Lead conversion—the process of transforming prospects into paying customers—is the bread and butter of sales. Improving your conversion rate is crucial for increasing overall sales and success. But it’s not always simple. Between ineffective marketing tactics and misalignment between marketing and sales teams, turning a tire kicker into a customer takes time and effort.
If you’re looking for a sure-fire guide to converting leads into clients, keep reading. Below, we’ll describe how to build an effective lead conversion strategy, provide solutions to common conversion obstacles, and more.
What is lead conversion?
“Lead conversion” is essentially making a sale; anytime a prospective client “converts” into a customer, you accomplish lead conversion.
But lead conversion isn’t a happy accident. While organic sales are certainly possible, sales and marketing teams convert most leads by using specific strategies designed to:
- Target ideal customers
- Build a relationship with prospective clients
- Welcome new customers to the brand
- Turn one-time customers into loyal, returning patrons
Building an effective lead conversion strategy
What do these specific strategies look like?
- Identifying your target audience – Your target audience will depend on your industry, your product or service, your prices, and more. To identify your target audience, brainstorm with your sales and marketing teams to suss out general groups of prospects, such as people in your sales area with the means to purchase your product.
- Generating high-quality leads – Once you know your target audience, you can generate leads within that audience by marketing your services. Creating a website, using social media platforms, and advertising your brand can all drum up interest and bring high-quality leads out of the woodwork. Learn more about lead generation.
- Scoring and qualifying leads – To protect your bottom line, you need to invest the right amount of time and money into the leads that are the most likely to convert. By using lead scoring tools and strategies (either software or manual sales “rules”), you can prioritize the customers most likely to convert and spend your resources efficiently.
As an example, take a look at our case study of home furnishings and apparel brand Cath Kidson. Using sponsored posts on Nextdoor—an all-in-one local business networking platform—the brand increased awareness and drove conversions, especially among new customers. In doing so, the brand demonstrated the power of targeted marketing strategies to increase conversion rates.
Steps to convert leads into customers
Converting leads into customers can take time to master. As you flesh out your strategy, remember the three simple steps it takes to convert a lead:
- Lead nurturing – Using personalized campaigns (via email marketing, for instance), you can build and maintain brand awareness among your target audience, coaxing leads out of your target group.
- Sales engagement – Once a lead shows interest in your products or services, it’s time for the sales team to step in. Sales experts listen to customers’ needs, demonstrate products, and create tailored proposals (when applicable)—they get the ball rolling and usher prospects across the conversion finish line.
- Timely follow-up – Sales don’t always happen right away. After an initial pitch, the sales and marketing teams need to collaborate on timely follow-up with leads. Follow-up shows the customer that you’re invested in them and helps you keep your brand at the front of their mind.
Tools and technology for lead conversion
If you're looking to invest in high-octane lead conversion tools, consider:
- Customer relationship management (CRM) systems – CRM systems help businesses implement, track, and tweak their sales and marketing approaches (among other functions). You can use them to automate lead conversion efforts like follow-up.
- Marketing automation tools – With marketing automation tools (like email and SMS marketing campaign platforms), you can implement lead nurturing, conversion, and remarketing strategies with fewer manual tasks.
- Analytics and reporting tools – Analytics and reporting tools help businesses monitor conversion rates, engagement with marketing materials, overall sales, and other metrics that help determine the effectiveness of campaigns.
Advanced techniques to enhance lead conversion
Even if you don’t leverage advanced tools for lead conversion, you can still enhance your lead nurturing process with advanced techniques like:
- Personalization – Whether you use clients’ names in targeted campaigns (like emails or SMS messages) or simply work hard to deliver tailored content based on a lead’s interests, try to personalize your marketing messages as much as possible. Personalization makes clients feel valued and facilitates personal connections to your brand.
- Leveraging testimonials and reviews – Customer reviews can be a gold mine for businesses looking to grow. By encouraging customers to leave reviews, offering incentives to do so, and responding to reviews, brands can increase local awareness and build credibility with prospects. This is one of the biggest benefits of using a Nextdoor Business Page: the ability to integrate local networking with a built-in customer review system.
- Offering incentives – Speaking of incentives, offering rewards, promotions, and deals to customers is a simple, effective way to encourage conversion, especially among high-intent leads.
Challenges in lead conversion and how to overcome them
As you hone in on your lead conversion strategy, you may hit roadblocks like:
- Lack of alignment between marketing and sales teams – If your sales and marketing teams aren’t on the same page, you might miss out on quality leads. To prevent this, encourage collaboration between both of these critical arms of your business.
- Low-quality leads – If you feel like you aren’t pursuing the highest quality leads, consider improving the lead qualification process by adjusting your targeted advertising, using lead scoring tools, or reassessing your target market entirely.
- Delayed response time – Having trouble responding to leads in a timely manner? Streamline your follow-up processes by incorporating automation tools. They facilitate automatic follow-up and free up time for manual tasks.
- Ineffective lead nurturing – If you aren’t generating enough leads, head back to the drawing board to develop campaigns that are more personalized to your target audience (or even specific segments of that audience). This is exactly what homebuilder brand James Hardie did. To drive new leads, the brand invested in Newsfeed and Video Sponsored Posts on Nexdoor. This helped nurture leads with high-intent locals.
Measuring and optimizing your lead conversion rate
As you work toward optimal lead conversion, devote time to:
- Tracking key metrics – Regularly calculate your return on investment (ROI) for sales and marketing, your cost per click (CCP) for paid ads, and your cost per sale to evaluate the overall efficiency of your campaign.
- Continually improving – If the metrics above aren’t satisfactory, tweak your sales and marketing strategies to continually improve your chances of lead conversion.
Hone in on lead conversion with Nextdoor
Looking for an all-in-one platform you can use to build brand awareness, nurture leads, connect one-on-one with prospects, and scale your small business? Turn to Nextdoor: a platform designed to connect neighbors with local businesses like yours.
Creating a Nextdoor Business Page makes it easy for neighbors to find your business, recommend it to other locals, leave reviews, and get information about promotions and other brand news. With Nextdoor, you can generate and convert leads all in one place.
Get started on your Nextdoor Business Page now.
Sources:
- Forbes. Leads Are Great, Sales Are Better: Six Strategies to Drive Lead Conversion Success. https://business.nextdoor.com/en-us/resources/success-stories/james-hardie-consistently-exceeded-cpl-goals-in-their-top-markets
- Deloitte. CRM 101: What is CRM? https://www.deloitte.com/mt/en/Industries/technology/perspectives/mt-salesforce-crm-101.html
- Forbes. The Power of Personalization: Crafting Tailored Marketing Campaigns for Maximum Impact. https://www.forbes.com/councils/forbesbusinesscouncil/2024/07/22/the-power-of-personalization-crafting-tailored-marketing-campaigns-for-maximum-impact/
