3 ways to turn leads into paying customers

Turning potential customers - or leads - into paying customers involves a strategic approach that focuses on building trust, providing value, and addressing their needs.

​Remember, the key is to create a seamless and positive customer experience throughout the entire journey, from the first interaction to the post-purchase phase.

​Here are several effective ways to convert leads into customers...

understand your audience

Market research is "the process of gathering information about customers and the market as a whole to determine a product or service’s viability." (source)

Feedback from the market research process - whether you collect data yourself or use industry reports or public databases - helps you anticipate how your product (as-is) will perform when launched.

​You will also get feedback on potential changes you could make, specific from your target demographic.

Doing primary market research (collecting the data yourself through surveys) can help even if you aren't a start-up. The results may lead you to:

• Improve your branding
• Understand your customers better
• Measure how effective your marketing is
• Identify new opportunities
• Gain insnight into what customers value about your product features

Helpful Links

• How to Conduct Market Research for a Startup (and free-ebook) [Harvard Business School Online]
• How to Conduct Thorough Market Research for Your Startup or Small Business [Salesforce]
• Market Research for Startups [Bond Collective]
• How to Conduct Market Research for Startups [HubSpot]
• 5 Ways to Improve Your Business with Market Research [BDC Canada]

build a strong online presence

If you don't have an online presence yet, begin by creating a professional and user-friendly website. You can utilize a service to do this for you or hire a freelance web designer. You can also research DIY options by comparing their plans with your needs. 

Then, optimize your website so that search engines can find you (i.e. search engine optimization). SEO means your website will show up in search engine results when someone searches for something related to your business or products. Then they can click the link, and your website gets traffic. That traffic leads to leads, and then hopefully customers.

Read articles to learn about SEO and changing trends or hire a seo firm to optimize your online presence. You may get cold-call emails from consultants offering you this service. Turn those down and find someone who is a good fit for your company. Spending the time to learn about SEO (or hiring an SEO consultant or firm) is a quality investment in your business.

Next in online presence is your social media presence. Through market research, you identified your target demographic. What social media platforms does that demographic use? If you are an adept social media marketer, or you are hiring one, you can launch accounts on all available platforms. Otherwise, choose the 1 or 2 that correspond with your target market.

​Create high-quality content relevant to your audience, that doesn't solely revolve around sales, to show them how your business can meet their needs and fix their pain points. You can use blogs, videos, infographics, and other content formats to showcase your expertise and provide value, and you can even use a service to schedule your content, so you don't have to manually post every day.

create lead magnets

In addition to your products, create valuable content that leads can receive in exchange for contact information - such as eBooks, white papers, or a free trial of your services in exchange for signing up for your email list. 

As part of your marketing strategy, utilize your email list for targeted campaigns with personalization and strategic segmentation. Your goal is for leads to click to your website through your emails - not delete or unsubscribe. Ideally, your email campaigns can help turn a lead into a paying customer. You can advertise exclusive offers or beta testing to subscribers only or maintain a member-only resource library on your website. 

Offering resources such as these not only helps drive leads to your website, and maintain your customer base, but also positions your brand as an authority, established creditability, and builds trust.