Lead conversion is one of the top priorities of a business’s marketing team alongside the sales team.
Getting to the finish line varies from one conversation to another. But they all follow the same thought and process.
By having a well grounded plan, the marketing and sales team can build a seamless process that would allow them to review and revise their plan accordingly. And, like any process, it begins by looking inside the business’s resources to determine its strengths and weaknesses.
Self-evaluation then leads to answering the simple questions that occurs in the stages to follow.
What is Lead Conversion?
A lead conversion occurs when a visitor takes an action that transforms them into a lead. It is also possible to consider lead conversion whenever a prospect moves from one stage of the lead generation process to another.
The process of converting visitors into leads involves a combination of strategies.
You must create opportunities for the lead to take some action at every step to proceed. Businesses follow different lead conversion processes, but converting leads into customers is the same goal.
Considerations Before Converting a Lead
1. The marketing point of view
You should consult marketing first when determining when to convert a lead. Most likely, the lead came from marketing. What is the lead life cycle within marketing and what triggers each marketing automation stream?
When compared with non-nurtured leads, nurtured leads produce a 20% increase in sales opportunities. Leads that are prematurely converted by sales reps won’t be included in the nurture campaign, and they won’t be able to benefit from the content marketing has developed specifically to drive value.
2. The data point of view
Data-wise, leads act as a blocker to keep all the messy data coming from marketing, list loads, and sales reps out of our good account data. We don’t want that potentially bad data affecting your ability to report on our good accounts.
In most organizations, sales reps over-convert Leads into opportunities and enter incorrect data on conversions.
Due to this problem, sales operations will not be able to report accurately, and sales reps will have to spend hours a week sorting through duplicate accounts and bad data to find what they’re looking for.
3. The Sales point of view
Consider how long your average sales cycle is. Here are some questions to ask:
- How long will it take
- What is the number of people involved?
- What are the typical indicators that a prospect will buy?
To avoid creating too many accounts, it makes sense to wait a bit longer before converting to a high-volume transactional business with a short sales cycle.
Unfortunately, leads have numerous limitations. Moreover, it is not linked to contact, opportunity, or account records; all of which are important pieces of information for enterprise sales reps.
This means that if you are selling enterprise products, you might want to consider converting sooner so you can track stakeholders’ interest in products. The situation is particularly acute if multiple sales cycles are occurring simultaneously.
What Happens after You’ve Converted a Lead?
Congratulations!
You’ve converted your first lead!
So now, what are
If you convert leads, you will be able to see all the open and closed activities associated with the accounts, contacts, and opportunities. These new records can be assigned to owners, and follow-up tasks can be scheduled. The new owner is only assigned the open activities when you assign new owners.
Custom lead fields can be added to a customer’s account, contact, and opportunity fields. Additionally, admins can set up custom lead fields to populate account automatically, contact, and opportunity fields.
If your admin hasn’t granted you the “View and Edit Converted Leads” permission, you won’t be able to view converted leads. You will, however, be able to view them in reports.
Unless you have the “View and Edit Converted Leads” permission, lead records cannot be searched once they have been converted. From the converted lead, a new account, contact, or opportunity record is created.
Your Next Steps after Lead Conversion
1. Thank them
After converting a lead, you need to send a thank-you email. You should let them know that you received their content request, and you should make a good first impression.
In the online sales funnel, the “thank you” page or email is often overlooked by businesses, considering it a minuscule step. It isn’t.
“Thank You” pages or emails are like handshakes during a job interview. You have been approached by someone interested in your services. If they show any interest in you, you should look them dead in the eye, stick out your hand, shake it firmly, and say “it’s nice to meet you.”.
As you walk back to your desk, you don’t open the door for them, then turn around and say “hi” over your shoulder.
We recommend the following to help you create a good Thank You page or email:
- Spend time and energy making it aesthetically pleasing.
- Use a customized Thank You template instead of using a standard template.
- Make a great first impression by including a free e-book or an exclusive discount.
- Include a video or image of your main customer service people to introduce your company.
When you meet a potential customer for the first time, you smile broadly and introduce yourself. The first impression is everything. A relationship over the Internet shouldn’t be any different.
2. Promote a secondary conversion
One of the “warmest” moments of a lead’s lifetime occurs after they convert to a lead. The gift you’re offering convinces them of your awesomeness and the benefits of engaging with you.
Your online ads and landing pages show them how much they gain by interacting with you. Don’t waste this afterglow from your conversion! Try to get another one.
3. Categorize them
The more you segment your leads, the more likely they are to convert. As a result, you can communicate with them much more precisely – delivering the content they need at the right time.
If you know that and deliver targeted content, you increase the value of that lead (it also means you aren’t spamming them with irrelevant content). In return, trust is increased, open rates increase, and the chances of them clicking on your free demo prompt are increased.
Bottom Line
Hopefully, this has given you some ideas about strategies to use after your lead provides you with their information. The tips above increase the chances of making a good impression to increase the chances of converting.
If you are segmenting your leads, make sure you balance how much information you get from your leads with how many leads you get. By asking for too much information, are you decreasing your lead generation rate, or are you increasing your lead conversion rate with that information that it’s worth it?