When you start a business, your primary goal will be to get more business to increase profits and grow. However, few businesses know how to do this, and even fewer know how to do it successfully. The easiest way to do this is by generating leads.
A lead is any person or business that you have the chance to do business with. It can be anyone who visits your website and anyone who has subscribed to your newsletter. Leads can either be qualified or unqualified. Unqualified leads can be turned into qualified ones using a lead generation service that implements lead nurturing campaigns (more on this below).
I’ve included the main topics on how to get more traffic, leads, and sales in case you want to jump ahead.
How Successful Companies Leverage Marketing
No one can deny that the Internet has revolutionized the way we conduct business. No longer is it sufficient to rely on “word of mouth” marketing to attract new customers. We must also actively seek out potential prospects and convince them to give us their money, even before meeting them in person.
That is where lead generation comes in. If you are not sure how to convert leads into customers, you have come to the right place. Here, we can help you decide how to tailor your sales and marketing efforts to achieve your goals best.
As I mentioned before, a challenging part of owning a business is driving qualified traffic. It is essential to understand how successful companies can reach and obtain customers and do so long-term. We understand that it can be a bit confusing not knowing where to start. That’s why we decided to break it down for you in steps.
Getting Traffic To Your Site
Most traffic comes from social media marketing, organic search (SEO), and advertising.
It is important to combine owned, paid, and earned media for a comprehensive strategy that will fortify your business’s future. That is the main reason that we offer our brand authority builder package, which provides a website, SEO, social media marketing, and automation tools.
The 3 types of media that generate traffic
Owned Media
Website
Landing Pages
Blog Site
Email Marketing
Social Media Channels
Paid Media
Pay Per Click
Display ADS
Retargeting
Paid Influencers
Social Media ADS
Earned Media
Mentions
Shares
Reposts
Reviews
Referrals
Owned Media – All of your Web Properties will directly impact your business’ brand because they reflect your business’s quality & trustworthiness. It is important to design and develop these properties with consistent colors, logos & fonts to create an authoritative presence. Ensure that your services and/or products are easy to find and understand to create a better experience for your users.
Paid Media – Before you consider paying for any advertising type, it is important to develop a specific message to create your campaign. Break up your services to find the pain points your customers/clients are dealing with and how your business can help. Once you got narrowed it down to 2 or 3 parts, you can then develop the best way to promote your message to a specific audience for better results.
Earned Media – Back when we started marketing, a business would have to shell out hundreds to thousands of dollars to share a message with potentials customers through TV or Radio ADS. Today, we have the internet’s power and can easily share a message in the form of a blog article, image, text, or Video on 10+ platforms with one click. Yet, most small businesses are not taking advantage of it. Create engaging content that people want to share to increase brand awareness and establish yourself as an authority in your community.
How To Convert Traffic Into Leads
Not everyone that engages with your content will convert into a customer or client. Some people will not be interested in doing business with you, and that is perfectly fine. It is better to know this before you spend any time or energy on them. Other users might be interested in doing business with you but might not be ready to do so. Of course, there will be users ready to pull their credit cards with a little persuasion.
Simplify The Conversion Process On Your Site
Generated Traffic will engage with your business through different entryways, including your home page, blog article, service, or landing page. It is important to have well-designed pages with call-to-actions, contact forms, and easy navigation menu options.
With the right approach, you can increase your customer acquisition rate by getting potential customers to take the action that leads to a sale. There are many ways to convert leads into customers, but conversion rate optimization can be a highly effective method.
Website
Services/Products
About Us
Pixel Integration
Blog Articles
Checkout Pages
Landing Pages
Service/Product Specific
Promotional
Urgency
Targetted Traffic
Upsells/Downsells
We will go over conversions next.
What Is Conversion Rate Optimization?
Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is basically when you drive traffic to a landing page, and that traffic becomes a lead. It is the optimization that is implemented which guides or persuades a visitor to take action.
Let’s take a look at a few ways to optimize your website and/or landing pages for conversion.
Web Design – When a lead comes in through your website, it is common that they will first visit your home page or blog page. Your website must provide easy ways for prospects to contact you. Whether it’s your phone number, contact form, or live chat, make sure they’re visible and easy to access.
Landing Pages – When a lead visits one of your landing pages, they probably arrived there from a lead magnet or advertisement to view a specific offer or promotion. Make sure that the design is clean and the message is focus-oriented. Eliminate as much distraction as possible to keep the visitor focused on taking action.
Converting traffic into leads can be quite challenging for the majority of business owners. For several reasons, the initial contact a customer has with your business can make or break the lead.
For example, the customer may already have a solution to their problems or find your offer no longer relevant.
Therefore, your team must know how to interact with each lead right off the bat, so they don’t lose the business opportunity before it even starts. Understanding at what stage the lead will convert more traffic into sales qualified leads (SQLs).
Understanding The Marketing Funnel
To understand the stages of a marketing funnel, I will briefly go over what a typical funnel looks like:
A marketing funnel consists of Tofu, Mofu, and Bofu. You may be wondering what they are. It’s a bit complicated, but the more you understand, the easier it will incorporate into your marketing sales process.
Top of the Funnel (TOFU) – is the process of getting people to hear about your product. This is accomplished through various methods, including blog posts, E-books, social media posts, etc.
Middle of the Funnel (MOFU) – is the process of getting people to try or learn more about your business. For most businesses, this stage is the most effective way of increasing your customer base. Mofu is accomplished with videos, demos, comparison guides, webinars, etc.
Bottom of the Funnel (BOFU) – is a process of getting people to buy your product or sign up for a service. Bofu is the final step in the funnel with case studies, live demos, consultations, trials, etc.
How To Pitch Your Sales Leads
Your sales team must identify at which stage each lead is in before they commence the direction. Don’t try to close a customer at the top stage of the funnel; instead, offer information about your products or services.
If the lead is at the bottom stage, then it’s time to close the deal by proposing an offer to move forward. It’s that simple. Yet many sales teams seem to miss this process and act like robots reading the same script to every lead.
The objective here is to convert traffic into leads at all costs.
Now I must mention that it is possible to close deals at this step. If you identify that the prospect has researched your company and wants to move forward, then pull the trigger. Don’t hesitate. I have closed hundreds of deals by simply asking, “would you like to get started?”.
Whatever happens, it is important to get the prospect’s information to guide them towards the funnel’s bottom.
But in most cases, you will have to work a bit harder than that to convert the lead. Let’s take a closer look at lead conversion.
How To Convert Leads Into Customers
Lead conversion is one of the most important aspects of lead generation. If you’re unable to convert leads into customers, you’re just wasting your time and money on generating leads. To convert leads effectively, you must know what to do and when to do it.
Lead Nurturing
“Lead nurturing” is a term that has been thrown around a lot in the last few years, but few people can explain what it means. Essentially, the term refers to the process of moving leads further down the sales funnel. While this may seem like a relatively straightforward task, it can be quite difficult since you’re trying to change the mindset of a lead from “I’m just learning about this product” to “I’m seriously considering buying this product.”
You can nurture your leads by following up with them through a different channel(s) depending on your contact information in the previous step. You can send offers, promotions, and updates through email, SMS, or even Messenger. These offers can be highly targeted, relevant offers that will help your customers decide on your company.
What’s great about lead nurturing is that it keeps your customers in the front door, giving you direct access to their buying decisions. This process involves creating personalized offers for every lead and ensuring that customers understand the offer before making the sale. With this in mind, here are some lead nurturing strategies that can help you convert your lead into a customer.
Marketing Automation
To get your customers to your offers, you have to make sure that your marketing automation platform allows cross-channel nurturing. This means setting up your blog, website, and newsletter feed for automated email sending for most businesses.
Some lead nurturing platforms provide SMS texting, email workflows, appointment setting, and direct offers to a list of prospects. Be sure to look for the capabilities of your platform to support cross-channel nurturing.
Retargeting Leads
How to convert a lead into a customer with retargeting? Retargeting is the act of positioning your offers, products, or services in front of prospects on platforms that they most frequently visit. These platforms include social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Tiktok, etc.
Placing your presence in front of people that are familiar with your brand can be very powerful. If done right, you can make it more likely to make a buying decision (or at least consider it as a possibility) when they are ready to buy.
Final Thoughts On How To Get More Traffic, Leads, and Sales
Without leads coming in, your business will not be successful, and so you need to make sure that all lead conversion techniques are being used to their full potential. One of the main problems people face is that they do not know what lead nurturing is or how it can help them. That is the reason that I decided to write this article.
I have found that when business owners understand how the entire process works, they become better marketers. They also become better clients because of it. Informed business owners will make educated financial decisions regarding marketing return on investment (ROI). They appreciate all of the hard work that comes into creating a successful lead generation and closing system.
If you would like help in creating a lead generation strategy, then let our digital marketing agency help you today!