Have you been wondering which steps to take to gather more customers? The first place you should look should be in your prospect pool since these are leads that have expressed an interest in your products or service. Once you find your prospects, you can easily convert them — with these 5 easy steps.
Find out how to group prospects, engage them, create content for different stages of readiness, provide value, align your ad messaging, and turn those prospects into customers.
1. Engage with Your Prospects
The best way to ensure your prospects get the correct and timely information is to make sure they get it from you, and the only way to do that is to engage them every step of the way. Prospects are probably not going to become clients right away, so it’s important to nurture a relationship with them from the beginning.
In order to do so, you need to segment your audience into different groups, depending on their current placement in the sales funnel. An easy way to do that is with automation platforms that process all of your prospects and select the type of information and messaging they will receive:
- Prospects that are just getting to know your brand should receive information and content that explain your services.
- Prospects that are further down the road would love to read about what sets you apart from the competition as well as a success story from one of your clients.
- Prospects that need a bit more nurturing should receive content with tangible value.
The critical part of engaging your prospects is being present throughout the whole process of turning a prospect into a client, meaning starting right away. Early communication will send the message that you are customer-centered, and that’s the best way to grab their attention. Make sure to reach out to them through multiple channels because that will increase the chances that they will remember your brand when you reach out with a sales proposal.
If you offer a free trial, that time slot is your moment to shine. Engage them with tips and tricks about getting the most of your services. Provide them with tutorials and give them statistics about what works best for your clients.
2. Use Social Proof
Social proof is based on the idea that people will conform to social influence in order to be liked by peers, or seem similar to them. A great example of this is using client reviews in your marketing efforts to show that there are real people that use your services.
Although it is priceless to have an opportunity to curate the kind of message you want your prospects to receive about you, hearing it from a third-party gives it even more power. This is where social proof comes in:
- When prospects are considering a service or product, they like to see that actual people are using it, and if they are peers, even better. You can provide them with social proof in the form of case studies, positive reviews, or endorsements from opinion-makers.
- Having real people talking about your brand gives you credibility. You can encourage them to give you feedback on social media and review sites, and use that on your website. You can also include those reviews in your newsletter, outreach campaigns, and throughout your sales pipeline.
- People don’t want to feel like they are the only ones left out of the conversation. This could be attributed to FOMO (fear of missing out). Showing your prospects how your clients simplified a certain process in their day-to-day work obligations may result in an “aha moment” when they realize they can also take advantage of your products and services to better their businesses.
Our favorite way to use social proof is by creating detailed case studies. They should include a description of the situation that your client was in before they started working with you, the description of the process you went through to help them, and the result.
The result should be shown in more than one way, meaning their return on investment (ROI), as well as an increase in traffic and the human factor — how they got to spend their time more efficiently since you were taking care of the problem at hand.
3. Create a Bulletproof Content Strategy
We already know that content is king, so don’t try talking your way out of this step. In most cases, content is up to your marketing team, so this is where your sales team has to cooperate with the marketing team and make sure they have the right content and information for every step of the sales pipeline.
The easiest way to convert prospects into customers is by being one step ahead and knowing what type of content could persuade certain people. This is where your marketing efforts come in handy.
While working on your content strategy, you should have a grasp of your buyer persona and how different groups of customers may benefit from your services. The first thing you need to do is differentiate your channels and key messages, and figure out which work best for different audiences.
Targeting your audience by age, industry, lifestyle, and location is a great starting point. Small business owners will have different needs than those of bigger businesses. They may be more interested in case studies that highlight small businesses with a focus on the quality of the service; bigger businesses may focus on the quantity aspect since they need platforms that allow a higher number of users and specific integrations.
A solid content strategy also involves consistency and a strong team of content writers and graphic designers to support your monthly content calendars. You can choose to hire an in-house team (if you have the budget) or engage services of agencies or freelancers like Godot Media (writing service), Envato (hiring freelance designers), Videopixie (hiring videographers or video editors), and Upwork/Fiverr (hiring freelancers from all domains/skills), among others.
4. Provide Value
Providing value to your potential customers shows them what they can expect from working with you. If you have a series of video tutorials or similar educational materials that show people how to use your services or get the most out of your products, share it with them before they become customers.
Show your prospects how they can get more value from you than just a finished product or a service to turn them into loyal customers. Explain the value to your prospects and spotlight the array of services you offer such as customer services, a variety of products, and an ever-growing library of educational materials.
5. Align Your Ad Messaging
Your prospects will enter your funnel with different levels of understanding of your products and services, as well as at different stages of readiness to buy. That is why you need to align your ad messaging to make sure your retargeted ads find their way to the right audience.
It’s imperative you split your audience into different groups and target them with different ads. This is easily done through Facebook Pixel and Google Remarketing Tools which let you track your prospects and group them with similar individuals interested in your brand.
How you deliver your message is just as important as the channel you chose, so test out how your audience responds to videos, original photographs, and infographics to find the right medium for your brand.
If you’re simultaneously running ads on different platforms, make sure to align the overall message and get creative with the formats instead of using the same copy and visual for every platform.
Conclusion
Having more clients is at the top of every brand’s priority list. That is why it’s necessary to work on converting more prospects every day. With our easy guide, you will be able to provide the right kind of push to your prospects at every step of the sales process.
