How can you get more sales lead conversions?

If you build it, they will come. While that might have worked for Ray in Field of Dreams, when it comes to an online business you need more from your visitors than just showing up; you need to then turn those leads into conversions. So how can you get more sales lead conversions? That is an excellent question and as a top web development company, we wanted to share a fairly straightforward approach to help you move out of the field of dreams and into the reality of conversions.

The first thing to understand is the necessity of this process. It is already difficult enough to get viable leads coming to your site. You have investing time, energy, and money into your marketing efforts just to get people in the door so you really don’t want to waste those efforts by not then fine-tuning your conversion process.

Converting more Sales Leads

For most online businesses a multi-step process should be employed to maximize the sales lead conversion process:

• Capture attention – Just because someone comes to your website it doesn’t mean instant success. You still have to turn those visitor numbers into conversions. The first step in that process is by capturing their attention within seconds of arrival. This can be done with visuals, messaging – providing value. Visitors arrive at your site for a reason, typically because they have a problem to be solved from needing a product, staving off boredom, etc. There are many ways to capture attention from offering free solutions or demonstrating how your products or services can provide the value they need.
• Use analytics religiously – Tracking and analyzing data is most certainly not an exciting job function, however generating success is. Using metrics allows a better understanding of what is working and not working on a site and helps eliminate some of the guesswork that goes into formulating a plan geared towards success. In some cases, businesses are surprised to find an area they thought was a position of strength is actually a weakness.
• Testing calls to action – CTA’s are one of the most critical aspects of any site. If they aren’t being used then you simply aren’t closing deals. Due to the importance of CTA’s they should be tested regularly for everything from color and shape to placement.
• Testing other areas – While you are at it, why not spend time testing other critical aspects of your site? One of the benefits of those analytics is to see problem areas. Testing offers the opportunity to fix those areas or at least make improvements to increase their effectiveness. Even the smallest increases in efficiency will have a trickle effect on your overall conversion rate. Landing pages are a prime area to test along with forms and other data entry points.
• Follow-up quickly – Far too many businesses, especially B2B companies, take too long in contacting leads. In case you hadn’t noticed people have gotten used to the concept of instantaneous connections and communications which means if Company A does not respond quickly but Company B does, the customer will more likely work with Company B just to keep the ball rolling. For example, if you are asked to obtain quotes for service by your boss and after two days you have only received two quotes from eight vendor requests it is a good bet that one of those two will be who you end up selecting to work with.
• Thank people – This is something that can be overlooked easily, saying thanks. Gratitude goes a long way to fostering a stronger business relationship. Thank people for being interested in your products or services. Thank people for signing up for a newsletter, especially if that is a step early in your funnel.
• Keep an eye on the competition – This concept is very important because you can lose business to the competition for a host of reasons from better pricing, faster turn times, better customer services, or even marketing plans that resonate better. If you aren’t keeping track of what the other companies are doing it makes it difficult to compete effectively.

Of course, this multi-step process works best when you have good products or services that customers want or need and you already have a decent flow of customers coming to your website. If that is not the case then you might need to take advantage of some of our other posts on marketing, SEO, and the like to shore up those areas first. Then a focus can be placed on sales lead conversions.

The Bottom Line

The bottom line is that you can get more sales lead conversions by following what is by in large considered better business practices. These steps we have outlined are by no means groundbreaking or unheard of and they fit well with most business types. At the end of the day, it comes down to consistency and following the process to earn continued success. If you build it they might come, but making sure they stay and convert requires continual effort and focus.

Be sure to check back every week for great new Lounge Lizard blog articles.