In this article I’m going to discuss how to convert leads to sales. You might also want to check out my previous article “converting traffic into leads“. Before we get into the leads to sales bit, it’s worth reiterating the importance of your target audience which I covered in the previous article. Your target audience is the section of the online marketplace who is most interested in your products or service. They are the ones who will become your best customers. So before you write any content on a blog, or set up an advert to send traffic to your website, you should do some work on your customer avatar using the customer avatar worksheet pdf.
Your customer avatar is that person who is going to buy your products. Get to know them by looking at your existing customers who already buy from you. Or think about who is best served by your products or service. When you clearly “see” and identify your perfect customer (customer avatar), your advertising budget will go further (and so will your content) because you’ll be targeting the right kind of people and bringing them to your site.
When the people landing on your website are super well targeted, you’ll have more success turning them into leads. But if they are the wrong type of visitors, it’s going to be more difficult.
How To Convert Leads Into Sales – Returning Visitors Buy More Often
Most visitors landing on your website won’t buy anything on their first visit. Studies show that online visitors will need between 6-7 touch points before the sale is made. This means that despite all your marketing efforts, most of your visitors won’t buy from you straight away. This can get expensive if you’re running paid advertising, and frustrating if you’re a content creator. To help with this issue there’s a number of tools you can use to get your visitors back to your website after they first arrive:
- Email marketing – set up an autoresponder and collect subscribers by offering a high value giveaway on your website in exchange for their email address.
- Push notifications – works in a similar way to email marketing. Visitors opt in to be notified of new content and are sent back to your site when you publish it.
- Retargeting – retargeting offers a means to track visitors who have landed on your site and bring them back with targeted advertising.
Ideally set up all three of these strategies on your website. The retargeting adverts you run will bring them back. The push notifications and the email marketing will keep them coming back. These tactics allow you to build on the touch points that the typical visitor would have with your business.
How To Convert Leads Into Sales
So you have your marketing strategies set up and you are now successfully building an email list of subscribers from your site. See my previous article for more details on converting traffic into leads. You’ve put everything in place to attract your target audience to your website. You’re going to have more chance of converting a lead who is a well targeted one than one who might not be interested in what you are selling.
Once someone signs up to your email list, they hand over their email with the expectation of getting something in return. This is your lead magnet. It might be an ebook or a video course, for example, but it should be congruent with your target audience and your product/service.
Make sure you deliver on this promise and give huge value in your email follow up. But you can also send your visitor directly to an offer just after they opt in to your email list. This is often the best opportunity to catch your subscriber at the pique of their interest.
For example, when someone signs up to your email list, you can send them to a sales page, or offer them something of value. The thank you for subscribing landing page is a good opportunity to build trust and/or promote your product/service. Don’t waste it with a generic landing page (see below). This is sometimes known as a tripwire funnel. When a subscriber takes a certain action, it triggers another offer/sales page.
How To Convert Leads Into Sales – Email Follow Up
Most email marketers have a follow up email series which delivers on the promise they make at the sign up point. If you don’t deliver on this promise, or you deliver something which is of little value, your subscribers won’t pick up your emails in the future and you’ll soon drop into their spam basket! In fact only around 40% of your first email messages will even get opened!
This is why it’s so important to use your thank you page as an opportunity to engage your subscribers at the moment they enter their details. They may never open your emails!
With the right email follow up series you can engage your subscribers, offer them value and build trust. Don’t go for the hard sell on your every email or you risk pushing people away. Build trust first by offering value in your emails.
If your emails are useful and informative, your subscribers are more likely to open them in future and you can build trust with your subscribers over a longer time frame, bringing them back to your website and showcasing your products and services.
Law Of Reciprocity
In the online world we are in a buyers market. If you’ve ever left a store because of a pushy sales person, you’ll know how off putting it can be.
To build trust offer value instead of pushing your products. Let the subscribers decide whether your product is right for them. Use your email messages to build rapport and help subscribers better understand your services and products and what they can do for them.
“Few people would be surprised to learn that, as a rule, we prefer to say yes to the requests of someone we know and like” – Influence Robert Cialdini
The law of reciprocity, sometimes also known as the norm of reciprocity, refers to a social phenomenon when people feel obliged to give back to someone who gave them something. So give value in your emails first to build trust.
Email messages can also be used to bring your subscribers back to your website. This reminds them of their interest in whatever it is you do.
Email Marketing Vs. A Website
On a website most visitors will leave without having taken any action. This is the power of email marketing. Once you get a website visitor to sign up to your email list, you can continue to send them emails over a much longer time period than is possible on a website.
An email subscriber can buy from you weeks, months or even years or decades after they signed up to your email list. This is why it’s important not to forget those people who have been on your list for a long period of time.
Make sure to keep in touch with them. Send out regular emails informing them of your products/services. It can also be a good idea to create a re-engagement list. This is used with an old email list. Ask long term subscribers to sign up again to stay informed if they are still interested. You can also clear out those subscribers who no longer open your messages.
You can get an email marketing service here and try it out for free!