Has your company spent significant time, revenue and resources on marketing and sales functions, yet aren’t achieving the lead conversion and resulting sales performance you expected? Instead of allowing sales to go into free fall, try these three helpful strategies for improving your lead conversion from your inbound marketing efforts.
Clear Definition of Lead
There seems to be a consistent battle between sales and marketing regarding lead quality. This usually results in lost productivity from arguing or sales just not using the leads provided by marketing. Either way – it’s a waste of time, resources and revenue opportunities.
You can easily resolve the conflict, and the resulting negative impacts, by clearly defining what information should be collected to qualify the lead and storing the qualification information in a customer relationship management system that is easily accessible and updatable by both departments. This simple step can substantially improve your lead conversion rate without increasing the number of staff or increasing your budget.
Respond to the Lead Quickly
Today customers have multiple contact points with your organization from websites to phone calls; in many cases, information on prospective leads is available real-time. Responding to prospective customers as quickly as possible after initial contact can substantially improve lead conversion. Why?
The faster you respond, the higher the likelihood that the prospect is still focused on the issue they are trying to solve and the lower the likelihood your competitor has already contacted them. Leveraging technology such as a customer relationship management system will reduce your response time by alerting the resources that need to be involved in qualifying the lead as well as automating the marketing to sales workflow.
Use Technology to Support Nurturing Leads
Not every qualified lead is immediately ready to purchase; that does not mean they will never purchase. According to the Aberdeen Group, businesses allow 84% of qualified leads that don’t turn into immediate sales to slip through the cracks.
Don’t miss sales opportunities simply because a lead isn’t ready to buy. Lead nurturing is all about building a long-term relationship with leads who aren’t quite ready to buy. Establishing this communication channel, providing timely communications and relevant content builds trust and will keep your organizations products or services at the forefront of the lead’s mind when they are ready to purchase.
Since nurturing leads requires tracking and follow over multiple months or even years, it is important not rely exclusively on human memory, emails and spreadsheets for follow up. These strategies are not as reliable or effective as an automated monitoring process. Invest in CRM to improve the chances of your strategy for nurturing leads actually being executed.
There are a multitude of techniques that also help with lead conversion that I’ll highlight in future articles. Until then, start by implementing these three simple practices to immediately improve on your conversion efforts.