possible if you want a good lead conversion rate and have repeat customers. Some examples include making sign up or sign in a matter of single click, keeping the fields of the form as limited as possible, simplifying payment processes, having an FAQ section, and employing chat bots or customer care representatives to offer prompt information. Remember, businesses that make the purchasing process easy increase their chances of acquiring customers by 62 %.⁽³⁾

Conclusion

Though there are ample lead conversion strategies in the marketing realm, the above-mentioned are quite important ones. However, before you begin with anything to persuade your leads, you must qualify them. You can use the BANT technique to make the lead qualification process easier. It stands for Budget, Authority, Needs and Timeline: Does your product or service fall inside the prospect’s price range? Is the potential customer in the authority to decide whether or not to make the purchase? To what extent does the potential customer require what you are offering? How prepared is the potential customer to make a purchase? After all, who wants to waste time, effort, and money chasing leads who may never get converted!

If you are looking for a company to help you with B2B lead generation or conversion, or audience acquisition for your event.

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