Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is the single largest SaaS market today. The industry, worth around $40.2 billion, is expected to grow by 14.2% by 2027. As you can imagine, this technology will play a huge role in the way that your competitors conduct business for many years to come.
To keep up with the competition, you’ll need to invest in top-notch CRM software. Having an effective lead capture strategy is a huge part of this. We’ll give you some of the best tips for saving and converting leads, so read on to strengthen connections with your target customers.
1. Understand Lead Capture Strategy
Capturing leads is a critical part of your CRM campaign. It creates and designates the process of saving information gleaned from previously-generated leads so that you can convert your findings into paying customers. Note that this process is different from lead generation- it’s the step that comes after generating them.
Generally, lead capture takes place on your website’s post-click landing page. It offers an incentive to those who fill out a lead capture form. You can then nurture interested consumers through every part of your marketing funnel.
Consumers fill out a form on this landing page because you provide a strong lead magnet. When you offer an incentive that has real value to the consumer, you will have a much more effective lead capture strategy. They will be willing to fill out your form in exchange for an incentive like an e-book, checklist, or free consultation.
2. Turn Top-of-Funnel Users Into Leads
Capturing leads needs to begin at the top of your marketing funnel and work its way down. People in the introductory part of the funnel are just becoming aware that they need a solution for a business issue that they’re having.
Whether you are a B2B or a B2C business, consumers aren’t looking up specific brand names or product types yet. They’re searching for answers to the problems that are causing them issues so that they can find simple resolutions.
An example would be a business realizing that they’re struggling to keep their sensitive documents secure. Business owners will be making search queries such as ‘how to stop security breaches’ and ‘help for compromised documents.’
Let’s say that you’re a B2B security system SaaS company targeting those at the top of the funnel. You’ll look for people that are researching attacks, preventing breaches, and improving authentication. They won’t be looking for a solution to help them yet. You’ll need to produce a top-of-funnel lead magnet such as a white paper or checklist.
This is a great place to begin the lead capture and nurturing process. Creating a top-of-funnel reward is significantly easier than giving away valuable rewards lower in the funnel. They will read over the document you provide them, realize that they need your solutions, and make a quick purchase.
3. Capture Mid-Funnel Researchers
It’s unrealistic to assume that all of your best consumers will find you at the beginning of their buying journey. This would be for both you and the consumer, but many of them will already have completed the research phase of their experience.
This is the case for both B2B and D2C consumers. After all, if you’re selling a service to a business, you’re ultimately targeting the owner or decision-maker. You need to prove that your business is the right choice for partnering with theirs.
B2B and D2C consumers who are in the middle of the funnel are actively searching for solutions. They’re ready to learn more about tools like those that you offer. However, they’re not completely ready to make a purchase yet- they’re still looking into the many alternatives that they have open to them.
That’s why mid-funnel lead capture needs to sell the specific product that you’re offering. It doesn’t necessarily need to sell your business/brand yet. You just want people to see value in your service (or one like it). They need to understand that it’s the logical solution to the problem that you’re having.
At this stage in the marketing funnel, the security SaaS business we discussed earlier may offer data-driven guides. These guides should showcase how their product helps to prevent breaches.
4. Save and Convert Bottom-Funnel Leads
Some solutions track consumers from the top of the funnel and move down with them. However, the process of moving down the funnel can take months or even years. This means that you need to be specific in showing that your business and brand are the right choices for the consumer.
B2B and D2C potential clients have already figured out the type of solution that they want at this stage. They also know how they want it to solve their problem and what a reasonable budget is.
You’ve now captured their interest, built trust, and shown them that your product has value. All that remains is to be straightforward as to why your business is the answer.
Point them towards reviews and video testimonials from satisfied clients. Show them real-life case studies. Finally, offer them a way to get a feel for what it would be like to work with you. Give them a free trial, consultation, or demo of your services.
This will let them see for themselves why your solutions provide more value than those of your competitors. They also get a test run of your services so that they can become hooked on all of its best features.
5. Use the Right Technology
No matter what level of your funnel, you’ll need to use the appropriate technology for capturing leads. Cultivize offers a fully managed automated system that helps you identify, nurture, and convert leads into sales.
When you work with us, you begin leveraging a single platform to connect your current and future customer data. Our platform also connects inbound and outbound marketing campaigns with the daily activity of your sales team. This increases their productivity and saves time by eliminating repetitive and mundane tasks.
Additionally, a customized platform, like SharpSpring, lets you see the ROI of all of your digital and offline marketing campaigns. This includes direct mail, webinars, radio, print, and more. You can then analyze which campaigns are generating revenue and which ones are losing money.
The bottom line is that you need to use the right technology at all levels of your customer’s journey. This ensures that you will be able to optimize the leads that you spend time and money generating.
6. Optimize Your Landing Page
At this point, you should have an appropriate lead capture strategy implementation technology to integrate with your website. Now, you must optimize your landing page to keep it engaging for consumers.
After all, they’ll otherwise click away within the initial 2 seconds that you have to capture their interest. You won’t be able to gain or nurture leads since consumers will enter no information into your site.
Some tried-and-true ways to improve your landing page include:
- Video content (explainer testimonials, product/service videos, animated infographics, etc).
- Visual data (charts, graphs, still infographics)
- Large, bold font in short paragraphs/bullet points
- A user-friendly navigation system
- Fast load times
- Branding information (logo, business name, slogan, contact info)
- A large lead magnet that people are sure to notice no matter what
This will ensure that they scroll to the bottom of your page and get excited by your lead magnet. Only then will they enter their personal and contact information.
7. Score and Nurture Leads
Cultivize’s marketing automation software allows you to score leads. This means that you determine the interest levels of your prospects and assign them a point value.
The higher the point value the more engagement a lead has had with your brand. This lets you quantify the value of each lead so that you can identify the most likely potential buyers.
Once this is done, you need to nurture the leads that have scored the highest. This means delivering content regarding your business to consumers.
You can reach people at all levels of your sales funnel on social media platforms and your official webpage’s blog. You also can nurture leads by following up with them via behavior-based email and getting them interested in moving down the funnel with you.
8. Integrate Leads With Other CRM Strategies
Your lead capture strategy is only one component of CRM. Some others include:
- Providing customer service to current and prospective consumers
- Marketing (via social media, blog posts, PPC ads, email campaigns, etc)
- Business reporting (e.g. customer care reports)
- Workflow automation
- Data analysis and analytics
All of these CRM aspects are critical to ensuring that you can help consumers down the funnel easily. Lead capturing is the first in a long list of CRM actions that you need to take. Because of this, you will need to integrate your leads into these strategies.
Take the leads that have scored highest and run automated reports on them. You can then see the analytics that goes into getting people on your site and converting visibility into sales. After that, you can reach out to consumers and inform them about other aspects of your marketing campaign.
Your marketing efforts should be tailored to the highest-scoring lead’s demographics. This will make it more targeted towards the age and occupation of the people that you work with most often. The impact is a more personalized marketing strategy that makes the most relevant individuals want to work with you.
Get Started With an Effective Lead Capture Strategy
Now you know how you can grow your business by capturing and nurturing leads. That means you’re almost ready to get Cultivized! Contact us with any remaining questions that you have about lead capture strategy or our services.
Unlike CRM companies, we educate and train your team and customize your implementation. We’re committed to helping you every step of the way each month to maximize your results. Don’t hesitate to reach out!
