Imagine this scenario: Your marketing advertising strategy is working. People are visiting your website, filling out your forms, and suddenly you’ve got a steady flow of new leads. But despite this influx of potential customers, your conversion rate is low.
Now what?
Instead of spending money on more advertising, you may be able to solve your conversion problem with a few easy fixes. In order to do that, you need to understand why leads don’t convert, and how that impacts business success.
Our list
1. Too many leads for the team
If your business has too many leads, your sales team might be overwhelmed. In turn, they may waste time on dead end leads, miss opportunities for good ones and find themselves in constant conflict with marketing. Ultimately, your marketing budget will be wasted as the good leads fall through your CRM system.
2. Not responding fast enough
A high volume of leads can also make it difficult for your teams to follow up in a timely manner. In turn, quality is sacrificed for quantity, and individual leads don’t get the attention they need.
Speed to lead, or a company’s response time, should be within five minutes for follow-up phone calls. But even if your team responds within an hour, you’re almost seven times more likely to connect meaningfully with potential customers. If you’re following up through email, your speed needs to be even faster, because email typically has lower conversion rates than phone calls.
3. Failing to follow up/nurture leads
Lead nurturing is the process of developing and supporting relationships with customers at every stage of the sales funnel. Successful lead nurturing anticipates the needs of the customers and where they are in the buying process. The more trust and value you build with potential customers, the more likely your leads will convert.
Although lead nurture is still primarily focused on email marketing, you can innovate in other ways. Newsletters, market reports, special offers, birthday wishes, and other personalized touches can help retain customers and build brand awareness.
You can also use the data you collect from your campaign to gauge customer interest and behavior and remarket leads in future campaigns.
Treating leads like the gold they are
For any business, generating new leads is essential. But if you struggle with converting those leads, you’re not alone. According to a survey by the marketing research firm Ascend2, 41% of companies say following up with leads is a challenge.
That’s where a strong PPC and SEO marketing campaign can help. Personalized emails, mailing lists, and newsletters allow you to stay in constant communication with your customer base, while remarketing and retargeting increases brand awareness. Once your leads get the attention they deserve, you’ll see an exponential growth in your conversion rate.
