7 tips for capturing sales leads (that every business should know)
By HGB , Mar 21 2016
If you’re in the business of sales and marketing, you no doubt love a challenge. And what is more of a challenge than capturing sales leads?
While we certainly don’t want to take the fun out of the chase, we do want to make your challenge a little easier, which is why we thought we’d share our top seven tips for capturing sales leads.
1. Utilise all communication channels
As every savvy sales person or marketeer will know, leads come in all shapes and sizes – and from multiple directions. That’s why it’s important to have a sound strategy which encompasses a multitude of channels. Knowing your customer is important to business success; knowing where they come from is vital for growth. If you want to capture as many sales leads as possible, you need to engage all possible channels. From your website to your social media accounts, newsletters to text messages, advertisements to your shop window, devise a strategy that incorporates them all and has them working in tandem to ensure no potential lead escapes through the cracks!
2. Know your customer’s habits
Customers are creatures of habit so if you want to capture them, it’s important to know their habits. Yes, you want to know what they’re looking for, so you can ensure you have the right product, service or offer for them, but you also want – and need – to know how they’re looking for you. These days we’re never very far from a device which allows us to flick through a website, Google a product or scroll through Facebook. But whether we’re looking for something in particular or simply having a browse, we invariably find other items that perk our interest. To successfully capture sales leads you need to be producing those other ‘items’ of interest. This can be done through content. Interesting articles or blogposts that sit on your website or appear in industry publications, which capture your prospective customer’s attention and are easy to share will help to capture additional sales leads.
3. Be proactive
These days it’s all too easy to hide behind an email or a tweet, interacting with your customers in 140 characters or less or waiting for them to fill in the lead generation form to see if your inbound marketing strategy pays off. It’s certainly true that being able to shop online enables us to do it in our own time, but every customer will get to the stage where they just want to talk to someone. Make that someone you! Be proactive. Show your face to your customers. Ensure they recognise you in the street as the person who sold them that product or service. Pick up the phone, answer their questions and close the sale with a friendly thank you and goodbye, rather than an email signature. Not only will it help to capture a sales lead, but it could be all that’s needed to ensure you’ve made yourself a repeat customer.
4. Optimise your lead generation form
Forms are a tried and true way to capture sales leads, but what is the best online form for your website? There’s no one answer to that as every business is different. Therefore, the information you want from your lead may not be quite the same as what another business wants. There will be some overlap, eg. name/phone number/email etc, but it will likely require a bit of trial and error with your form fields before you discover the most valuable composition of data for you. Just make sure your forms aren’t too long or too time consuming, and sit on a well-designed landing page. Read our blog post on the 7 strategies to help you build the perfect landing page for more great tips.
5. Create a strong call-to-action
Calls-to-action (or CTAs) are so important when it comes to capturing sales leads. In fact, we can’t stress enough just how important CTAs are. They really can be the difference between someone perusing your site and that visitor becoming a solid lead. The key role of a call-to-action is to tell your prospective customer, in the nicest way possible of course, what they need to do next. But here’s the catch, you need to do it in a way so the decision is theirs to make, not because you’re telling them too. Confused? Don’t be, it’s simple. And that’s all your CTA needs to be too. Find out how to create calls-to-action (CTAs) that rock on our blog post here.
6. Get savvy with your SEO
It’s all very well having a ‘must-have’ product, service or offer that customers, and prospective customers, simply won’t be able to resist, but they need to be able to find it in the first place – and easily. Enter the world of search engine optimization, or SEO as it is most commonly known. SEO is the practice of using keywords in such a way that your webpage becomes more visible. This helps people find you and draws them in to your website. Best case scenario is they’ll land on your landing page, complete your lead capture form, and voila, you’ve captured a sales lead. Worst case scenario is they’ll land on another page of your website, and take a little longer to reach that landing page, but that’s where those all-important call-to-action buttons work their magic.
7. Be honest, professional and contactable
Yes, you want a customer’s business, and preferably their repeat business, but you also want their personal details. You want to be able to keep in touch with them, let them know of new products, services or offers they may be interested in, and ultimately ensure they are part of the growth of your business. You’re asking a lot. That’s not a bad thing though, as long as you act honestly and professionally. Make sure you’re easily contactable too. If prospective leads want to email you directly or pick up the phone before filling in your lead capture form, let them. Adding that personal element to your service will help you to generate more sales leads in the long run and that’s got to be good for business.