How to Convert Online Leads to Sales

Yes, online leads are pretty much one of the greatest sources of new business, but making them pay is a struggle no matter how you look at it. Timing is the biggest problem, when it comes to converting online leads, because most companies don’t have the systems in place to respond to online leads fast enough.

A recent research shows that the odds of contacting an online lead drops staggeringly after five minutes. This fact should be one of the major points you build your sales department around. The second point is – do not approach online leads the same way as traditional leads.

For example – surveys show that the average time to contact a traditional lead is 31 hours. The same amount of time doesn’t work for the online lead, because they are considered live leads, like inbound phone calls. Would you make a caller wait for 31 hours?

1. Don’t make them wait – if you make an online lead wait and you might as well count it as gone. Think of the situations as if your business is a hot dog stand and a customer walks up to it. He’s worked all day, he is hungry and is in a desperate need of a hot dog. So, if you tell him “Thank you, we’ll get back to you in 24 hours” after you collect his information, a lot of things can happen and sale is not one of them.

You will never have a better chance to seal the deal with online leads than the moment they identify themselves as a prospect. Ten (or five) minutes later and it will be too late – they will be off to a new vendor, who can act quickly.

So, be fast and try to convert the lead as soon as possible, otherwise you are not doing a good job;

2. Build your sales department for speed – now, nothing can help you with online leads as the good, fast, professional sales team that supports a real-time response.

You can create an inside team that is responsible only for contacting and communicating with online leads, or if you lack the funds and time for it – you can hire a professional team, like ours.

However, not all online leads are born equal – some are more qualified than others, so you will have to work with your marketing team to screen out poorly qualified leads. Maybe, with some qualifying questions in a web inquiry form. No matter how you do it, the point stays the same – you have to be quick.

In order to be quick and ensure that a real-time follow-up happens, you need to add some new or change some old metrics. For example, you will need to track response time from now on, or create incentives for real time response.

3. Sometimes quick is better than accurate – another point that emphasize on the fact that you should act quickly when it comes to online leads. You will need to structure your department the right way. What we are trying to say is – the rep who responds doesn’t have to be the one who will eventually handle the sale. The important thing is to have a rep that can act quickly and contact the lead in the five minute window and collect the preliminary information. After that, he can hand off the lead to the sales rep, who can do the sale and the needed follow up.

What do you think about online leads?  Our professional team is always here if you need us to help you with your leads and sales.