Have you ever heard the old saying, quality over quantity?
In the sales industry, it is an element that is crucial to pay attention to.
After all, you can get thousands of leads pouring into your website. But it is all a waste if none of them are qualified enough to become a customer.
That’s where adjusting your Inbound Marketing tactics becomes incredibly important.
By making a few simple changes, you can alter your message to attract better leads in a way that resonates with their needs in a more direct manner.
Why is this important?
If you’re getting the right customers from the very beginning, it makes it much easier to close the sale and turn them into paying customers on the first attempt.
Ready to learn how this is done? Here are a few simple strategies to increase lead quality successfully.
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1. Understand & Define Your Target Audience
The first step in increasing your lead quality is to understand and define your target audience.
The biggest mistake a lot of companies make when they try to fine-tune their sales pages is that they don’t define who they’re trying to attract first.
They simply put out a lot of information on a sales page and hope someone will just randomly stumble upon it as a qualified lead.
Simply put, this doesn’t work very well in the long run.
Instead, take the time to discover your ideal buyer persona. Learn about what makes them happy and any obvious issues they have that your product or service can solve.
Decide how they typically make a decision and the overall length of the sales cycle.
For example, in a B2C environment, the process is generally short with each individual making their own purchases.
However, B2B environments are often different. In this scenario, it is important to realize that the lead might not be the final voice in making a sales decision.
Once you’ve decided the persona or several for your ideal client base, alter your content to speak directly to their needs — almost as if you’re sitting right across the room from them while giving a speech.
2. Choose the Right Keywords
Next, make sure you’re choosing the right keywords.
In fact, this is another easy fix that a lot of companies miss in their quest to get their landing pages live.
Really take the time to analyze what you’re attempting to rank for in terms of keywords and long-tail phrases.
- Are there any that seem almost misleading?
- Or those that are on the gray area of what someone would search for online versus what you offer?
If so, you’ll need to make a few changes.
Only select keywords that adequately represent the buyer’s journey from online search to making a purchase.
You don’t want traffic that’s still in the research phase — that point where they’re “kicking the tires” on your offer, so to speak.
Instead, align your keyword strategy to those who are looking for answers and solutions now.
What will this improve?
Besides getting traffic that’s much more streamlined to your offer, you’ll have a better chance of closing the deal based on where in the customer journey they’re finding your website.
3. Use Targeted Content to Nurture Leads
Another tip is to use targeted content to nurture leads.
What this means is giving customers answers to their objections before they have an answer to say no.
If you’ve done your research on your ideal customer and buyer persona, then you already know the different aspects of your product or service that they have major questions about.
Instead of waiting for them to come to you with these issues, be sure to point them out with factual answers.
This can be either in your lead page itself or a special frequently asked questions (FAQ) section.
You can also opt to carry your leads down the funnel with a follow-up email sequence.
After all, the more educated you can make potential leads, the easier it is for them to make a purchase decision.
The key point here is to provide value in the form of answers, advice, and further information about how your solution can improve their needs.
4. Align Your Sales Team
Another simple strategy to increase lead quality is to align your sales team.
While you might be tempted to make the changes we’ve discussed here without any additional training, it is best to keep everyone on the same page.
For example, let’s say you’ve narrowed down your target audience, but forget to tell several of your key sales staff members.
While they’re busy looking for those who don’t meet the qualifications of an ideal customer, they’re passing on four people who would have easily met those guidelines as a target buyer.
What does this all mean?
When you make adjustments to your lead strategy, make sure to give your sales staff a heads up.
This allows them to align their tactics to your goals, making it easier for everyone to have the same understanding of what a qualified lead actually is.
The end result is a team that’s more cohesive and dedicated to focusing on closing the best leads at the right time.
5. Check Your Data
When it comes to digital marketing, there are a ton of different ways for you to track your sales and traffic data.
From Google Analytics to Moz, you can easily see what is drawing organic traffic to your website, the keywords you’re ranking for, and multiple demographic factors for who these leads are.
With so much information available, it is puzzling that so many companies actually skip out on reviewing the data.
Instead, you should be taking a look at it regularly and see how well it aligns with your target audience.
If the information is way off, this will give you a clue as to where you need to make adjustments for better overall lead quality.
In fact, this is a good starting point for any adjustments you make, as it will give you a solid benchmark of where your overall message has been and what you can change to better attract your desired leads.
6. Test and Adjust Accordingly
The next strategy for increasing your overall lead quality is to test and adjust accordingly.
Very few companies hit a home run right out of the gate with their brand messaging.
Instead, it is wise to make small changes, give it time, and review the results accordingly.
If those work well, try a few new tactics. Little by little, you’ll start to see better leads enter your customer pipeline.
So, where should you start?
Well, if your brand messaging is way off from your new ideal target customer, then you’ll definitely want to make adjustments there first.
Then you can start to add in other little elements until you finally get to the point where you’ve gotten the right formula for attracting quality leads on a regular basis.
Once you’ve narrowed this down, you can start to scale what is working for even better results.
Wrap Up: Increase Lead Quality for Better Conversions
It isn’t always about how many leads your website gets, but the quality of those leads.
If you’re having a hard time making sales, it could be the way you’re attracting customers or even that you’re getting the wrong ones on a regular basis.
Instead, use the guidance we’ve included here to start making small changes to your overall message.
Once you’ve narrowed down your ideal target audience, the process should be fairly easy.
Of course, what happens when your leads pick up but you still aren’t getting sales? Then it might be time to work on improving your overall conversion strategy.
Thankfully, our Rock Content team has put together this guide to help you out.
Check out our eBook on how to improve your lead generation process for more details.
