Nurturing Leads Into Sales by AscendWorks

About AscendWorks

AscendWorks is a leader in inbound marketing strategy. We help businesses create and deliver a winning strategy that helps them grow their business in the new economy.

Contact Us AscendWorks, LLC 100 Congress Avenue Suite 2000 Austin, TX 78701 Tel: 800-878-2752 Email: info@ascendworks.com Web: www.ascendworks.com

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You get leads. Your leads turn into customers. Your customers become delighted and continue to need your service – simple, right? If this is how the equation works, why is it so difficult to nurture interested customers into warmer leads, and then sales? When the economy collapsed, competition for certain keywords and for leads doubled. Businesses that were once able to make money off platforms like Google Adwords found themselves completely unable to use the same methods for getting new customers in the door. As a result, companies needed to return calls that much faster, answer emails that much more quickly, and give their pitches more succinctly than ever in order to get new business. Speedy response became an expectation and competitive advantage. Taking a day to respond to an email quote or a phone call wasn’t going to cut it anymore. If companies waited a few hours on a lead, they might lose out to a company that followed up 5-10 minutes after the lead came in. What does this tell us about how we nurture leads, and turning leads into prospects?

1. Pay Attention to the Times When it comes right down to it, the way your prospects behave is going to have a lot to do with the times. If there’s an economic downturn, you may need to be quicker to the punch on nurturing leads. If your sale rate after you respond to a lead is lower, you might just need to call back faster. Don’t be afraid to ask potential clients if they’ve talked to a competitor, or who else is in the running for their business. 1

It is also key to watch metrics: If your inquiries are lower, you may need to start testing different landing pages and re-building a conversion funnel. Try adding a FREE report, or something free to the process, to get leads. Finally, the ideal is to take yourself out of the way – don’t let there be any middle step that stands between the click and the sale. The free report? The long quote form? Those aren’t going to work. Obstructing your customer’s way to a sale in any way is like standing in your own shopping line, talking to customers at length so they can’t get out of the store quickly? Would you do that in a real-life shopping scenario? Probably not.

2. Know How Your Ticket Price Affects Sales Particularly if you’re a new business, you have to understand that your conversion funnel has a timeline – meaning, customers will take longer to buy if they’re spending hundreds or thousands of dollars on your item. You have to put the appropriate elbow grease – clear, engaging articulation of customer pain and your company’s value – into letting customers know this is a good investment. Whether your business is new or has been around a while, you absolutely must know what your normal conversion process is to turn a lead into a sale. This is where the nurturing process begins. Start by defining your conversion process. Answer these basic questions: • How can customers buy your products? Example: On our website, in our brick and mortar store, at Whole Foods 2

• How do customers get to these points of sale? Example: On our website: From PPC, from organic search listings, from email marketing In our brick and mortar store: We get people in with TV and print ads. Whole Foods: Customers who are shopping in the holistic health sections. • If customers don’t buy immediately, how do you “keep them in the loop” so they come back for a later purchase? Example: Send timely articles that increase credibility or highlight features or seasonal deals. After you’ve padded out your conversion process, start looking at Analytics. Use Google Analytics (it’s free!) if you don’t already have tracking in place. You must use some kind of tracking to get an idea of what your customers are doing on your website. Get familiar with terms like Bounce Rate (the % of people who leave your pages without taking any action), Unique Visitors, and associated metrics. Develop a deep understanding of what it takes for a customer to buy from you. If you don’t have a conversion funnel, it’s time to build one. Ask yourself this – are you giving potential customers a peek into the value process of what your product can provide? This is information your potential clients need to feel confident about a purchase.

3. Profile Your Customers If you truly want to nurture your sales into leads, you need to understand the different reservations your customers have about buying a product – and work to get rid of those reservations. 3

You can better understand the things that keep your customers from buying by understanding your customers. Audience profiling is the type of thing that can only benefit your business. This is the kind of information that Google Analytics doesn’t give you – keeping record of the kind of people you do business with is vital in every way. Start profiling your customers. In some cases, a survey might work – but you can’t always rely on a customer to complete a survey without some kind of incentive. Combat this by keeping a record of certain things you can ascertain about your customers. A good list to start:

• • • • • •

Location Income (naturally you should guess this; don’t ask) Background Gender Ethnicity Age

These are just starter options. There should also be more detailed demographic data ideas, such as what industry your client is in, the level of service they’re looking for, the search terms they use to find your services, etc. The idea here is to look for patterns. Selling is all about understanding a customer’s pain and providing him or her with viable solutions from your company. By profiling, you can get some ideas of customers’ typical “pain” and better understand how to alleviate that through your products and services. When you begin to profile your audience, you may be surprised at the data that comes out. When it comes to nurturing leads into sales, knowledge is key. You have to understand your customer, and how different parts of your sales 4

process, your ticket price and the atmosphere you’re selling in affect your conversions. Knowledge is power. Don’t stop at your own sales process – take a look at what competitors are doing. Don’t replicate your competitors – work to go a step beyond by understanding your customer, and making your offer as appealing as possible. Also, don’t wait to follow up on leads. If your competitor’s response time is shorter, you could be losing a customer. Ask your customers what they’re looking for, and give them the enthusiasm that lets them know you want to serve them. This, coupled with an understanding of how your own sales process affects a potential customer can take your brand a long way.

Take Action If you want to put these strategies into action, feel free to set up a meeting with us at AscendWorks. Send an email to info@ascendworks.com or visit our site www.ascendworks.com/schedule for a complimentary consultation.

100 Congress Avenue, Austin, TX 78701 | 800-878-2752 | info@ascendworks.com