Funneling prospective customers through the conversion pipeline is tough enough without trying to do it with a shakily-built foundation. To ensure that your foundation is right as rock, use this checklist of 4 common mistakes internet marketers make that continually kill lead-to-customer conversions:
Set it and Forget It
So, you got a lead, you add it to your email marketing list and file it away under “will hopefully convert sometime in the near future” file. We all get into bad habits like this one. After all, it leaves us time to focus on scoring large quantities of leads that will lead to higher conversion rates, due to their sheer numbers. Wrong again. Focusing on high-quality, not quantity, lead nurturing will fill your sales funnel every time. If you don’t have time to do both then hire someone to take the lead on one.
After all, only 25% of leads are ready to turn into customers right then and there. While converting ¼ of all leads sounds pretty good—it means that you are missing out on 75% of your sales opportunities. So, stop filing them away and focus your (or your employee’s) efforts on moving them through the sales cycle.
Not Recognizing the Value of Marketing Automation Tools
The personalization that marketing automation tools bring to your lead-nurturing campaign is invaluable. The information they collect about your leads’ on-site and off-site behavior are critical to lead nurturing. Lead nurturing requires both properly segmenting your lead list and using personalized approaches to turn leads into conversions; marketing automation tools do both of those things very well. The more info you collect, to more-targeted your communications are. The more targeted your communiques are—the more likely you will be in turning a lead into a conversion.
Repeated Bad Timing
It is an undeniable fact that timing is critical in sales. If your email blast or latest communique hits at just the right time, presto a conversion. If your email blast hits at just the wrong time, zonk an unsubscribes request. Timing can means the difference between a sale and a lost prospect, so get it right. To improve your timing:
- Test your email marketing frequency rates to ensure your email timing is spot-on.
- Use marketing automation tools to send the right information at the right point in the sales cycle.
- Monitor social media networks to stay on top of when prospective clients are looking to purchase. Monitor social mentions of not only your brand name but also your competitors.
- Use your CRM tool to store time-related notes about customers, for example, if they make their purchase orders on Tuesday at 9am then contact them early in the morning or later in the afternoon on Monday.
If you can use the above to improve your timing you should see a large jump in your prospect-to-conversion rate.
Not Capitalizing on your Best Offers
Your best offers and deals should score front-page real estate on your homepage, social media accounts, blog and email blasts. Include your best offers with non-traditional real estate as well, like product pages, call-to-actions, forum posts, etc. Use the timing from above to ensure that the best offer is sent to your leads who are close to purchasing—but send it at the right time of course.
In addition to avoiding the above all-too-common lead nurturing mistakes, you must commit time and technology to the cause. A proper lead-nurturing campaign takes a concerted effort on a regular basis. If you do not have the time or technological know-how to execute a proper lead-nurturing campaign then consider outsourcing the job to an employee or freelancer. If you do have the time but need a little more know-how then browse our internet-marketing, lead-nurturing and email-marketing topics here (or add to your RSS).
Robin Wilding is a professionally trained Canadian journalist striving to bring journalistic-era intergity to online media. She has a second degree in Political Science--with a focus on International Relations and the developing world. Currently Robin is a contributor to several technology publications, including Brajeshwar.com, SocialTechnologyReview.com, HostingIndustryWatch.com, AnimationCareerReview.com and CompareBusinessProducts.com. She also works for several web developers; and does ghost writing for several high level executives within the technology sector. Robin's work is showcased in her portfolio: http://shownd.com/robinwilding
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