What comes next after lead generation? After spending days and weeks trying to get a decent amount of leads, what next? Or do you think your job is completed, and it’s about time you hit the bar to celebrate your little achievement?
Far from it — your job is just getting started. The leads might have expressed interest in your product or services, but they’ve yet to make a purchase.
What you have can be compared to a random person walking down the street. The person sees your product, and his interest is piqued. So he moves closer to see the details — price, durability, size, and so on. They haven’t approached the counter. Nor can you be sure they’ll actually be doing it.
That’s a lead — a person with some level of interest in your product or business. If they’re qualified, they’ll simply walk towards the counter and make a purchase. If they’re not, they’ll just check the details and walk away like your shop was a distraction.
So to make the person make the bold move of walking to the counter and closing the deal you have to begin by working on your conversion strategy. Find a way to quell their doubts. Reassure them that the product you’re selling is quality enough or offer them a discount if they find your price to be a little over the top.
That’s what comes next after lead generation — a robust conversion strategy. You have to get into the head of your leads and figure out how to approach them and get them to take action.
With that in mind, here are ten winning ideas that you could use today to improve your online conversion rate for your sales funnel.
Test Everything
To convert anyone, you have to be a realist first. There’s nothing like magic in the world of marketing. Everything has to be calculated and planned for in advance.
Think about your campaign and every single one of its elements — starting with the product itself. Also try to look at all their possible variations — images, landing pages, email subjects, and, well, everything.
The next thing you do is subject them to vigorous A/B or A/B/C testing. Find out which one among them works best. There’s no limit as to the number of tests you can run. You want to make sure you have settled on the best option available.
Use Heat Maps
Heat maps walk you through every possible detail of how your site’s visitors use your website. They show you how users navigate through the various page and the path they follow before taking action.
Through heat maps, you can tell which particular element of your website or sales funnels grabs their attention the most. You can also tell which pages wear them down the most or if your CTA button is visible or enticing enough to many of your visitors.
Learn to Optimise your Forms
Your marketing campaign, for the most part, relies on your lead generation strategy. In which case, forms are almost unavoidable.
You may argue that forms are pretty simple to build. And that’s where you go wrong. There’s more to worry about than the number of fields, colours, or how to word your buttons.
These are just a small section of the elements you should be thinking of optimising and studying. To get the best results, you have to go to the length of installing automatic filters that you’ll be using to make sure that every piece of information a user enters is real and valid.
It’s always about quality over quantity with every aspect of digital marketing, and conversion is no exception.
Be available
Every time a lead wants to communicate with you, they should be able to find you. It’s even better if you make it less of a hassle.
One approach to take is to provide options. Create a contact box and have a phone number and landline that somebody might use to find you every time they have an issue.
Remember to install a live chat for users that are looking for instant feedback. Make sure that you’re also available on social media and any other platform. So regardless of what channel someone uses to contact you, they must be able to find you on their first attempt.
Do this, and you’ll have an easy time inspiring trust among the customers you address. If you’re always available when needed, that goes to show that you’re professional and that you care enough to respond to the needs of your customers.
Have a Clear Call to Action (CTA)
Don’t let your users struggle with figuring about what you’re up to. Be clear about your motive by creating a conspicuous CTA that everyone can see.
This is a key element in digital marketing and one you wouldn’t want to treat as an after-thought. You don’t have to convince your users to take action. If they decide to make a purchase or proceed with any particular activity, let it be out of their own accord. Have a button with a headline that accurately defines the action you’d want your users to take. Remember to include images, links, and animation that clearly represent what you do and are more likely to convince a great majority of your users to take action.
Lastly, you might want to run a series of A/B tests as you experiment with various CTAs until you find one that’s more efficient.
Create Tribes
The concept of tribes has been well publicised. You might want to consider creating one if you’re planning to maintain a long-term engagement with the visitors you attract.
The concept of tribes also helps to inspire trust. It allows you to understand your prospects beyond what’s on the surface.
With tribes, you get to treat your leads like your second family. Your perception of things also changes, and you start viewing certain things from their angle. After all, you’re part of their extended family.
That’s the whole idea behind the concept of tribes. And it’s the strategy you need to adopt if you’re looking to start creating user-generated content.
Social networks play a central role in online marketing. No one can afford to turn their backs towards it completely.
One common mistake marketers make all the time is trying to maintain a corporate stance on social media. Wrong approach. For all we know, social media is a social platform that requires you to blend in and wear the mindset of an ordinary social user. Any deviation from that will most likely render all your social media effort futile.
First, you need to come up with a solid content strategy and plan. Ask yourself, what’s the nature of the people you’re targeting? What type of content do you think they’re most drawn to?
Even more important, try integrating your social media profile with your website. Also, try adopting it as one of the platforms you use to communicate with the users you attract.
Cash in on a Sense of Urgency
This trick never runs old. People have been using it since time immemorial, and it still works like a charm.
See, people tend to stall where they aren’t sure of the decision they’re about to make. For this reason, you might want to consider setting a time limit on some of your offers in what’s obviously an effort to get them to act fast.
Learn to use terms such as ‘last chance’ or ‘available on a limited basis.’ Some users need some little bit of nudging, and that’s precisely how you do it when they can’t make up their minds on time.
You’re however reminded to use them more carefully and sparingly — and make sure you mean it, lest your users start calling bluff on you.
Create Content
Content marketing is not a passing trend. It’s here to stay and the sooner you realise that, the better.
Use content to attract quality traffic. Capitalise on SEO and everything involved and start attracting visitors that are interested in your business or products.
In whatever you do, stick to offering high-quality content and observing patience. Eventually, Google and other search engines will pick up on your online effort and reward you with a prime ranking (read more traffic juice), which translates to sales in the meat world.
Be Responsive
It’s been said more than a thousand times before a vast majority of the people you’re targeting will be checking you out via a mobile device. Now imagine a scenario where your site appears all jumbled up — that means you’ll be using a significant number of could-have-been customers.
Mobile devices control a good chunk of online traffic, and you’re not about to throw it all away like that.
So why not work on coming up with a design that can adjust itself to different screen sizes. Make sure that nothing changes regardless of what device someone uses to check you out.
The Final Thought
We get it — things might be getting a little too complicated right now. But that’s no reason to give up. Of course, things weren’t meant to be easy on anyone.
The thing is lead generation isn’t as easy as anything you know — and it gets even more difficult when it comes to conversion. Where you don’t feel like handling it yourself, why not hire someone to help you out. As a matter of fact, there’s no harm in running two lead conversion strategies at once.
So why not give us a call today or drop us an email and let’s see how we can be of help to your lead conversion strategy?
