8 Best Practices To Convert Leads Into Sales

Having tons of leads feels like you’re sitting on a goldmine. You can see the potential of the lead when you start working on them, and you can see them turn into successful sales, but at some point during the way, right at the closing stage, the conversion rates just don’t justify all the efforts, hard work of a lead generation. This is a problem faced by most businesses, and you’re not alone!! All you need to do is fill in the gaps and set things right. Here are the 8 best practices to convert leads into sales

• Know Your Sales funnel Strategy

With the advancement of technology, marketing is more sophisticated. Through a sales funnel, you can visualize and pinpoint various parts of the customer sales process, and apply your strategies effectively. With this visual representation, you could implement appropriate steps or identify challenges in the scoping, engaging or the closing stage.  At the end of the sales funnel, you’ll be able to narrow down your efforts towards the most qualified leads with the highest possible conversion rates.

1. Content Marketing

93% of B2B companies say content marketing generates more leads than traditional marketing strategies.  Content marketing is the process of putting your expertise out there, with topics that interest the audience, through social media, blog posts, videos, etc. You can drive the demand and awareness about the benefits of your products and services, thus, indirectly attracting your target audience i.e customers.. Content marketing also builds your reputation and credibility. According to this survey, 75% of global consumers claim that they would continue to buy a brand they trust, even if another competitor becomes more popular.

1. Marketing Automation And CRM Integration

CRM has been around for ages, revolutionizing the sales process. However, a CRM will be great for tracking sales, but it won’t provide you with marketing automation or insights of marketing. Marketing automation is responsible for all the marketing content you’re sending out, whether it’s a landing page, marketing emails or social media posts. By merging these two systems, there will be a seamless integration between your sales process and leads content generation.

1. Lead Scoring Model/Audience Segmentation

If you have a sales Pipeline, then having a lead Vetting model would be the next best thing you should have. With a lead vetting model, you’ll know which leads are hot, warm and cold ones, and which ones may need more nurturing, before it’s time to start converting them into sales . This model gives you a quantitative and qualitative value to the leads, based on the information they have, then you can figure out the engagement level, demographics, how and when to reach out to the prospective customer.

1. Following Up With Customers

One very important part is not following up with the customer.  If you fail to follow up at any stage of the sales process, the lead goes cold. Even if a customer shows interest, and you don’t follow up, they’ll eventually lose interest. Each stage of the sales process is crucial, including the engagement stage. Following up even after the sale is also crucial, to ensure that it’s not just a “one-time deal” and that you are making a long term Relationship with the customer with repetitive sales.

1. Using Lead Generation Forms That Convert

The data used in the lead vetting model comes from a lot of sources, and one of the most important one is web forms. These could be contact forms on the home page, surveys during the engagement stage, registration forms and much more. You should put serious thought in the Why , whose and where and especially demographics of the intended customer when creating them or putting them up. According to WP Forms, 74% of companies use web forms for lead generation, and 49.7% of them say that online forms are their highest lead scraping rep generation tool.

1. CTAs

After you’ve given your sales pitch, and taken the customer on board, into considering purchasing your product or services, the only missing element is a good CTA. This is also known as “call to action”- a prompt to take action. This could be a message at the end of an explainer video, at the end of a blog post, right on the home-page (eg. Contact Us For A Free Consultation) taking part in a free trial and much more. Without a prompt to take action, your sales process might just go cold, yet again.

1. Actions Speak Louder Than Words

Although sales is a lot about your own personality traits, and one’s ability/capability of an individual salesperson in convincing your customers, the secret to being a good seller is your actions , when completing the whole sales process, and also those that a customer can see and verify. Do keep all of the best practices in mind, and you’ll see how your conversion ratio could jump with leaps and bounds!

Conclusion

At the end of the day, your target customer is just like you. The process must have all the do’s and don’ts of how you like to be treated when completing a sale. The process should be easy, understandable and verifiable at every step for every individual who visits your website or your platform. Once the customer gets that feeling and confidence from you that you are dependable, then that’s the first step in making that “Relationship” you always cherish to have.

Authors Bio

The author is a dedicated Sales professional for over 20 years experience in direct and indirect sales,and his area of expertise has been training cold calling and developing sales and business representatives. His passion includes helping Small Medium Businesses and startups achieve their business goal in a simple and sustainable manner.