I have been asked quite often by small business owners about the trending buzz on digital marketing and how it helps in converting leads into actual paying customers.
In case you have somewhat found yourself asking the same question, then you are not alone.
The experts keep bombarding you with terms like business model, sales funnel and return on investment. But what you really want is to get more customers and grow revenue for your business.
The big question is how?
You need to understand that consumers have differing perceptions about trying something “new” and in this light, it is usually a tough process trying to persuade them into patronizing a brand that is foreign to them.
From my own perspective, I am positive that most people will prefer to stick to brands, products and service they have used over time and are comfortable with rather than use an alien product.
In the real sense, if this usage persists, who then will use these “alien products”, how will these new brands thrive to succeed the competitive business world that we find ourselves in today.
Not all of your prospects are going to pass through your sales funnel and automatically convert into customers as you may wish. Sometimes it requires a little thinking outside of the box to get them to bite.
In this post I will be giving you actionable insights on how you too can attract leads and implement strategies that will convert them into paying customers for your business.
Converting leads with your content
The value of your content tells the story of your brand and draws more prospects which eventually end up being loyal customers to your brand.
Nobody is interested in reading just any junk, people want to read things that will add value to their lives and in pitching your product or service, you have to consider that.
Most people wrongly assume that their buyers already know it all, or aren’t interested in reading lots of words.
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Your content is expected to draw the attention of your leads to the benefits they will gain from using your product or service if you are conversion driven.
To achieve this, you have to explain the advantages of using your product or service, the benefits, and other necessary gains they will encounter from the use of your product or service.
Make your content compelling enough to enable leads overcome their fear of making the wrong buying decision, respond to their queries promptly, and see to it that your buyer is truly satisfied.
Build trust, understand your buyer’s goals, needs and wants and create certainty that your product or service meets their needs
Your content is your first working impression on your leads, and a failure to impress them is a failure to convert them. Make your prospects feel the need to patronize your brand or service with your content.
Obtain testimonials from existing customers
They are strong holds for any business that wants to convert leads.
Testimonials are basically authentic statements from existing clients describing their encounter and benefits from using a particular product or service.
Every prospect will be motivated to use your product if the referral through your testimonial is catchy enough.
The idea behind a testimonial is for the lead to see firsthand the benefits and other advantages of using that particular brand and with a testimonial from a customer; it just shoots your brand to the first on the prospects bucket list.
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Be sure to use testimonials that are comprehensive enough and that succinctly describes the result achieved from using your product.
Neil Patel recommends that, “when using testimonials, make sure you sprinkle them across your whole site. From sales pages to checkout pages, use them on any page that can impact a sale”.
Testimonials are not your personal property to keep in your archives, you are expected to distribute them across all platforms for converting leads.
Entice leads with your offers
Who doesn’t like free things?
Everybody does. So, giving out free gifts or offering a discount is often the best way to convert sales.
It most times doesn’t need to be something valuable or ridiculously expensive, but it should be worthwhile.
Every day, people are faced with a variety of options to select what is convenient for their use. They have a whole host of choices available to them.
The question is; what makes your brand stand out from the crowd of options?
In truth, your prospect craves as much information as possible so they can make an informed purchase decision.
The answer simply is, unless you offer your leads an exceptionally meaningful benefit for patronizing you, your product will be as good as hanging in the shelves and your competitor will smile to the bank.
The essence of offers is to compel your leads to purchase your product or service.
Image courtesy: dealsupdate.in
There are some mouth watering offers that once you pass it up; you will end up regretting your action. Take this chance of creating a compelling offer that will promote your brand and make it hard for your leads to say no.
The right offer can increase your response up to 300%. One thing I have noticed over time is people simply can’t pass on something for free.
Remember, your prospects don’t need you as much as you need them. Be smart!
Converting leads through following up
Most people find it difficult to follow up on their prospects or leads.
In actual sense, a simple follow-up email or phone call asking your prospects if they want additional information about your product or service may just get them back into purchase mode.
This is a great way to quickly convert them into customers before it’s too late.
A significant number (80%) of converting leads is after continuous follow ups. Constant follow-ups are an effective way of advancing and building your relationships, developing trust and gently leading your prospect to a purchasing decision.
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Following up doesn’t necessarily mean consistently bombarding your leads with calls and emails that the person get frustrated but a seldom reminder to keep refreshing their memory on the presence and availability of your product or service is highly important.
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As the saying goes, “out of sight is out of mind” I hope I am permitted to say out of follow up is out of mind. The more you follow up, the greater your chances of converting prospects to paying customer.
Speed up your page response
Am sure most of you will be wondering, why speed? To be really honest with you, it counts when it comes to converting leads to customers. Let me explain this point
If you probably see an advert about a certain product or service online and you are trying to check because it really seems eye-catching but while you are trying to check, the site is taking so long to download for you to read.
Will you keep waiting or move on to the next responding page? The answer is simple; you will obviously check up on something else.
Image courtesy: gnatta
We tend to brush this idea over our shoulder, but it has a huge impact on conversion rates. For every delay in page response, there is a 7% decrease in conversion rate.
Most people do not really have the luxury of time to wait until a page loads completely, once there is an alternative route, they prefer to use that than wait.
A greater part of your work should be focused on improving your overall site speed as it can boost your conversion rate.
Create specific pitch
Being specific simply means tailoring your promotion to fit the needs of certain proposed customers or leads. We all love to feel special, therefore, customize your sales pitch by using unique information targeted towards each of your visitors.
Make the prospect feel special, giving him or her, the perception that the product is mainly designed to cater for their pending needs.
Converting leads entails coming out of your shell into a more creative atmosphere to attract them with what you have to offer.
This on the other hand motivates the prospect to move a step further by finding out how their needs can be met and problems solved by the use of your product or service.
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Pitching is all about using the right words to motivate and stir up a reaction to buy from the prospect.
You have to watch and be careful on the words and the method you pitch to avoid losing your leads instead of building up your customer base.
Understand the need of your leads
To convert successfully you must first get to the essence of your customer’s problem or needs. You must understand all of your customer’s concerns, desires, fears, and limits.
You cannot prescribe a solution until you diagnose their need. You cannot turn your customer’s need into a want until you know how to put value on your customer’s desired state.
Understanding is the benchmark for your converting leads. If you don’t understand what they need to solve their problems, the whole aim of prescribing your product or service is defeated because they might really not need your product or service at that given time.
Image courtesy: brokerdynamix
You have to undertake a good market survey to understand the need of your leads, diagnose, listen to understand, and then you can recommend your product as a lasting solution to their problem. And win the sale!
Give leads solid reasons to purchase your product
Most people, miss the point of providing the prospects with comprehensive understanding of the reason they need to purchase your product or service.
Why is your product or service better than others, why should they act, what advantage do they have using your product over others, and what benefits do they stand to gain if they purchase your product or service?
All these are vital questions you have to provide detailed answers to and for anyone who is kin on converting leads into paying customers, these questions must be answered.
This provides the lead with the necessary tools to make an informed decision. To me, it is a make it or break it! point in business.
The more you help your buyers to understand the tangible and compelling reasons and why they should take action.
The more powerful your positioning, the more people will understand the value and benefits you’re offering, the more they will trust, and the more comfortable they feel with what you’re offering.
A/B Test your offers
Essentially, a/b testing is a experimental process where two or more variant of a page are giving to users at random and statistical analysis is conducted to determine which variation performed better for a certain conversational goal.
A/B test helps in converting leads because you can be sure of what offer attracts them the most. This gives you a vivid idea of what to exactly use for your conversion.
Certain offers do not hold water, its more like a joke than an offer but once you are sure of what will perfectly work and sought your audience, you can be sure that your converting struggles are over.
Take your time to study and understand the essence of your product and its benefits before placing your offer.
Testing helps you eliminates any form of guesswork which in turns enables you give informed messages that leads to informed decision and conversion.
A/B testing allows you make careful changes to your user experiences while collecting data on the results.
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Respond quickly to your leads
People want to get immediate response especially when they are trying to purchase products or service. If you keep your leads waiting, they will only lose interest in your product or service.
You need to be up-to-date and constantly check your mail box and other social media platforms to respond to the queries of your potential customers.
The more you waste more time in responding, the less chances you have on converting leads into customers. The level of interest for the prospect drops dramatically after one hour, and he or she may have moved on to a competitor.
According to the report led by a researcher at South Korea’s Sungkyunkwan University, “Companies that try to contact potential customers within an hour of receiving queries are nearly 7 times as likely to have meaningful conversations with key decision makers as firms that try to contact prospects even an hour later. Yet only 37% of companies respond to queries within an hour.”.
This is the best practicable time to ensure you respond to whatever questions they have for you and convert them to proper customers.
The more you procrastinate, the less interested they become in purchasing your product. Procrastination is the thief of time!
It is therefore important to set up internal routines for the handling of incoming leads; for example, having a customer service representative to respond swiftly to any queries from your leads, or provide a functional emailing network between you and your leads, and you can possibly try any other method that best suits your business.
Be prompt and accurate in your responds to avoid misleading your leads or giving them answers that are insufficient.
Set deadlines for your promotion
Setting up a deadline will make your leads see the urgency to respond to your promotion or to purchase your product or service.
Basically, most people prefer that rush hour syndrome, where probably the promotion has come to an end and they have to reach out for it immediately.
Also, captivating sales quotes can do the magic for you; quotes like “Buy while offer still lasts” can help you push them to the point of buying.
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Converting your leads with a call to action
After all said and done, the whole aim is to invite leads to become part of your customer band wagon. Most times, the best practical way to conclude your conversion series is to call the attention of the leads to purchase either your product or service.
The aim of going through all these stages is at the long run convert your leads and this can only be done with a call to action clause.
This will draw the attention of the lead to the purpose of the promotion; which is to purchase the goods or service.
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Put into consideration the word (s) you intend to use for your call to action. Bear in mind that it has to be strong and persuasive enough.
Let’s just say, it is a summary of all you have preach all along about your product. Be careful as not to dissuade your leads with your choice of words. “Careful” should be your watch word in this stage of your conversion.
Always look for affirmative statements to buttress your point in converting leads.
Conclusion
In the bid of pursuing a sales opportunity, you essentially work towards eliminating any barriers that will hinder sales effectiveness.
A sales funnel gives a more visual description of how converting leads work i.e. from initial contact to sale. Every opportunity you get should be an added advantage for you to convert leads.
Converting leads can take time if your products has a complex sales cycle. The sales funnel (awareness – interest – sale) has a lot of places leads can drop off.
It’s important that your marketing campaigns plan to nurture those leads through each stage is at top notch.
What other ways have you used to successfully turn your prospects into customers? Share your experiences in the comments section below.
Daniel Obaike
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Wow, this is so good and very useful dear…… So proud to be in Native edge….#supertips#growthhacker#bedigitalized#
Thank you
Interesting article and very true. Good