It’s only half of the work to get a lot of leads. What is more important is to convert them into customers. Here starts one of the most complicated stages, as only a few of your leads are ready to give you their money.
Let’s figure out 5 proven ways to convert ad leads into your customers.
The faster – the better
Let’s assume that your lead generation funnel has brought you a lead, who showed an interest in your product. It’s urgent to contact him as soon as possible. First, because no one likes waiting. Second, bear in mind that the lead has sent application forms to your competitors too and is ready to choose one of them at the moment.
Apply various approaches
Remember that each lead requires individual treatment. All of them are in different stages of the sales funnel. Thus, MQL (Marketing Qualified Lead) is not ready to buy your product because his needs may not be formed yet. Ask him more questions about his problem and business, provide him with really valuable information and advice. No pressure, just friendly assistance. Of course, it will be better if the information you give him will contain mentions of your product.
SQL – Sales Qualified Lead realizes his problem and actively searches for the solution. He is ready to pay as soon as he finds a suitable one. Propose him the demo of your product, send more information about functions from the point of view of his problem, create some VIP terms, etc.
Restructure your Sales department
If you have enough resources, divide your sales team into two subdivisions. The first one – for the management of existing customers. The second one – for leads nurturing leads. Such division makes sales managers focus on a certain task and to pay all their attention to the leads.
Make it easier for your team to gain more contacts with the help of special tools, like website visitor tracking software. Its main function is to collect the contact details of your website visitors to enrich your lead list. It will significantly save the time of your team on searching and verifying new contacts. Besides, by checking their path through your website you will understand what they came for.
Study your leads
Analyze your list and sort out the leads according to different categories. Write down some notes about each of them: what is his business, fears, why he may hesitate, how your product can help him. Be honest with yourself. Trying to hard-sell your product will only leave a negative impression.
You can even create a kind of portrait of your key leads. It will help you to better understand their needs and find an individual approach. Check his LinkedIn account, the communities he follows. Try to find intersections. Perhaps, he leaves comments on a certain forum too, so join this forum and check what he worries about.
Follow-up
It’s essential to keep balance and don’t irritate your lead. Choose reasonable intervals in 3-7 days between contacts. Congratulate him on holidays. If your lead is from another culture, learn his local holidays. You will show your respect in this way.
Think about your content for follow-up emails:
- it shouldn’t be intrusive, however, of course, include information about your product;
- try gamification;
- prepare really relevant and useful information;
- don’t forget about jokes.
Make A/B tests for your emails and include such parts as headlines and letter bodies in a split-test. It will help you to understand which style better fits your audience.
Conclusion
Conversion of as many leads as possible into the clients requires constant work and improvements of the sales process. Using special tools, testing and analyzing results, studying your leads, and searching for individual approaches takes a lot of time and effort but definitely worth it.
Be creative, listen to your lead, try to understand his needs, and don’t put your product first – these are simple but effective ways to make more clients out of your leads.
What would you add to this list, based on your experience?
