What is lead conversion?

In marketing, lead conversion is the process of turning a lead, or prospective customer, into an actual customer.

The term “lead” can refer to a person or a company who has shown an interest in your product or service in some way such as through an online form or sign-up.

How to calculate lead conversion?

Businesses can calculate their lead conversion rate (LRC) by taking the number of leads and dividing it by the number of conversions and then multiplying the result by 100. The formula for calculating your lead conversion rate looks like this:

LCR = (Total number of conversions / Total number of leads) x 100

Using this formula, if a business has 100 leads and 10 sales, the lead conversion rate would be 10%.

Why is tracking lead conversion important?

There are a number of advantages to tracking your lead conversion rate that ranges from financial reasons such as budgeting to operational ones like optimizing your lead-to-sale pipeline. But the bottom line is clear – lead conversion can benefit your business in a number of ways:

• Improve budget planning: Your LCR allows you to track the ROI of your lead generation campaigns, which can be used to justify your marketing spend and make informed decisions about where to allocate your budget.
• See what’s working: By tracking how many leads are converting, you can clearly understand which marketing campaigns, lead sources, or sales methods are resulting in the most conversions. Having the access to this information allows you to make better decisions and fine-tune your efforts.
• Compare strategies: Your lead conversion rate enables you to compare the performance of different lead generation campaigns to improve their effectiveness.
• Understand the customer journey: Tracking lead conversion can provide valuable insights into the customer journey. For example, you may notice that leads from a particular source are more likely to convert if they receive a follow-up call within 24 hours.
• Identify bottlenecks: Following the lead conversion process allows businesses to identify bottlenecks in their sales process. For example, the Monday sales CRM allows you to visualize the percentage of leads lost at each specific stage. So if a company identifies that a percentage of leads are lost at the proposal stage, it can investigate and take steps to improve the proposal process.

5 strategies for optimizing lead conversion

Improving your LCR involves a lot of trial and error. What might work for one business may not be relevant to another, so it’s important to build a strategy that specifically works for your company and audience. Here are different ways to build and optimize a lead conversion strategy:

1. Nurture your leads

Nurturing leads involves providing leads with additional information to help them make a decision. For example, if a lead is considering your product but is unsure if it is the right fit for their needs, you can provide them with a case study, email newsletter, or additional product information that can help them see how your product can benefit them.

2. Optimize your lead capture

Review lead capture forms to make them as concise as possible while still providing the necessary details. Providing clear follow-up instructions to sales teams will also help them quickly contact and nurture leads. Additionally, segmenting leads into lists can help ensure that the right teams are working on the right leads.

3. Apply lead scoring

Lead scoring can help optimize lead conversion by helping sales and marketing teams identify and prioritize the leads that are most likely to convert into customers. By assigning a score to each lead based on factors like demographics, behavior, and engagement, teams can prioritize their outreach and focus their efforts on leads most likely to convert.

4. Run retargeting campaigns

Retargeting can help optimize lead conversion by allowing businesses to show ads to people who have already shown interest in their products. Pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns are a great way to retarget leads specifically to people who have already visited your site in order to improve the chances of getting them to convert.

5. Employ social proof

Increase the likelihood that a lead will convert by providing social proof that others have found value in what you’re offering. This could take the form of testimonials, social media posts, product reviews, or case studies. Providing your leads with real-life examples of how others succeeded with your brand undoubtedly increases the perceived value of your offering and encourages them to take the next step.

9 Tips to Convert Leads into Customers

1. Communicate value first

Focus on bringing value into the life of your customers. People dislike those who only care about getting a sale out of them. Aim to improve your customer’s life and focus on addressing your customers’ needs.

People don’t care about your solution, it’s all about their relief. Act as a mentor with great expertise in your field of operation. If you are the point of contact for potential customers, they will also trust your judgment and solutions to their problems.

2. Identify Their Problem

You need to identify the problem that the lead is experiencing. Have a different approach every time you ask a question, as it gets a conversation started. This is a good way to open up a dialogue and to uncover questions or concerns the prospect might have.

3. Make it a Conversation

It’s obvious that your prospect will be much more responsive if you encourage a two-way conversation. Dialogue keeps prospects engaged, allowing you an opportunity to learn more about their needs in a casual setting. You can figure out precisely how your product or service will work out for them. Don’t make it sound like a monologue, it stands outs like a traditional sales pitch and they’ll see right through it.

4. Keep them warm

Even if you call a prospect within ten minutes of signing up, he or she may still not be ready to move forward in the sales process. However, they have expressed interest in your product or service, so don’t lose the opportunity to keep them warm while jumping on a phone call. A general rule of thumb suggests that a prospect sees or hears your message at least seven times before they take action and buy from you.

This is called Customer Care and it starts long before any sale is made. Keep them informed and show them that you care and they’re sure to come back to you when they have questions or are ready to move on to the next step.

5. Ask for the sale

Simply asking for a sale is nothing new or innovative, but it’s a crucial part of the conversion process. It seems like common sense, yet a surprising amount of people don’t do it. Ask your prospects if they are ready to get started and watch how many say “yes.” They wouldn’t have gotten this far if they didn’t have an initial interest in becoming a customer. If you don’t ask for the sale, your competition will.

6. Follow-up

Keep your leads in purchase mode by following up in person, via email, or by phone.

Following up is a great way to quickly convert a warm lead into a customer before too much time passes. All of the leads you generate should be contacted immediately and followed up with a couple of days later. You want to make sure they are as successful as possible with the product and all their questions are answered.

Try using a route planner like Badger Maps to add quick follow-ups to your sales routes when you’re selling in the field.

7. Don’t make them wait

Leads are a fresh commodity and aren’t meant to wait until the next day. Make your first contact as soon as possible, because levels of interest drop dramatically after just one hour. Don’t give your leaders the opportunity to lose interest in your product or to move on to a competitor. It’s crucial to set up internal routines for following up on leads.

8. Gain their trust

People buy the person first, and then the product. Therefore, always be genuine and friendly. Speaking the truth makes it easier to gain people’s trust, so have a real and honest dialog with them. Every meeting should be a conversation, not a sales pitch. Spend at least half of every meeting listening to your customer. Make the conversation about real business issues, so that the customer views you as an expert.

9. Remember them

Smart entrepreneurs know that it’s necessary to spend time with their customers. This might seem folly, but that’s not really the case. Several studies have shown that leads are more likely to convert into customers when they don’t feel rushed. It’s your task to make every lead feel individually remembered and respected.