Happy New Year! I'm Amy, the Founder and Chief Marketing Person here at the Launch Box. My mission is to help entrepreneurs and small business owners like you achieve their dreams by learning how to think more like a marketer.
It’s the beginning of the year, and I’m doing a deep dive on my business to figure out what is and isn’t working. And, if you’re anything like me, you are doing the same thing - which is essentially asking yourself how you can level up your business or, in more specific terms, how you can make more money in 2023!
For me, a good starting point for this discussion is around lead generation. Questions like how are you generating leads, what is your conversion rate, and what is your customer acquisition cost are all part of the equation, but, for this exercise, I asked my fellow business founders and colleagues what strategies they have for more effectively converting leads.
From hosting live webinars to focusing on the customer experience, here are the top 14 answers I received to the question, "What are some helpful tips you have for new businesses that are having trouble converting leads?" If lead conversion is a challenge for your business, I urge you to check out their suggestions and try out the one that feels right for your business.
Tips for Converting More Leads
Host a Webinar
Don't Forget to Send Follow-Ups
Improve Your Copywriting
Don't Automate but Personalize Your Sales Funnels
Re-Evaluate the Bottom Funnel
Prioritize Your Unique Selling Proposition (USP)
Use the Right Call to Action
Offer Discounts on Your Services
Focus on Your Target Audience
Avoid Desperate Marketing
Use Clear Language, Not Jargon
Integrate Cold Emails With the Buyer Journey
Build Trust With Online Reviews for Potential Customers
Convert More With a Great Customer Experience
Host a Webinar
Host a webinar if you have not already. Through this webinar, you can inform people about your products or services in more detail and answer questions. People appreciate the rare ability to interact with company representatives face-to-face, especially since email or chatbot correspondence is much more common nowadays. Facilitating more personal interactions with your target audience will make them feel more connected to your brand and trusting of it.
Maegan Griffin, Founder, CEO, & Nurse Practitioner, Skin Pharm
Don't Forget to Send Follow-Ups
Lots of people get lost in their own email inboxes, and they miss messages all the time. That's why, when you're starting an email campaign and are still having trouble converting leads, work on a good follow-up email and reprogram your message-sending strategy.
Invest in an email marketing tool such as MixMax and include follow-ups two or three days after the recipient receives the initial message but hasn't had the time to open it. It can help tremendously in converting leads.
Natalia Brzezinska, Marketing & Outreach Manager, US Passport Photo
Improve Your Copywriting
You may need to improve the copywriting in your marketing efforts. Be sure to present a relatable problem to your target audience, followed by a solution (your products or services).
Be sure to incorporate vivid imagery to take your readers through an engaging experience. If each sentence rarely leads the reader to the next, they may become bored and not read far enough to see the call to action. Excellent copywriting will keep your readers intrigued.
Miles Beckett, Co-Founder & CEO, Flossy
Don't Automate but Personalize Your Sales Funnels
New businesses seem to sign up for the latest sales lead tool to quickly automate sales prospects into a sales funnel. However, this should be done with caution as it could lead to a generic customer experience that does not take into consideration the individual pain point needs of each customer and a new business can take the time to show a custom solution. Instead of relying solely on automation, new businesses should focus on personalizing the user experience to provide value along the conversion funnel path. This could involve using customer data to tailor content and offers to specific people and creating personalized contact points throughout the funnel.
Brian Hawkins, Marketing Manager, GhostBed.com
Re-Evaluate the Bottom Funnel
What questions are your potential customers asking near the checkout? Is there a roadblock or something stopping them from finishing the process?
We recently reevaluated our bottom funnel to our product pages and the checkout process and tweaked information, calls to action, and photos to make everything clear to help our customers better understand the product, our company, and to make it as easy as possible for them.
When you look at your business, make sure common questions are being answered in the checkout process. Make it so that customers have no hesitation when hitting that purchase button, and you'll see more leads convert into sales!
Seth Newman, Director, SportingSmiles
Prioritize Your Unique Selling Proposition (USP)
For businesses that are having trouble converting leads, I would say to make sure you understand your unique selling proposition (USP) and what makes your business different from the competition. Just don't be generic! For example, if you're a bakery and all of your competitors also sell bread, don't compete on price or taste. Instead, find the one thing that makes your bread stand out—perhaps it's organic or preservative-free. Maybe it comes with fun packaging or a recipe book? Whatever it is, make sure it's something that will appeal to potential customers' values. So make sure you're focusing on your USP and making it clear with every piece of marketing material, every social media post, and every conversation with potential customers.
Use the Right Call to Action
Using the right call to action is one best practice for converting more leads. Many businesses make the mistake of making their calls to action too demanding. For example, instead of saying “download or act now” in an email, have the call to action say “limited time offer.” The language is not as pushy but still informs the recipient that time is of the essence.
Chris Coote, Founder & CEO, California Honey Vapes
Offer Discounts on Your Services
For converting leads, it's important to be as competitive as possible. One way to do this is by offering discounts on your services. This will show clients you're serious about doing business with them and that you're willing to work with them to find a solution that meets their needs. By providing discounts, you're also more likely to convert leads into clients because you're making the process more affordable for them. And, as a bonus, you may make more money in the long run by attracting more customers.
So don't be afraid to offer discounts—it could be the key to your business success!
Kate Wojewoda-Celinska, Marketing Manager, Spacelift
Focus on Your Target Audience
The bottom line is that leads are pretty much worthless if there's little chance of conversions. Many business owners may want to cast a wider net to attract more consumers, but it's much more important to draw in the right potential customers. Once you've identified your target audience, create campaigns that will appeal to them and their specific needs.
Victor Mathieux, Co-Founder & CEO, Miracle Brand
Avoid Desperate Marketing
While more marketing may seem like a good idea, this can backfire. It is important not to appear too desperate in your marketing. Many businesses try to gain a certain amount of customers and/or revenue each month rather than following a more long-term strategy.
In this case, if they are not close enough to reaching their goals as the end of the month approaches, they may scramble to boost their sales by upping their marketing dramatically.
For instance, they may suddenly send out many more marketing emails than usual or post much more often on social media. People can become skeptical of this behavior, so this is something to consider when trying to gain and keep leads. Rather than posting and sending more content, think of new strategies.
Nancy Eichler, Sr. Vice President of Marketing & E-Commerce, iwi life
Use Clear Language, Not Jargon
Keeping one’s language simple and not throwing around too much jargon is one best practice.
When too many hyper-specific industry terms get thrown at a potential customer, they may get intimidated and lose interest. Explaining things in simple terms is more approachable and easier to personalize with your small business’s personal touch. If you have to include jargon, take it slow, and always explain it thoroughly.
Annu Daniel, CEO, Elohim Company
Integrate Cold Emails With the Buyer Journey
Creating a cold outreach sequence with the buyer's journey in mind takes your prospects from Point A, where they are not aware of your product, to Point B, where they are product aware, and then to the next points until they purchase your product. For example, for prospects that are at the “Unaware” stage, your goal is to build product knowledge. It makes little sense to offer anything at that stage. But for your prospects who are already at the “Solution” stage, your goal is to create a product experience that leads to adoption. And so, your 40% off offer is welcome here. Also, since your goal is to create a product experience, you can create another segment for prospects who are reluctant, have objections, or should go through C-levels to get an agreement for product adoption, etc. Ideally, those prospects are already at the "Most aware" stage. And so, for these people, it can be a great idea to offer extended free trials, free coupons, etc., to get them to act on your offers.
Ernest Bio Bogore, Head of Marketing, Nerdy Joe Inc.
Build Trust With Online Reviews for Potential Customers
There are a lot of things that go into building brand awareness and trust, but one of the most important is online reviews. Positive reviews from happy customers can do a lot to convert leads into customers, while negative or no reviews can scare potential customers away. That's why it's so important for new businesses to focus on getting positive online reviews. There are a few different ways to do this:
Reach out to past customers and ask them to leave a review on your site or on popular review sites like Google or Yelp.
Make it easy for customers to leave reviews by including links on your website and in your email signature.
Respond quickly and positively to any negative reviews you receive. Show potential customers that you're taking their feedback seriously and working to improve your business.
Building brand awareness and trust takes time and effort, but online reviews can be a powerful tool for converting leads into customers.
Dhiren Mulani, Digital Marketer, Dhiren Mulani
Convert More With a Great Customer Experience
One piece of advice I have for new businesses that are having trouble converting leads is to focus on providing a great customer experience. This can involve a variety of things, such as making sure your website is easy to navigate, providing clear and accurate information about your products or services, and responding quickly and professionally to questions/concerns that customers may have. By providing a great customer experience and differentiating yourself from your competition, you can increase the chances of converting leads into customers.
Jason Moss, President & Co-Founder, Moss Technologies
