7 Lead Conversion Strategies to Boost Sales in 2021

So you’ve finally gotten people to notice your business online. Congrats! But that’s only half the battle. You can have all the traffic in the world brought to your website but if these visitors don’t convert, you won’t earn a single cent.

It’s true that leads fuel your business but if you don’t nurture them, all they’ll be are warm bodies who may be interested in your offerings but are not buying.

In today’s blog, we’ll be talking about 7 lead conversion strategies that will boost your sales in 2021. Let’s get started!

What Does It Mean To Convert A Lead?

Lead conversion is the process of turning leads into paying customers. It involves a wide range of marketing practices that motivate people to purchase your product or service. To become paying customers, leads must go through a lead funnel which has these stages:

• Awareness
• Interest
• Decision
• Action

It’s not enough for your leads to visit your website, “like” your social media accounts, or subscribe to your email list. The goal of lead conversion is to push your leads from one stage to another until they have decided to buy from you. Your goal, then, is to nurture your leads every step of the way so they complete their purchasing journey.

This is often done through stimulating engagement, providing value, and positioning your brand as the solution to your leads’ problems. Lead conversion also entails understanding your potential customers so you can create an experience that will keep them coming back for more.

Lead Conversion Strategies You Should Try

Research Your Audience

Before diving into lead conversion strategies, you must first do some prep work. This involves three things: capturing the right market, segregating your leads, and lead scoring. This will serve as your jump-off point for every conversion strategy you will be using.

Capturing the right leads and understating key data about them including demographics, geography, and socio-economics allows you to determine the kind of content, platforms, incentives, and even voice that will most likely help push them down the lead funnel.

Lead segregation involves classifying leads into different categories. This could be how and why they interact with your platforms including social media and your website as well as their sales-related activities. This way, you can filter out leads that are more useful for your business.

Finally, lead scoring is a useful tool for determining just how valuable your leads are. Leads with a higher score can usually be converted into repeat customers for your business.

Ace Your Content Marketing

Time and time again, marketers have said that content is king. There is strong evidence that sharing valuable content to your audience in the form of blogs, webinars, podcasts, and even infographics can help improve conversion rates.

Apart from being an excellent tool for educating your leads and customers, content marketing is also a great way to build trust and strong relationships with your target audience. In the process of sharing content that consumers find both interesting and useful, you are helping them make an informed buying decision.

But don’t just haphazardly publish content. Be intentional about it. Every piece of content you share should aim to solve your leads’ problems. 

More importantly, don’t forget to include a clear call-to-action to optimize your content for conversions. Tell your readers what they need to do next and guide them through their buying journey.

Leverage Email Marketing

There are few things better at nurturing leads than an effective email marketing strategy. As a lead conversion strategy, email campaigns help push customers further down the lead funnel by helping you stay on top of your target markets’ minds. The constant stream of messages helps your brand stick to their consciousness so that when they are ready to buy, you’ll be the first one on their mind.

Some best practices when it comes to email marketing include:

• Using simple emails. Too many bells and whistles won’t help your conversion rates. Customers are more likely to be indecisive and even navigate away from your website if you give them too many things to focus on. A drip campaign helps you keep every email simple and clean.
• Make your email personalized. This could be as simple as using your leads’ first name in every email but it could also be more sophisticated. This is where lead segmentation plays a crucial role. 

The content, tone, subject line, and even the layout of your email should be based on the segment you’re trying to reach. Remember, people won’t ever open an email they’re not interested in.

• Leverage email series. Often, one email is not enough to convert a lead. You’ll have to use a series of emails to lead customers down a desirable path. Don’t be afraid to send follow up emails to make sure that your customers successfully move from one lead funnel stage to another.
•  Use emails to send out deals and special offers. Including irresistible offers like discounts and freebies in your emails can help improve your conversion rates. Customers love a good deal and so by giving them an offer they can’t refuse, you’re guiding them further down the lead funnel and closer to hitting that check-out button.
• Test, test, test. A/B testing is crucial for every email campaign. This helps you determine what element of your emails works and what doesn’t. Testing elements such as a subject line, a title, an image, or a CTA can help in optimizing your emails and getting the most conversions out of them. 

Be Strategic About Social Media

Social media has always been a strong platform for generating leads but it can be just as strong as a lead conversion strategy.

For starters, social media is a great place to promote your content. Your followers are already interested in your brand and the product or services you offer so it stands to reason that you should educate them on this platform as well. Share your blog posts, infographics, and other nuggets of content to increase engagement and conversion.

When promoting content on social media, don’t forget to use relevant hashtags. This is a simple yet effective way to make your content more discoverable and to expand your influence.

It’s also a good idea to leverage user-generated content (UGC). Consumers trust other consumers so if your existing customers have something good to say about your brand, then flaunt it. You can feature almost anything including comments, reviews, videos, blog posts, forums, videos, and memes that are created by your fans.

Make Your Landing Pages Stand Out

Once a lead arrives on your website, the first thing he or she will see is your landing page. Building great landing pages can help convert leads and increase your sales.

Be strategic about the images, videos, microcopy, and the CTA buttons you will use. Make them appealing and engaging. Don’t forget to make sure that all of the links on your landing pages work and are placed there to generate and convert leads.

Keep Communication Lines Open

An effective lead conversion strategy involves keeping communications lines open between you and your leads. Nurturing leads by addressing all their concerns, answering their questions, and/or giving them regular brand updates helps in keeping them interested in your company.

Regularly follow up with your leads and keep them aware of your offerings and what makes your brand stand out. You can also ask them if there’s any information they’d want to know from you. This way, your potential customers know that you care about their needs and you’re keen on solving their problems.

Using different communication channels is key if you want to keep prospects engaged with your brand. Emails, social media, and even cold calling help increase brand awareness.

Measure Lead Conversion Metrics Regularly

Keeping track of your lead conversion ratio helps you in determining whether your conversion strategies are working or not. As a business owner, it’s always a good idea to be prudent in tracking performance indicators like conversion rates. Some metrics you should be regularly looking out for include:

• Revenue contribution of converted leads
• Opportunity win rates from converted leads
• Average opportunity size from converted leads
• Opportunity and win rates based on opportunity owner, lead owner, and lead source

By analyzing the right metrics, you can make data-driven decisions in the future instead of aiming blindly and hoping for something to stick.

Maintaining insight into how well your lead conversion strategy is performing helps you identify if something needs to be fixed. This helps you focus on tactics that are more likely to produce positive results for your business.

Now On to You!

In 2021 and beyond, implementing sound lead generation strategies is the key to scaling your business successfully. With the right tools under your belt, you’ll be able to turn leads into paying customers in no time.

If you still need a little extra nudge then maybe the expert lead conversion strategists at FreeUp can help! Just sign up for an account and you’ll be introduced to a lead conversion expert in just one business day.