Conversion rate is one of the most critical metrics for an organization’s website. Every business wants more leads since lead turns into customers, and customers bring in the revenue.
no leads = no revenue
Conversions are the cash crop of B2B business, they are where the money comes from.
You can be running the most fertile lead generation campaigns in the world, but if those leads do not convert into business opportunities then your business is not following the right track.
But conversions are most difficult to achieve. Forty-two percent of B2B business houses say converting leads into customers is their biggest challenge, and 25 percent do not even know their lead conversion rate.
Are you stuck in the same challenge? Are you confused about how to convert leads? Do you feel that your lead conversion rate is low or you have no knowledge about them?
We have created a guide just for you to understand and make proper strategies to optimize your lead conversion rate.
Let’s begin!!
How to measure the conversion rate?
Without the right strategy in place, your business can get trapped in a vicious cycle of generating leads but leads not getting converted which would lead to retention and loyalty.
Improving leads conversion rate:
1. Practice lead nurturing
A lead nurturing program gets hold of all the leads your business can capture (through web forms, blog subscriptions, downloads, and others.), coaxes them through the buying stages, and singles out which ones are most likely to convert. Instead of just sending untested leads to sales, you can use list segmentation and targeted content to further qualify them.
Lead nurturing is one of the main aims of marketing automation software. If you do not already have a platform in place, then customer conversion and retention becomes a question.
2. Set higher standards for lead quality
As stated by the recent trends report by BrightTALK, increasing lead quality has become the top priority for 68 percent of B2B business houses.
This indicates a larger shift in focus from lead quantity to quality
How do you define a “sales-ready” lead? ( what actions and criteria indicate interest and intent?) Who is the one responsible for the quality assurance process?
It is most important for marketers to set higher quality standards as they often struggle to show ROI and increase their contribution to revenue. Surveys revealed that most B2B marketers say their leads account for less than a fourth of overall revenue.
3. Use a lead scoring system
A lead scoring system is the most perfect way to quantify and scale your targeting requirements. The lead scoring system assigns each leads a numerical value based on firmographics data that has been acquired during lead capture (role, department, company size), as well as actions a lead has taken (browsing behaviour, downloads, email engagement, social media shares). When the lead reaches a certain numerical threshold, it is then passed to sales for follow-up.
If you implement lead scoring, you may be initially witnessing a decrease in lead volume, but later on, you will be able to witness an increase in the percentage of a qualified lead. About sixty-eight percent of marketers say that lead scoring improves their programs’ revenue contribution.
4. Connect your CRM and marketing automation platform
If you are trying to run lead generation campaigns without this key systems integration, you are then making a big mistake. A two-way integration is mostly needed, i.e between your CRM database and marketing automation platform (MAP) which gives sales and marketing teams the ability to work from a unified pipeline and share lead intelligence.
Businesses, on the other hand, can use the CRM/MAP integration to track close rates and other conversion metrics. That is a significant improvement, considering almost a quarter of all B2B business houses do not know how their efforts affect company revenue.
5. Capture the right lead information
Have a look at your various lead entry points like (web forms, landing pages, gated downloads, etc), and then ask yourself whether you are getting the right information about each lead from the outset. This is tricky in nature. You do not want to create too many demands and risk losing the prospect over privacy concerns, but if you do not get the right pieces of information, it will be definitely hard to allocate that prospect.
Most web forms have three to five fields, so make sure to choose your questions wisely. Email and name are usually non-negotiable, so two of them have already accounted for. Most of them ask for basic firmographic info like company name and industry but You can always consider a custom question, depending on the circumstances.
6. Run data verification
40 percent of B2B leads suffer from poor data quality mainly characterized by missing form fields, duplicated data, invalid formatting, failed email validation, and various other issues. If you are working from a database of inaccurate lead profiles, then you will have a pretty hard time connecting with leads. This could lead to a number of devastating effects on your lead generation campaigns, including deliverability issues, unreliable lead scoring, botched personalization
7. Feed your lead generation strategy with targeted content
Content is the main key to how you communicate with prospects and leads. It is how you offer them value and tell your brand’s story. 86 percent of B2B businesses are using content marketing as their core strategy.
The best content does not always just attract visitors and get you a bunch of social media shares, it also educates readers and uses their goals and priorities to shed light on latent buying needs. That basically implies you will need a fairly stout library of content written to specific buyer personas and tailored to different stages of the funnel.
8. Align sales development with marketing resources
In most of the B2B businesses, there is a chasm between marketing and sales. Once a lead is delivered, marketers wash their hands of it, and then they certainly do not like to participate in the sales development process — which can be the most challenging part.
The sales development representatives job is to move leads from hand-raiser to committed buyers and since marketers create assets, they should work directly with the Sales department to determine specific requirements.
24 percent faster revenue growth for companies is determined by well-aligned sales and marketing departments.
9. Master the art (and timing) of the follow-up
Most people tend to blame marketers for low lead conversion rates, but sales representatives also have some responsibilities to own and one of the biggest is following up with leads. How quickly they can follow up and how well they can handle the conversation have a lot to do with whether or not a lead converts.
Knowledgeable sales department and an appropriate timeframe are crucial to a successful follow-up.
Also Read: 10 Simple Ways to OptimizeYour Website For Lead Generation
10. Supplement your programs with purchased leads
It is common for B2B businesses to buy leads from a third-party provider — a lead generation service or B2B marketing agency. Sixty-one percent of all large companies and 46 percent of small companies use a combination of generated and purchased leads.
Outsourced demand generation could be a good way to keep your pipeline full but you need to partner with a company that accommodates both your targeting requirements and keeps a track record of success
Wrapping up.
In the end, Only about 22% of businesses are satisfied with their conversion rates. While others still struggle with their lead conversion rate. Where are they going wrong? How can they engage the audience to complete a lead form? What actions were taken by the enterprise that put off the audience and forced them to unsubscribe?
No organization can perfectly master all areas but with a little extra effort in the right places, every organization can start bringing in leads that are qualified, responsive, and ready to make a decision.
Now you know what steps you can take to improve your lead conversion rate. Which of these you feel are useful to you. Tell us how you feel in the comments below! we are waiting to hear back from you.
