CIWD

Meet the Perfect Customer Lifecycle Series – Step 4

You can attract, capture and nurture all the leads you’d like, but if they don’t convert into paying customers, you’re not going to make any money.

Depending on your business type and setup, you likely use one of two methods for converting leads into customers: an online shopping cart using ecommerce or a sales team. No matter which method you use, there are a few strategies to realize the full potential of both.

E-Commerce Shopping Carts

Your online shopping cart represents your digital storefront and should be as effective and easy to use as someone visiting a brick-and-mortar store. However, there are some advantages of selling online using ecommerce that can’t be realized in a typical retail environment.

First, an online shopping cart gives you the ability to intelligently upsell customers to increase transaction amounts. Upsell offers are most effective when they are closely
related to the current order. A good cart will present an upsell offer in a clean, sensible fashion that allows customers to easily add additional products to their purchase. Some shopping cart systems will even allow you to offer multiple upsell offers.

The second advantage of selling online is that you can use targeted campaigns to invite people back to your store if they leave before making a purchase. The most effective campaigns generally offer a discount on the products the customer was viewing.

Personal Selling

For some companies, customers must connect with a salesperson before making a purchase. Unfortunately, many of these sales-intensive businesses lose revenue because
of a buy-or-die mentality on the sales floor. If a lead comes in that isn’t ready to engage right away, it can fall into a black hole of lost leads that could have become customers given enough time and nurturing. These wasted opportunities add up to a lot of lost revenue in the long run.

To prevent this, you must be able to nurture leads and identify when they are ready to distribute to your salesperson. Your sales team is a valuable resource, the driving force behind growing your business. They can be much more effective if your CRM automatically evaluates certain behaviors and factors, identifies hot leads and intelligently distributes them based on specific factors such as industry and geography.

In addition, every day your sales team engages in dozens of communications with leads. Automating some of these communications could free up your team to focus on only high-impact conversations instead of routine follow-up messages. This type of workflow automation can be used to automatically add notes to records, send thank you notes after sales calls, kick off educational emails and more. The best part is, by leveraging workflow automation to save time, your sales team starts to view your CRM system as a valuable resource—and not just a waste of time.

Need more help in converting leads?  Contact us today!

NEXT POST: Step 5

[Credits: InfusionSoft]