In this illustration, leads move through the sales funnel. Which generates revenue for the company.
How to attract quality leads to the entrance of your funnel?
Trying to constantly increase your number of leads can be very expensive, regardless of the strategy used. Gaining visibility, through paid or organic search engine results, generates ever-increasing expenses. The same goes for social networks: Ads are increasingly used, so the prices are increasingly high.
Relying on the quantity of leads is therefore an unviable strategy , particularly for young companies, SMEs and startups. It is better to sort them out, and this, from the entrance of the conversion funnel. To do this, you can rely on 2 levers .
Working on your buyer personas
The more data you have on your target, the more you will be able to select interesting profiles for your conversion rate. The buyer persona is defined and refined with time and experience. By analyzing the reaction of your prospects and customers within your sales cycle, you will learn to recognize it. To speed up the maneuver and learn more about the smallest details of its objectives, expectations and objections, you can turn to the sales team who spend a large part of their days talking with potential customers.
Define keywords with high conversion power
Targeted keywords should be analyzed carefully because they indicate the search intent of Internet users . If they are in the process of purchasing, they will not type the same query as if they are looking to satisfy their curiosity. To improve the quality of your leads, optimize your ads and content on keywords that lead to sales .
Let's take the example of accounting software. The keyword "advantages of accounting software" hides a desire to learn about a subject that is not well understood. The visitor will therefore a priori be a cold lead. On the other hand, the keyword "which accounting software to choose" reflects a desire to invest in a tool . The lead who will read the page corresponding to this query is warmer than the previous one. This is the right time to capture their email and start a lead nurturing strategy .
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What can you do to further qualify your prospects throughout your funnel?
When a lead enters your sales funnel, it doesn't mean that botim database they are good quality. The internet is full of curious people who are interested but never buy. How can you tell the difference between these types of people and potential customers?
Marketing automation: a considerable productivity gain
First tool to implement to save considerable time: marketing automation . In concrete terms, this consists of tracing a purchasing path in advance that is perfectly adapted to the buyer persona . Your lead will advance through it thanks to fully automated actions such as sending emails, for example. The easier it is for your leads to move through this tunnel, the more they will be considered hot. On the contrary, if you notice any reluctance or lack of reaction from them, they will be set aside by your marketing automation solution, because they are considered impossible to convert.
Nurturing techniques: why do it?
Marketing automation therefore consists of carrying out actions with the aim of improving the quality of leads. What actions are we talking about exactly? It involves sending the right message, to the right person, at the right time: this is lead nurturing . The idea is to literally “feed” prospects with content adapted to their qualification, with the aim of taking them to the next level.
There are many possibilities. Here is a non-exhaustive list:
Blog post,
Newsletter,
Webinar,
Case study,
Demo video,
Promotional offer.
Each content offered must fulfill a specific objective , corresponding to the expectations of the lead: welcome, inform, differentiate, reassure, convince, relaunch, etc.
Lead scoring: give your leads scores
Lead nurturing naturally leads to another technique: lead scoring . This is a scoring method that allows you to accurately qualify a prospect. How does it work in concrete terms? Each action carried out by the lead gives or takes away points . It starts with their profile: the more they match the buyer persona, in terms of age, position held, sector of activity, location, etc., the more points they will have.
