It’s as obvious as it gets — you can’t get leads without a conversion process.
The conversion process is very crucial. Some of the leads even turn into a paying customer, which means revenue for your company. However, it all boils down to how do we acquire leads? Before we delve into that, let’s first understand the terminology of the word ‘lead.’
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In general, lead refers to a contact who has submitted a form in return for a content offer like an ebook, whitepaper, and more. It is placed on the top of the sales funnel.
A lead is identified as marketing qualified leads (MQL) if they are seen as more extremely engaged, sales-ready leads. For instance, they sign up for demo requests, attends a seminar, or more. These MQLs are then passed on to the salespeople.
So now you might be thinking, “Great! But what do I need to do to generate leads?”
Top 4 Tips for Lead Acquisition
1. How to Acquire MQL Leads
When you search articles for lead generation on Google, you will find a 997 million search results. No, I’m not kidding!
People are desperate to generate leads. Let’s face it — no leads means no business. That’s why acquiring leads is essential to keep your organization running. But how?
Well, a conversion process begins with a CTA (click-to-action button). When a visitor or prospect clicks on the CTA button, they are brought to a landing page. If you have a website, you will know every landing page needs to have a contact form where visitors can submit their information.
When they sign up on the form, they turn into a lead. They are then directed towards a Thank You page where they receive the offered content.
Proven Strategies for Lead Generation
- Email Marketing
I know your first question would be, “Is email still effective?” A big ‘Yes!’
Ninety-nine percent of consumers check their email at least once a day. Besides, 73 percent of consumers prefer email for marketing communications. An email has stood the test of time, and it is not going anywhere anytime soon. (Source)
- Blogging
Blogging is a great way to attract visitors as well as convert those visitors into leads. You can strategically promote offers on your blog posts by including ebook, free consultation, and more.
Besides, it allows you to establish yourself as an expert in the industry by publishing new, unique, and informative articles on a regular basis. It helps build trust with your prospects.
Latest Trends in Lead Generation for 2020
If you want a boosted conversion rate, you need to keep up with the latest trends in the lead generation industry. For example –
- Voice Search Marketing
Voice search is now one of the most preferred methods of searching for things online. That’s why brands are now focusing on how to optimize their website and content for voice search. To stay on top, brands will have to consider factors like the natural language process (NLP).
- Interactive Content
Interactive content helps gain prospects’ attention and is a great way to increase engagement. A few tips for implementing interactive contact includes creating interesting polls and quizzes, developing interactive videos and infographics, and more.
This allows readers to perceive information in an exciting way.
But only getting lead is not enough. You need to have an active team in place to convert your leads to highly qualified leads (HQL).
Also, Read: 7 Benefits of Using Engaging Quizzes as Your Lead Magnet
2. Conversion Time From MQL to HQL
Lead generation will help you bring in the potential customers. But if you leave them on the hook to dry, they will never really become your customer.
You need to increase your lead response time to make money from your leads. For those who don’t know, lead response time is the amount of time you take to respond to a lead after they have reached out to your company.
So you may ask, what is the best time to contact your leads? The answer is within 24 hours.
A report was made by Harvard Business Review, where they studied 1.25 million sales leads in the US. Those sales reps who tried to contact potential customers within an hour of receiving an inquiry were seven times more likely to qualify an HQL as compared to those that were contacted an hour later.
Besides, the conversion rate was 60 times higher than the ones who waited more than 24 hours to contact a lead.
3. The Importance of Fast Response
When a user visits your site for information, the chances are that you have what they want. They want to see if you can help them, and that’s why they submit a lead form.
When you immediately contact your prospect, it slightly increases your chance of conversion as they are interested in at the moment. Don’t believe us?
By responding to our potential lead, at SoftwareSuggest, in just five minutes of the form was filled, we were able to increase the contact rate by 90 percent.
To improve your lead response time, you can set in place automated mail or voice message to send to leads immediately after they sign up or fill a form on your website. Marketing automation can help you follow up with leads at regular intervals.
4. How Many Sales Attempts It Takes
Let’s have a look at the SoftwareSuggest data to give you a realistic idea.
- 2% of sales are made on the first contact
- 3% of sales are made on the second contact
- 5% of sales are made on the third contact
- 10% of sales are made on the fourth contact
- 80% of sales are made on the fifth to 12th contact
Your first attempt to call the lead should be within the first 15 mins. If you can’t sustain the prompt response time, you can always drop an automated message or email. Any improvement in response time will improve sales.
If you don’t hear any response from them, make a second attempt to reach out to them. Using CRM, you can also set a reminder to send you alerts about calling them again. You need to call them periodically to ensure contact.
On a closing note, sales reps should make at least five follow-up calls to leads before moving on.
However, depending on the product type, it might even take up more than a month to close a lead. That means more sales attempt than the usual count.
For instance, when you plan to install software, you will automatically take your time to choose the final one. Software installation is not something you do every month. That’s why the process of selecting the right software is a bit rigorous.
We noticed that for accounting software, it takes an average of 15 to 20 days for a consumer to make a purchase. Whereas, ERP software can take up to a month or two as people prefer to take trials before buying it. Similarly, CRM software requires more days than the usual software. Thus, the number of attempts for follow-up will also increase with it.
In a survey, it was seen that the participants made an average call attempt number of 2.8 times. 2.8 is less than ideal. If you want to close on more leads, you need to respond to your leads repeatedly.
Nilam Oswal is a Content Marketing Head and Brand Strategiest at SoftwareSuggest. When she’s not hard at work, she can be found wandering, reading, and just generally having a good time in life.
