If you’re frustrated over your lead conversion rate, you’re not alone.
The exact figures on lead conversion vary a lot from one business to another. But the bottom line is that most businesses want to improve their statistics when it comes to turning leads into customers. Surveys have shown that only 12% of businesses are completely satisfied with their lead conversion rate. That leaves a whopping 88% who would like to see improvement in this area!
We’ve put together a quick guide with some of our favorite strategies to turn leads into clients. Read on to find actionable advice on boosting your conversion rate and growing your list of clients.
It’s important to respond to your leads as quickly as possible so they don’t start to look around for other companies to do business with.
A study from the Harvard School of Business demonstrated that leads start to “cool down” within an hour. In other words, your leads are likely to be unresponsive if you don’t get in touch with them right away. The study said that companies that followed up on leads within an hour were almost seven times likelier to move a step closer to converting.
Companies that waited over an hour before contacting their potential customer had a much smaller chance of qualifying that lead, or, in other words, having a useful interaction with a decision-maker.
The Harvard Business Review found that most businesses take too long to follow up on leads. Just 37 percent respond to leads within an hour, and only 53 percent responded within 24 hours. You can get ahead of your competition by following up effectively on your leads.
This one feels counter-intuitive, but it’s very important: sometimes, you can close more sales by acting less sales-y.
It’s important to treat your leads as individuals, rather than as numbers on a CRM. That means assessing what each lead is looking for and trying to meet those needs. Is this person looking for more information? Are they asking you a specific question about your business? Are they interested in getting a list of prices or getting a quote for a specific product or service?
If you can engage directly with your leads, and meet their needs, you’re likely to close a lot more sales. Just as important, increased engagement with your leads is going to yield your long-term customer loyalty, instead of a one-time sale.
Not every lead is going to be a good client. If you can learn how to sift through your leads and figure out which ones are worth pursuing, you’ll save yourself a lot of time and energy.
This process of sorting out leads is known as “qualifying” your leads. To do this correctly, you’ll need to ask yourself some basic questions about your leads. Before you can do that, though, you’ll need to be very clear about what kinds of qualities you’re looking for in a customer.
If you’re selling office chairs, for example, you’ll want to make sure that your leads work out of an office (instead of out of a home, a factory, or a warehouse). You’ll also want to find out roughly how many employees they have and how much disposable income they have to work with.
It’s a good idea to ask these questions right away, either during your cold calls or in the first interaction you have with your lead. This will prevent you from wasting money pursuing a lead that was never going to be right for you in the first place.
Your business doesn’t exist in a vacuum, and that means you’ll need to stay current on what your competition is doing.
Are your prices competitive? Are your products and services on a par with others in the same area and price range? Do you offer the same level of customer service and support as others in your field?
These are all the kinds of questions that your potential customers will be asking. It’s going to be much easier for you to convert leads if you’re positioned at the top of your industry. This doesn’t mean that you need to be the biggest, the best, or the most economical business in your whole industry, of course. But it does mean that you need to be offering a great product at a competitive rate. It doesn’t hurt to also earn a reputation for offering great customer service and product support.
It takes more touches than ever to close a sale in today’s environment – especially if you’re working in B2B. That means that just one cold call, or one sales presentation, is not going to get you a lot of clients. Successful businesses know how to follow up on every qualified lead, not just once, but several times.
That means sending out additional information and answering any questions that your lead has expressed interest in. It also means making sure that your communication is highly personalized. Sending out a generic notice about a webinar you’re organizing does not count as an effective follow-up on leads. On the other hand, sending out a note that addresses your lead by name and references a specific item that you discussed on your cold call is an excellent follow-up technique.
To make your follow-up effective, you’ll need to keep excellent records of your interactions with all of your leads. You’ll also need a system that can help you schedule follow-ups and track the success of your different forms of interactions with leads.
That’s where Accelo's lead management sales software can be a game-changer for your business. Accelo provides professional service businesses with the tools and resources they need to manage client operations including sales, quotes, projects, tickets, retainers, timesheets, billing, and scheduling all from one place. Our sales management system helps small to medium-sized businesses maintain long-term client relationships, nurture prospective customers, stay competitive in the market, and spend less time working in the business and more on it — which helps boost their bottom line.
If you’d like to learn how you can get started working with Accelo or begin a free trial, give us a call today.
