6 Ways to Convert High-Quality Leads into Customers

It goes without saying that lead generation is of crucial importance for any business whose marketing strategies are linked with sales or demand. Moreover, 51% of marketers consider the acquisition of leads as the most important goal that their marketing efforts should be directed at. 
However, it’s not just about generating as many leads as possible - it’s mainly about the leads being of high-quality. Your team might bring you hundreds or thousands of leads but how many of them will drive actual sales? 

A high-quality lead presupposes the existence of all or at least, some of the following factors: 

• High-standard data

• A buying process that’s fully mapped out and measurable

• A way of collecting all qualification information 

• A confirmed date and time for a so-called introductory call 

It’s very important to ensure that your sales team focuses on the targeting and generation of quality leads because cheap leads will surely create problems for your business later adding up additional costs.

Below is a list of a few effective tips and strategies to help you on your path to acquiring quality leads and converting them into actual sales in the future:

1. Create a Lead Nurturing Strategy

Buyers want you to listen to them, understand their needs and expectations and only then start making your offer. According to a study, 73% of leads aren’t ready to buy even if they have given you their contact details. So, if your sales team is too pushy, the probability of losing the lead is quite high.

The right thing to do is to try to nurture your leads until they are ready to do business with you. Building a lead nurturing strategy is a huge contribution not only to creating solid customer relationships but also to fostering the customer experience. As they say, a satisfied customer is a “walking advertisement” for your company. 

Through lead nurturing, your buyers will get to know your business as a result of which you’ll have a chance to educate, inform and build trust with them. When they are certain about the quality of your product or service and about the trustworthiness of your company, your leads will turn into actual buyers. 

The following are a few effective tips on how you can build a successful lead nurturing strategy: 

1. Align your sales and marketing teams, make sure they have a clear idea of what they should do with the leads. When the lead is ready for the sales process, give it to your sales team to handle. If the lead isn’t ready for sales, let the marketing team nurture it. 

2. Define a lead management process by discussing the following questions with your sales and marketing teams:  How will your company deal with the leads? How and where will you register the leads? How will the leads be qualified? When and how will the follow-up of the leads be done? What criteria will the leads have to meet so as to get into your lead nurturing program? 

3. Accumulate lead intelligence data by interviewing your prospects or customers, looking up your database and determining the features of your best and worst customers, interviewing your customer service team, doing keyword research, keeping a track of the customers’ activities on social media, etc. This will help you create buyer personas and develop the type of content you need (for the different stages of the buyer’s journey). 

4. Carry out email marketing campaigns for generating more leads. You can send the following types of emails to generate leads: educational, email newsletters, demo/product announcements, event invitations, personal emails, etc. 

Implement your lead nurturing strategy into your overall marketing plan and train your marketing team to improve their skills. You can even develop a separate lead nurturing team for reaching the best results. 

2. Optimize Your CTA

Your call to action has the power to convert a lead into an actual customer. A successful, memorable and catchy CTA should come with the following 4 important components: 

• Hook: You should grab the attention of your visitors by offering them something of value for free. If the visitors aren’t buying anything, they have no reason to leave their email address. This is why you should have a hook - an enticing offer. Think of offering them, say, some valuable content which will help their business (let them download the content for free by just entering an email address). 

• Copy: In order for people to subscribe, your “hook” needs to have an interesting title and description as well. Such expressions as “free”, “do/reach this/that in X days”, “step by step guide” are the ones you can include in your copy to get people interested. 

• Design: It’s no news that the visual part is what attracts people first. Ensure your design is eye-catching and makes your CTA stand out.

• CTA Position: The most common positions for CTAs are above the fold, top right, end of content, footer, bottom right, header or you can just make a pop-up.

3. Publish High-Quality Content on Your Blog

High-quality content is key to building trust between you and your customers. If your content is an easy-read and provides valuable information, be sure that it’ll play a huge role in your SEO ranking. 
Besides, high-quality blog posts can also convert your visitors into customers - when the readers come back to you for finding more interesting content, a certain kind of bond and trust is built between them and your brand. This eventually results in them getting interested in your products and services. 

Don’t underestimate the power of high-standard content on your website and increase your chances of attracting more customers with your well-written articles! 

4. Share Your Content on Social Media

Considering the fact that over 3 billion people around the world use social media, it’s no surprise that one of the main sources for quality lead generation is sharing your content on different social media platforms. 
Publishing your content on social sites, you’ll reach a wider audience letting more people learn about your product and service. This will increase your lead generation and if your content is relevant and valuable, the chances that your leads will convert into customers will get higher. 

Above all, social media will also improve your customer relationship management because you’ll be able to respond instantly to your customers, answer their comments and guide them in their search. 

5. Implement Exit-Intent Popup

If you’re thinking of other ways as to how to convert leads into actual customers, exit-intent popups might be what you’ve been looking for.
Studies have shown that websites with exit popups have higher conversion rates than those without them. It’s common knowledge that new users usually never return to you after leaving and an exit-intent popup can be your last chance of having them stay. 

Exit popups appear the moment the users want to leave - the best time to try and change their mind. Your exit popups should contain relevant and engaging offers in order to persuade the user to stay with you or give you some contact information (e.g., email address). 

Make sure that your popups are relevant to the activity of the user on your website, e.g., if the user has been reading an article on your blog, the popup can offer another article relevant to the same topic. Don’t forget to provide an eye-catching design and interesting CTA. 

6. Conduct SMS Marketing Campaigns

SMS marketing is one of the most effective and affordable ways of reaching out to your customers and increasing your lead generation. If done correctly, you can generate high-quality leads and later convert them into actual customers. Here are a few tips on how to carry out successful bulk text messaging campaigns in order to foster your business growth: 

• Personalize your messages whenever possible. This will make your potential customers feel special and valued. 

• Have a clear and catchy CTA. Your customers should be able to easily understand how to claim their reward, coupon code and the like.

• Don’t flood your customers with text messages, send weekly or monthly texts - always be concise with your timing. 

• Follow up with your text messaging campaigns. Let your customers reply to you with texts as well for higher convenience. 

SMS marketing is utterly easy to set up and use and it will improve your lead generation significantly. Not having a mass texting campaign will hurt your business and deprive you of the chance to have a larger loyal customer base. 
Don’t miss your chance, set up a bulk text messaging campaign, keep your texts short and include a to-the-point CTA to engage more customers. 

Generate high-quality leads, convert them into actual customers and grow your business by following our quick tips and implementing the most effective marketing strategies out there!