Leads are great but they are not worth much if they do not convert into paying customers at the end of the day. Therefore, it is of the utmost importance to make sure that active effort is being put into not just lead generation but the actual conversion of those leads as well.
How to Turn Your Leads Into Customers
As a small company or a beginner in any field, it might be difficult to do that though, but with the help of the following tips, it should become a lot easier to convert those leads into paying customers at a better rate than before.
1] Get a CRM System that Caters to Your Specific Needs
CRMs or Customer Relationship Management Systems are a must have for any and all businesses, irrespective of the size of the business in question. Scalability is an important aspect to consider while choosing your CRM to make sure that it fits the business’s initial size and then grows with it, but that’s not the only thing that matters.
PieSync.com has a useful blog post about CRMs. It details the pros and cons and tells you which CRM system is made for handling the customer relationship aspects of small businesses, to help with lead conversions as well.
With a good CRM, you can monitor every step of every lead’s movement through the sales pipeline, towards conversion. If a lead isn’t converting and has remained stationary at any one stage of the funnel for longer than it should, you can easily see that and contact the marketing and sales team to see what’s holding up the conversion.
Startup Branding: How Much Should It Cost?2] Bridge the Gap in between Your Marketing Team & Sales Team
Marketing and sales are so often put into one category that it is easy to forget they are not one and the same at all.
A good business owner knows and understands where the work of the marketing team ends, and that of the sales team begins. More importantly, both your teams should know that fact as well!
There’s often significant communications gap in between marketing and sales, and if you can bridge that gap, expect your lead conversion rates to improve significantly. As far as the steps necessary to make it happen are concerned, the following should help.
- Have them work under similar terms, laws, and company policies.
- Make them aware of each other’s roles in clear, defined and formal language.
- Use the Piesync CRM system to make all information between the two teams transparent and mutually accessible.
- Hold mandatory meetings where the two teams can cooperate with each other.
3] Install a Lead Scoring System
The basic job of the lead scoring system is to score each and every lead according to the potential customer’s behavior online. Once a lead has reached a certain pre-decided score that is high enough to be handed over to the sales team, the chances of that lead being converted successfully become a lot higher.
This naturally improves the relationship between the two teams as well, since the sales department now feels that marketing is pointing them towards better leads.
It would help immensely if you also had a good product or service on your hands, to begin with, but as far as improving general lead conversion is concerned, these should be able to make enough of a difference for any small business.
