The whole function of a marketing campaign is to generate leads and potential clients. Getting your company’s name in front of your ideal target audience is a great start, but transitioning those contacts through the marketing funnel by turning them into lukewarm leads and then into paying clients can prove to be quite a challenge.
A common question asked by many of our clients is, “How can we convert prospects into leads?”
Well, it starts at the beginning of a campaign…
When you begin planning out your campaign strategy, make sure to have a solid understanding of what a conversion means to you. A conversion depends on the goal you have set for a specific campaign. Generally it’s when a prospect has interacted with your company, for example if they were to sign up for a newsletter, download a guide, or even become a client…etc
Once you determine what action qualifies as a conversion, it’s then time to consider how you’re going to report on the conversions. You should be able to follow the journey of everyone who flows through your campaign – how did they enter the campaign, where did they go next and how did they convert? With this visibility, you will be able to monitor;
- who is most interested
- what each person has seen/done
- where each person is in the campaign
Some ways in which you can track conversions is through tools such as Google Analytics and Adwords (for pay per click campaigns), which monitor how many people click through to your website and where they come from. It also shows how long people spent on each page and the journey they took through your site.
You can also set up conversion tracking on each of these tools, which will offer you additional, more specific reporting, on prospect engagement.
The next step is to determine how each prospect will be contacted…
Since you’ve kept a close eye on the progress of your campaign, you will begin to see which contacts are demonstrating the most engagement. These contacts can now be identified as warm leads and should be contacted on a more personal level.
How you approach each lead depends on a number of things;
- how you originally got in touch with them (social media, advert, letter, email…)
- what kind of contact details they’ve given to you
- how much interest they have shown in your services
- what kind of information they’ve demonstrated the most engagement with
If they’ve only shown some interest, you don’t want to call them ready to sell – it’s better just to reach out personally via email until they’ve warmed up more. But if they’ve shown a lot of eagerness in your offerings, you’ll want to approach them differently – maybe even over the phone. You don’t want to come in too soft if they are nearly ready to sign.
The final step is research…
Before getting in contact with the lead, make sure you research them. After reviewing their campaign engagement, try to learn more about their business and determine what their concerns might be – you’ll want to be ready to address their hesitations or worries.
If you can offer your new contact some solutions when you get in touch, they are more likely to see your value, which might be all the proof they need to see that you are able to help them or their company advance.
With these steps in place, you should see a rise in the rate of conversions for your company. If you are struggling and need some additional help, don’t hesitate to get in touch and a member of our team will be more than happy to help!
