Understanding The Short Lifespan Of Online Sales Leads
In the USA, businesses spent a whopping 3.05 billion dollars on digital lead generation advertising in 2021. This figure is expected to spike to 3.24 billion dollars in 2023. (Source: Statista 2021)
Why do businesses invest heavily in lead generation campaigns? Well, they are aware about the potentially high ROI that can be gained through such campaigns. A well-executed lead generation campaign can drive credibility, visibility, interest, and trust for your business through the smart targeting of a specific group of potential leads.
Many businesses excel in gaining quality leads through SEO campaigns. However, what they do with those leads define the success of their campaigns. Unfortunately, businesses often falter while nurturing these leads. This is because they don’t realise the importance of responding swiftly to leads.
What’s common between leads, milk, bread and chocolate?
The answer is straightforward – all of them have an expiry date!
How fast are you responding to leads? A survey on response times to digital leads was done many years ago by Harvard Business Review. Here is a summary of that survey of 2,241 U.S. companies:
- 37% responded to a lead within an hour
- 16% took anything between 1 to 24 hours to respond to a client
- 24% took more than a day to respond to leads/li>
- 23% never bothered to respond to leads at all!
A prospective client who has filled up your contact form expects a speedy response. How soon should you contact a lead? Another survey by Harvard Business Review has the answer for us:
Businesses that contacted leads within an hour of the query were nearly 7 times more likely to convert the lead than those who tried contacting the lead after an hour. Also, if you respond within an hour, you are more than 60 times likely to convert the lead than companies that waited more than a day!
You are investing hard-earned marketing dollars to gain leads through paid search and social media ads, guest posts, SEO and frequent content updates on websites/blogs. You can make each lead count by responding to their requests in quick time.
First impression counts!
By responding quickly to leads, you can make customers feel special and valued right from their first interaction with your business. If the lead is looking around for a service provider, the first impression gained by your quick response will convince them that your business is the real deal!
Of course, you will need trained personnel to contact these leads. Use internal resources to help convert leads into sales. This can be done by mapping out the expected customer journey of the lead. Prepare a list of questions they are like to ask and the information they are seeking before they make first contact with you. Share these questions and data with your sales team so that they can nurture these leads through the sales funnel.
2. Focus on high-quality leads: Keep in mind that there are likely to be highly casual leads that are not worth following up on. Marketing should differentiate between casual and high priority leads, so that Sales can use their valuable time to connect with the right leads. The casual or not-so-important looking leads can be given second preference. These leads will probably need more time to nurture and convince about your services.
