You Can Lead a Horse to Water, BUT... You Can't Make Him Drink!
It happens all the time. You are getting your client leads, but they are not converting the way the client wishes.
Or
You are generating leads, lots of leads, but they are not converting on your site. The client stops making payments and they express their displeasure, but what can you do?
Or
You want to stop now, and prevent more losses. But here is the thing that gets lost in these thoughts.
You are getting leads and...you are getting leads who have demonstrated an interest in your offering. This is a good thing. It means you are running ads in the right pool of prospects.
But the question now becomes, what is your immediate expectation of this lead?
Why are they not converting?
As a marketer, this brings up the age-old saying, "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink."
For us Facebook and Google Ads marketers, we are responsible for creating an ad, finding the right pool of prospects, and serving an ad that will compel the prospect to take action.
Whenever possible, the marketer should be in charge of the opt-in page to make sure that the prospect converts into a lead. But when you are running ads, the process often ends at getting the lead into the top of the funnel, where the prospect becomes a lead.
This is often where things go wrong!
When you get leads into a funnel, and you are not in control of what happens next in the funnel, that is where the breakdowns usually happen.
Let me repeat this!
When you get leads into a funnel, and YOU are not in control of what happens next in the funnel, that is where the breakdowns usually happen!
At this point, your client begins to think that the leads must be junk! Even you as the marketer might even question the lead quality you are generating. Why? Because the lead doesn't take the next step toward commitment.
And that can lead to frustrated clients who are unwilling to continue marketing with you. Those clients say things like: "they are getting bad leads," or they become upset saying "the marketer doesn't do their job well."
The problem is that people thinking like this, don't truly understand the marketing funnel.
They're only focused on one thing, and that is the bottom of the funnel, the PAID conversion. And if there is not funnel process to nurture a lead from interest to purchase, then they are wasting their money, because they are not experienced enough to know what to do with the people in their funnel's pipeline.
The bottom line is that if you have Facebook ads generating a high percentage of leads with a high Click-Thru-Rate CTR and high download rate, then the problems are likely not the lead quality, but the marketing funnel process!
The problem is that you may have unrealistic expectations, especially if you don't have a funnel that will nurture the prospect.
Statistically, the best marketing businesses in the world like Nike and Amazon, businesses with the best marketing staff around, require a certain number of clicks before a lead becomes a purchase. Nike averages 7 clicks to purchase. Amazon averages 10. - yarraweb.com.au
These clicks are different touchpoints. Like these big companies, you need several touchpoints as well to convert your leads into paid clients and customers.
Typically, a lead needs multiple touches, more opportunities to be presented with clickable interests. It might take 7-10 opportunities to warm up your lead and convert them into someone interested in purchasing your products or services. Then they might just be waiting for the right time.
So ask yourself, what are you expecting of your leads? Are you expecting the leads who have volunteered their information to you without knowing you, to immediately get on the phone with you?
Do you expect them to immediately pull out their credit card, and make a purchase from you?
Or...
...are you taking them on a journey of your brand, through a nurturing funnel process?
Are you giving them more information? More opportunities to learn about your services, products, and even you? How are you nurturing the lead to become clients?
What else are you doing for them? Are you providing them with more information via email or SMS? Are you inviting them to FREE information that you can provide, such as a blog, or a webinar?
How have you built a relationship with your prospect? ...a relationship built on getting them to KNOW you, LIKE you and Trust you?
Most inexperienced business owners and marketers believe they can just run an ad, find an interested prospect, and that prospect will be ready to buy. Unfortunately, this can't be further from the truth.
Think about it... how many times have you grabbed a coupon? How many times did you use that coupon right then? How many more times did you pull that coupon aside and save it to use at a future date?
You need to recognize that your lead magnet works a lot like a coupon. It identifies who is interested in your offerings, and puts you in a position to continue building trust, providing more information that they are seeking, and staying in front of the right audiences while remaining fresh in their mind until they are ready to purchase.
Does that make sense?
What you need is a complete strategy to make this happen! So if your leads aren't converting, the chances are that the process... the funnel, likely needs tweaking!
In this post, you have only scratched the surface of what you need to do for lead generation. There is much more to learn and I can help you learn the process if you want to succeed in this.
If you want to learn how to "get your horse to water, AND get your horse to drink" then you need to check out Ultimate Lead Generation Mastery™.
This course will teach you can a simple 3 step system that will help you build an all-in-one lead generation strategy and funnel.
Not ready for a full course, well here are a couple of guides that begin to take you through the journey described in this post. Click on the link to visit the eGuide.
Thanks for reading this post. We'll see you soon!