Running a profitable business requires making a sufficient amount of sales in relation to the money your business spends to keep things running smoothly. Making sales consistently is made easier when you have a constant flow of leads that have a high potential of becoming paying customers.
How do you attract these leads and convince them to trust you enough to eventually pay you? If you have the right systems in place, you’ll see these processes become more natural over time.
This guide will introduce you to some reliable tactics for generating leads and converting them into customers.
What Is The Difference Between Lead Generation and Lead Conversion?
Between the two processes, lead generation happens earlier in your relationship with your audience. Overall, generating leads means turning prospects into leads. Some examples of lead generation are turning:
- Website visitors into readers
- Social media users into followers
- Google Search users into email subscribers
After lead generation, there’s lead conversion. This takes place when the consumer (or another business) is paying your business. Lead conversion may also be referred to as sales conversion.
With this breakdown, you can see that your business doesn’t go very far if you’re not willing to invest some time and energy into your leads, even if certain ones never end up giving you any money.
Taking the initial risk is the only way to discover the type of people who will convert into customers.
Now, let’s look at various ways you can improve these processes within your business.
10 Ways to Improve Your Lead Generation and Conversion
Word-of-Mouth
Your reputation speaks volumes, and developing a standout reputation requires you to enhance the experience you’re offering your customer. Whether you have a brick-and-mortar business or an online business, be sure to make your customer’s experience a memorable one.
Create your service, product, or program in a way that’s focused on the needs and questions of the customer. Your customer is “me-centric” (they can’t help but put their needs first).
So, the more you align your mentality with your customer’s self-centeredness (I mean this in the most positive way possible), the more the customer will be willing to tell their friends and family about your business.
Long-Form Written Content
I highly recommend centering your content strategy around SEO-friendly blog posts. A well-nurtured blog will boost website traffic and build relationships with people who might not fully understand what you do (or how you see the world), based on your short-form social media posts.
Not sure where to start with blogging?
- Choose your blog post topics using a keyword research tool
- Make each post over 500 words long
- Divide the various sections of your blog posts using H2 and H3 headings
If you’re about to build your website for the first time – or you’re tired of web hosting platforms like GoDaddy – use Bluehost with WordPress.
Long-Form Video Content
Our brains are naturally wired for facial recognition. The more you can show your face while delivering the messages that are most important to your brand, the more easily your audience will remember you.
The more memorable you become, the more your audience is likely to pay you as opposed to your competitor, when it comes time to make a purchase.
Automated Funnels
Whether you realize it or not, your business uses a sales funnel. Now, it may be a disorganized one, but it’s there nonetheless.
In the most basic sense, a sales funnel is a sequence of steps your lead has to take to become a customer. The more automated you can make your funnel, the more efficiently you can use your time as a business owner.
A great way to automate your funnel is by purchasing subscriptions for software that eliminate multiple steps from your daily workflow.
Which steps should you eliminate? Think of the small, repetitive, or behind-the-scenes steps that are required to stay organized and complete the bigger-picture steps like making a sale.
Allow technology to take some of these tasks off your plate. Doing this has the potential to eliminate human error while speeding up your lead conversion process.
Email Marketing
Email marketing provides a direct way of communicating with your leads within a digital space that’s less visually distracting than social media. Sending emails is a great way to build relationships, especially when you share non-sales email content.
Email marketing is also a prime opportunity for implementing an automated funnel as I mentioned above. With email software like ConvertKit, you can promote your products and services at a particular point in time, among specific segments of your audience.
Strong Branding
No, branding isn’t just about creating an attractive logo. It’s a prerequisite to starting your business, and it’s something you nurture throughout time. It encompasses an entire strategy that includes cohesive typography, colors, and messaging that helps you stand out from the crowd.
Think about it: If two businesses with similar offerings and price points ask you to shop with them, you’re going to pick the one with a stronger personality and visual presence.
With this customer point of view in mind, invest in your branding…as soon as possible!
Outsourcing
If you find yourself with more money than time – especially concerning your weak spots within the business – why not pay someone who can complete your projects more efficiently than you can?
Maybe you can’t quite figure out how to set up your email sales sequence or embed opt-in forms into your blog posts. There are plenty of studios, freelancers, and agencies out there who can save you from those headaches.
Some go-to platforms for hiring freelancers and agencies are:
Influencer and Affiliate Marketing
In short, influencers and affiliates are your spokespeople. Building a network of influencers and affiliates may be right for you if you want to distribute your product or program to larger communities that you ordinarily might not reach through your social media channels.
This goes back to the concept we started with: word-of-mouth. But instead of waiting for people to talk you up to their audiences, you are directly incentivizing them to do so.
To begin an influencer or affiliate program, you must be financially and logistically ready to pay these spokespeople a percentage of your revenue. If you choose your people wisely, “losing” that portion of your revenue won’t be losing at all.
Simplifying the Purchasing Process
Let’s face it. Sometimes your products, services, and programs are on point, but your checkout process is a hassle.
If your business relies on in-person checkouts: Do you have a staff member who has mastered the point-of-sale system to quickly help customers go on their merry way?
If you’re all about online checkouts: Are your links, buttons, and credit card processor working properly?
Whether you’re a freelancer or have an LLC, if your business relies on accepting client payments online, then you’re going to want HoneyBook. It’s one of the simplest client management systems for creating contracts, sending out invoices, and tracking your client payments.
Caring For Your Personal Wellness
We got the more technical stuff out of the way, so let’s quickly talk about wellness. The health and happiness of you and your team are of utmost importance when trying to generate more leads and make more sales.
As opposed to a business that pushes past unhealthy limits, a business that prioritizes personal wellness gets to experience fewer sick days, clearer minds, and more effective conversations with potential customers or clients.
With wellness at the forefront of your mind, you get to utilize your strengths and supplement your weaknesses with any of the above methods we discussed.
Wrap-Up: 10 Ways to Improve Your Lead Generation and Conversion
Lead generation and conversion are essential for running a profitable business in 2023 and beyond.
Start with these ten core ways (of many) to generate and convert leads:
- Word-of-mouth
- Long-form written content
- Long-form video content
- Automated funnels
- Email marketing
- Strong branding
- Outsourcing
- Influencer and affiliate marketing
- Simplifying the purchasing process
- Caring for your personal wellness
Further Reading on KatQuintana.com: If you enjoyed this post, you might also like my guides on acquiring leads and creating content with a Notion template.
Disclaimer: KQ Writing Studio may receive affiliate compensation for purchases through the links on this page, at no extra cost to you. You can read our affiliate disclosure in our privacy policy. This website is not intended to provide financial advice. This is for entertainment only.
