Companies of all sizes are always looking for ways to improve their sales conversion rates. As a salesperson, your stakes are high and your customer journey is complex, making it difficult to improve B2B conversion rates. Your traditional approach may no longer cut it. In this article, we will go through ten proven sales strategies that will help you turn more leads into paying customers. Before we jump right in, let’s go over the basics of sales conversion rates.
Sales Conversion Rates 101
Conversion rate measures the percentage of potential leads or prospects that actually become paying customers. A high conversion rate is a clear indicator of a successful sales process. On the other hand, if your conversion rate is lower than your peers, there may be some room for improvement. The formula to calculate conversion rates is fairly simple:
Conversion Rate (%) = (Number of Conversions / Total Number of Leads) x 100
Now that we’ve got the basics covered, let’s go over the top ten ways to improve your B2B sales conversion rates.
1. Understanding Your Ideal Customer Profile
One of the first things that you should consider when trying to improve your B2B sales conversion rates is to fully understand your ideal customer profile, or ICP. An ICP is a detailed description of the type of companies or clients that are most likely to benefit from your products or services. Understanding your ICP allows you to tailor your marketing and sales efforts to attract the right leads. Start by analyzing your existing customer base. Look for common characteristics including industry, company size, pain points, and buying behavior. Once you’ve identified these key traits, you can target your initiatives that speak to your ICP. If you want to learn more about creating your ICP, take a look at What is Ideal Customer Profile Sales?
2. Offer a Free Trial
Allowing your leads to experience your product or service firsthand can be a game-changer. A free trial can help show your customers the value that you provide, before they commit. During these trial periods, highlight the key features and benefits that address their needs through email campaigns, with videos and other learning resources to help get them started. This hands-on experience can help eliminate doubts and accelerate the decision-making process, leading to higher conversion rates. Not to mention, your customer lifetime value and happiness will increase, since they know what they’re getting themselves into.
3. Identify Your Website Visitors
If you’re wondering if your sales and marketing initiatives are attracting the right visitors to your website, while generating leads, you’re in luck. With the help of Visitor Queue, you can identify your website visitors, how they got to your site, the pages they viewed, and how long they spent on each page. Plus, you will receive a description of what each company, what industry they are in, size, location, and more. Also, you can see employee contact information including email addresses, phone numbers, and a link to their personal LinkedIn channel. You can use all of this information to qualify each visitor, and reach out. Start your 14-day free trial of Visitor Queue today to stop losing leads.
4. Automate Everything
Sales automation is one of the best ways to streamline your sales processes and improve your B2B sales conversion rates. Automating time-consuming tasks, like following up, setting up a time for a demo, or taking meeting notes, can save your sales team hours every week, letting them focus on more important tasks. You can also reduce human errors and forgetfulness by taking advantage of sales automation.
5. Building Strong Relationships
In B2B sales, relationships matter. Establishing and nurturing relationships with your leads can significantly impact your conversion rates, Invest time in getting to know your leads, understanding their pain points, and addressing their concerns. Personalized interactions, social selling, and genuine connections can make leads feel valued and more likely to choose your company over your competitors. Not to mention, when they convert, they may be more likely to refer you even more business in the future.
6. Use Interactive Content
Interactive content, like quizzes, calculators, and assessments, can be a game-changer for your sales team. These tools engage leads and provide personalized results, making the decision-making process more interactive and informative. For example, here at Visitor Queue, we use a quiz that can help users see how many leads they can identify based on their website traffic. Before giving them their results, we ask for contact information to not only provide the answer, but to follow up with them.
7. Refine Your Sales Pitch
Your sales pitch is a critical element of your conversion process. It’s essential to have a clear, concise, and persuasive pitch. And, that it highlights the unique value your product or service offers. Continuously refine your pitch based on feedback, market changes, and evolving customer needs. It can be helpful to test out different messaging approaches to see which resonates the most with your target audience. In addition, try to stay up to date with what your competitors are doing, to ensure you can answer any comparison questions.
8. Offer Social Proof and Case Studies
Trust plays a crucial role in the decision making process. Prospective clients want to know that they are making the right choice. One of the most effective ways to build trust is by showcasing social proof and case studies. When potential clients see that others have had positive experiences with your company, they are more likely to trust your brand and consider what you have to offer. If you’re looking to collect case studies to display on your website and social channels, check out otrillo. With otrillo, you can build video and written case studies in minutes, taking the stress away from your marketing team.
9. Ask for Feedback
You shouldn’t forget about your leads that didn’t convert. Reach out to them for feedback on why they didn’t choose to move forward. Constructive feedback can provide valuable insights into areas where your sales process or product offering may need some improvement. You can then use this feedback to refine your strategies and overcome objections more effectively in the future. This is where automation comes in handy, since you can automate an email to go out for leads that don’t convert, cancel their free trial, or end your services.
10. Leverage Social Selling
Social media channels, specifically LinkedIn, are powerful tools for connecting with potential customers. Engage in social selling by actively participating in relevant industry groups, forums, sharing valuable content, and building relationships with key decision-makers. If you are using LinkedIn, try connecting with prospects who are in your ICP, and engage with their content. Social selling helps establish trust and credibility, making it more likely for leads to consider your solution when they’re ready to buy.
What’s Next?
While there is no foolproof way to improve B2B sales conversion rates overnight, this list is a good starting point. When you are trying to increase your conversion rates, also ensure that your quality of conversions is keeping up. Meaning, your customers are not canceling their subscriptions after a month. It can take some practice to find the best leads, and convert them into paying customers, but once you get the hang of it, you’ll be golden. If you have any questions about using Visitor Queue to generate leads, do not hesitate to reach out.