For most marketers out there, generating lots of leads has always been their primary target. But it doesn’t make sense for the sales team and the business owner to spend money generating tons of leads that aren’t converting.

For businesses to generate revenue and achieve a reasonable return on investment, they must convert generated leads into sales. The entire leads conversion process requires a comprehensive perspective, proper training, a well-thought-out strategy, and lots of other things. So, what does convert mean and how can you turn a lead to sale?

That is no easy task and so many businesses are still struggling with relatively low conversion rates. So, what are some of the reasons your leads aren’t converting, and what can you do about it?

Read this article to the end to learn some of the mistakes you might be committing and how to correct them.

1. Discord between Marketing and Sales Team

One of the most common reasons why leads are not converting is that they were never really good leads to begin with, and were prematurely passed from the marketing team to the sales team.

When you have a relatively high number of leads not converting, it means that there is a disconnect between your marketing and sales team to what the true definition of your ideal lead is.

Any misalignment between your marketing and sales teams leads to “lead breakage.” In leads breakage, you will have plenty of leads entering your sales funnels at the top, but for one reason or another, a majority of them never make it to the bottom.

The solution is quite simple: Encourage your marketing and sales team to identify and agree upon what a qualified lead should look like. Once you have a defined evaluation standard, only focus on prospects who meet the criteria.

You can even build a lead-scoring model to help you identify prospects that meet your qualification criteria. The lead-scoring model should be used to determine which leads should be passed on to the sales team and which ones should remain with the marketing team until they are qualified.

A marketing automation platform can help you with this task. If you cannot install an automated system, be sure to put in place checks and balances that will help filter the leads and identify qualified leads.

2. You’re Coming on Way Too Strong

When we say you are coming on too strong, it means you are rushing your leads to buy from you. This applies to both inbound and outbound leads.

Typically, rushing leads to buy from you makes them feel under unnecessary pressure. And the worst thing is when the lead already trusts your brand, but you decide to turn into a creepy guy with your marketing.

Leads are like antelopes; they get scared pretty easily. So, if you want them to stay around and take specific actions, don’t blast them with unending messages proclaiming how urgent you want them to complete that purchase.

leads aren't converting

Now, you are most likely thinking about a relatively “gentle” approach, but there is also a catch with this approach. Even if you remain too calm and choose to take things too slowly, most people will still see what you are trying to do because they are used to such tactics every day.

So, what are you supposed to do? Well, the key is building a relationship and developing a wide range of backend tactics such as tracking user behavior on the site that will help you determine if the lead is a potential client. Tools such as hotjar can help you here

Once you have gathered enough data about the prospect and nurtured them over a given period, seize the sales opportunity at the right moment.

3. You Aren’t Engaging Your Leads Quickly Enough

Sometimes, you need to strike while the iron is red hot to achieve better results. If you are a car dealership and someone gets in touch with you wanting to test drive one of your cars, and you don’t act immediately, you will probably lose the prospect to another dealership.

Therefore, it is crucial to ensure that you respond to your leads quickly to engage the users right away. For instance, if you use a lead form, ensure users get the auto-responder “thank you” email within seconds of submitting their form entries.

Let them know any key information they will need to submit to your team for further assistance. If you don’t want anything more from them, let them know when your team can reach out.

4. You’re Not Testing the Quality of Your Landing Pages

Sometimes, we set up landing pages and think, “everything is great.”  But in most cases, these landers won’t perform as you expect them to.

What is the solution to this problem? Test everything. Keep in mind that if you don’t test your landing pages, you won’t have a benchmark to gauge how well they are performing.

Use conversation rates and A/B testing to figure out which elements of your landing pages are working for you and which ones aren’t.

If you are receiving a lot of page visits but no conversions, you could be targeting the wrong audience, or your offer may not be tempting. It can also be issues with your copy, creative, layout, or lead form.

Do you get the picture? Unfortunately, if you don’t test your landing pages, you won’t know the real problem and how to fix it.

5. You Are Not Giving Them What They Actually Want

Sometimes, your leads may not be converting because you aren’t giving them what they want. It doesn’t mean that your offer isn’t of value to them or that you are attracting bad leads into your pipeline.

This means that you may have fallen victim to oversimplifying things that could be pushing away your potential clients.

“My leads want to double their SEO traffic in six months. I made a comprehensive video course on how to double SEO traffic in six months. Therefore, my leads should pay for my course.”  That sounds simple and straight to the point, right?

Unfortunately, no one may be willing to pay for your course because you have oversimplified everything. Typically, your product or service needs to do more than generally achieve what your target audience is looking to achieve.

You want to help them achieve their goals and do it the same way they want to do it. So, how do you deal with such a problem?

leads aren't converting

The first thing you need to do is dig into your analytics to find out where most leads are dropping out of your funnel. For instance, if your leads are reading the posts on your blog but don’t subscribe to your email list, it means the email list isn’t promising them what they want.

Once you have established the problem, the next thing is to figure why your leads feel frustrated and what you can do to make them trust you. Maybe your email content isn’t anywhere as good as the free content you offer on the site.

Maybe your videos are too long, and most people stop watching them after three minutes. Whatever the case, take time to study your leads’ behavior until you understand fully what is happening.

Conduct thorough content audits and back your findings with data analytics to help you improve the sales funnel and convert more leads.

6. Your Leads Are Not Converting Because Your Funnel Isn’t Narrow Enough

A typical lead funnel usually involves multiple steps designed to help users learn more about your brand and offer until they are ready to connect with you.

Most marketers tend to cast their nets as wide as possible, focusing exclusively on quantity over quality. This strategy can backfire so badly because you are spending too much time trying to appeal to everyone, failing to make a solid impression on your target audience.

Therefore, if your lead funnel isn’t narrow enough, you may end up attracting plenty of leads that are never going to convert. Most of them may just be after some of the free resources you offer.

The fix to this problem is quite simple: Take time to ensure that your offer is extremely relevant to your target audience and only your target audience. Consider what would be the most valuable to them and focus on that one point.

Narrowing your target audience will help you attract the right leads that can easily convert into customers. Furthermore, you won’t spend a lot of time pursuing the wrong leads.

Summary

Attracting leads is hard but converting them to customers is even harder. Given that ad costs are constantly rising, it is critical to find means of increasing your conversion rate to realize a reasonable ROI.

We know that lead conversion is becoming harder and harder, but we hope the tips outlined in this article can make things a little bit easier for you.