In B2B marketing, it is the lead conversion that brings in the money. No matter how successful of a lead generation process you create and implement, it will be of no use if the leads don?t convert into buying customers.
How will you earn money if you don?t have customers purchasing your products or service at the end of the marketing and sales funnel?
Unfortunately, many B2B businesses find lead conversion difficult to carry out with some not even knowing their lead conversion rates. This means that they are not able to meet their revenue requirements effectively.
Ineffective lead conversion creates a vicious cycle where marketers waste time on generating unnecessary demand and the sales reps end up pursuing unprofitable leads. While the sales and marketing reps are trapped in this cycle, the company is sinking money creating campaigns that don?t help conversion rates.
The following lead conversion tips may prove helpful in breaking this cycle and improve your business?s lead conversion rates.
1. Begin by Capturing the Right Market
Like it is with any other business process, your lead conversion rates will be better if you start the process right. It is important that you begin with the right target market. It will help create strategies, choose communication channels, and develop products or services.
In short, without a defined target market, you will be lost. The marketing reps will generate irrelevant leads. As a result, sales reps will end up pursuing leads that don?t purchase.
2. Focus on Lead Quality, not Quantity
The market is full of possibilities, plenty of fish to catch and fry. However, capturing many small, measly fishes will not amount to anything much. But catching a few large, high-quality ones will make all the difference in your lead conversion rate.
Marketing experts agree that improving lead quality is crucial to maintain a good ROI and earn more revenue. Set higher standards for lead qualification. Reevaluate the demarcations between MQLs and SQLs.
3. Score your Leads
Scoring your leads is the perfect way to scale leads qualified for conversion. You can define your own lead scoring system, using numeric values to assign each lead a score.
You can base the lead scores based on the information extracted during the lead generation process. Set a benchmark that defines which leads will be qualified for further processing by sales.
Initially, your lead volume may drop. However, the number of qualified leads will increase along with the lead conversion rate. Consequently, it will increase revenues.
4. Integrate your CRM with the Marketing Automation System
The integration of your company?s CRM platform to the Marketing Automation System is necessary to run successful lead generation campaigns. This connects the marketing and sales teams, allowing them to work from a unified pipeline.
The key source of information will be the CRM database, which contains customer information obtained from lead generation campaigns. Sales reps access this information to see where the leads started.
The insights from this help sales reps create better offers. Similarly, marketers can use the integration to access lead conversion metrics, closing rates, and customer information to design marketing strategies.
5. Verify Lead Information
Poor data quality is not uncommon when there are plummeting lead conversion rates. Missing form fields, wrong information, duplicate entries, invalid formatting, failed email verification, and other data collection issues can be damaging to lead conversion rates.
Unverified data can create problems, such as undelivered content, wrong personalization, botched lead scores, budget issues, minimum sales, and so on. These pertinent issues need to be solved to optimize efforts for lead conversion.
6. Distribute Targeted Content through the Right Channels
Multi-channel marketing is a reality for most businesses. Companies use both conventional and digital marketing channels to optimize their reach to the right audience. The main goal is to use the right methods to reach the maximum number of potential leads.
To do that, you need a collection of engaging content relevant to your target market along with an effective call-to-action. Next, you need to choose the channels that your target market uses most frequently.
You have options including email marketing, SMS marketing, blogging, many different types of social media platforms, newspaper marketing, and so forth. Use the customer personas you created at the beginning of the process to find out where your customers frequent.
7. Master the Art of Follow-Up
In B2B marketing, following up with leads is a step you don?t want to miss. Timely follow-up and notifications are key to maintaining a high lead conversion rate. It is no secret that leads are more likely to purchase and stay on longer if their sales rep maintains regular conversations.
However, you need to find the right balance between being pushy and being approachable. If you call too often, the lead will feel pressured. Find the right time and address the lead?s pain points and priorities, making offers they can?t refuse.
You can use Solastis to automate your follow-up process. You can use the email integration to utilize lead information and create customized emails. Being proactive this way can improve lead conversion rates.
8. Keep an Eye on Lead Conversion Rate
You?ll be surprised to find that there are many businesses that don?t know their lead conversation rates. Whether the rates represent the number of times your content is shared or click-through rates on your website, they are essential to gauge your sales targets.
By keeping a regular check on your lead conversion rate, you will be in a better position to manage them. If you notice even some minute irregularities, you can be proactive and mitigate the risk before lead conversion rates plummet.
In the end, lead generation and lead conversion depend on how many resources you are willing to spend. You need an optimized front end, which includes technology and people, to sustain your lead conversion rate.
Solastis is a CRM+BPM software platform that will help you in your efforts. To find out how the platform can help you bring in more high-quality, qualified, and responsive lead, click here.