Converting Leads Into Customers

1 min read by Unbiased team Last updated October 4, 2024

Discover tips to convert leads into customers and retain new leads by fostering long-term client relationships.

Summary

A good lead conversion rate is vital for achieving a competitive edge, optimizing resource allocation, driving revenue, and ensuring business sustainability.
Both customer acquisition and customer retention are essential for business growth.
There are a number of ways, including search engine optimization and social media, to convert leads into customers and retain new leads.

Good leads are what help you to grow your business, and as every financial advisor knows, growth is the ticket to success. However, finding and retaining new leads isn’t always simple, especially in such a competitive sector.

Use these tips for lead conversion to turn potential clients into long-term, loyal supporters of your business.

What is a good lead conversion rate?

While some businesses may consider a lead conversion rate of 2-4% as good, others aim for rates closer to 10%.

A good lead conversion rate is vital for driving revenue, optimizing resource allocation, ensuring business sustainability, and achieving a competitive edge. By focusing on improving lead conversion rates, businesses can enhance their overall performance and achieve long-term success.

Customer acquisition vs retention

Both customer acquisition and customer lead retention strategies are essential for business growth, with acquisition driving initial growth and retention, ensuring long-term sustainability and revenue stability.

Customer acquisition refers to the process of attracting and converting new customers to a business.

Customer retention, meanwhile, involves nurturing and maintaining relationships with existing customers to ensure their ongoing loyalty and repeat business.

How to generate new leads

There are a number of ways to generate more leads:

1. Focus on search engine optimization (SEO)

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is the process of enhancing a website to increase its visibility (particularly on platforms like Google) in search engine results pages (SERPs). It entails various strategies and tactics aimed at increasing a website's ranking organically, without paid advertising.

SEO focuses on optimizing technical aspects, content relevance, and link popularity to attract more organic traffic. By understanding user search intent, utilizing applicable keywords, generating high-value content, and ensuring a positive user experience, SEO enables websites to increase their SERP ranking. This results in increased visibility, retaining new leads, and improved brand visibility.

SEO is an invaluable asset for financial advisors to enhance online visibility, attract potential clients, generate leads, increase brand awareness, and build credibility in the competitive financial advice industry.

By effectively implementing the following SEO lead retention strategies, among others, financial advisors can boost their online presence to propel business growth to the next level:

Strategic keyword use
Mobile-friendly websites
Provision of high-quality, informative content
On-page SEO techniques to enhance their website's search engine rankings.

2. Create a valuable, well designed website

There are a lot of ways in which modern tech can help you attract new clients. A well-designed website is crucial for finding new clients and converting leads into customers in the financial advice industry. With a high-quality website, you can increase lead conversion. This is because well-designed websites:

Improve first impressions
Build trust via clear information about services, team members, and client testimonials
Provide useful educational content
Include strategic calls to action to prompt visitors to take the next step

3. Make time for social media advertising

Social media advertising is a potent platform for finding new clients and engaging with your target audience effectively to convert leads into customers.

Let’s say that you are eager to attract more young adults as clients. Social media advertising can help you achieve this goal in the following ways:

It increases brand awareness.
It boosts user engagement and interaction through interactive ad formats like carousel ads or stories.
It enables tailored ads based on various factors to reach audiences most in need of their products.
It provides tools for measuring campaign efficacy.

4. Use mailing lists to stay in customers’ minds

A mailing list enables you to stay in customers' minds, provide valuable information, engage leads with personalized content, and guide them toward becoming loyal clients through targeted and strategic email marketing efforts and lead retention strategies.

You can leverage the benefits of mailing lists to retain new leads and keep potential clients engaged and informed about your services:

Provide regular updates regarding services, success stories, and promotions.
Provide personalized content via segmented mailing lists.
Include clear calls to action to encourage leads to take the next step toward becoming clients.
Employ consistent communication to help build trust.

5. Invest in paid lead-generation software

Paid lead-generation software helps you attract and retain new, high-quality leads, nurture them effectively, automate tasks, make data-driven decisions to optimize conversion efforts, and automate tasks and streamline the sales process.

You can use paid lead-generation software to attract high-value potential customers and ensure a good lead-conversion rate:

Use the software to run targeted adverts on social media, search engines, and other platforms.
Take advantage of built-in lead scoring features, like automated follow-up emails and personalized communication tools, to prioritize leads based on their likelihood of converting.
Integrate your lead-generation software with your CRM systems to ensure that all leads are captured and managed efficiently.
Utilize the software’s detailed analytics on campaign performance, lead quality, and conversion rates to refine strategies, allocate resources effectively, and improve client conversion.

How to convert and retain leads into clients

There are also a number of ways to convert more leads into clients, as well as retain them:

1. Nurture qualified leads

A qualified lead is a potential customer who fits your ideal profile, has gone through a sales qualification, and is ready to buy. These leads need extra nurturing as they’re your best chance of converting leads into customers.

Check-in calls and emails are excellent ways of nurturing qualified leads. They allow you to build a relationship, help clients familiarize themselves with your offerings and how you can assist, and make them feel valued and supported.

However, you need to do more than just call or email leads with a generic message. You need to personalize your interactions and ensure you connect with a potential client. Personalization is an excellent way to do this, and 89% of marketers see a positive ROI when they use personalization in their campaigns. Address people by name, include useful information specific to their needs, and be responsive when they reach out.

2. Offer a welcome program

Onboarding new clients should be a smooth, seamless experience that leaves them feeling confident in their selection of financial advisor. A well-planned-out, customizable, all-encompassing welcome program is an excellent way to greet new clients and ensure you have all the documentation and information you need to begin assisting them.

By clearly defining what your welcome program entails, potential leads will also feel more comfortable, and conversion will become easier.

3. Highlight positive reviews and testimonials

Studies show that customer testimonials have the highest effectiveness rating for content marketing at 89%, and 92% of consumers trust peer recommendations. This type of marketing is highly trusted and plays a major role in client decisions as it cannot be bought.

This makes using positive reviews and testimonials one of the best lead retention strategies and an excellent way to encourage clients to convert. You can publish reviews on your website or social media and even include testimonials in emails when nurturing leads.

4. Regular follow-ups

Retaining new leads means maintaining regular contact and not allowing them to go cold. By conducting regular follow-ups, you can boost retention and remind clients of your availability. The trick is not to make leads feel pressured or on the receiving end of spam. So, you’ll need to keep them engaged at every point.

Offering optional feedback sessions is a great way to engage leads and follow up at the same time. You can include a link to an online survey or ask a few questions in an email, or request a call or virtual session. This allows you to learn more about a lead, helps you to identify any pain points, and refine and adjust your approach to converting new leads in the future.

5. Create a loyalty program or referral scheme

It costs 5x more to acquire a customer than to retain one, and a 5% increase in retention can result in a 75% boost in profits. Loyalty programs and referral schemes are both excellent ways to convert leads into customers, boost retention, and then leverage loyal customers to convert new leads.

A loyalty program could entitle clients to a free consultation or free hour after they’ve been with you or your business for a set duration, or it may reward them with an additional service offering at a discounted cost. This increases retention and allows for sustainable growth with your existing client base.

You could run a similar referral program, offering clients free hours or discounts if they refer you to their friends, family, or colleagues.