By the time buyers fill out a demo request form on your website, they’ve already done their research, discussed their needs with their peers, and created a shortlist of vendors. Join our panel of experts, Krupesh Muthukumar, Co-Founder at RevenueHero, Vikash Koushik, Head of Marketing at RevenueHero, and Zach Stafford, Principal Consultant at Zacfoo Consulting to hear their advice on how to increase conversions through lead flow optimization.
“The buying journey is no longer linear.” - Vikash Koushik
99% of buyer journeys are messy. Prospects jump in and out of contact with sales organizations, are exposed to countless online ads, and rely heavily on online communities, like RevOps Co-op, for guidance on choosing vendors. By optimizing your lead flow you can increase your conversion rates.
Make demo requests your top priority
“Speed to lead is really important. The early bird gets the worm and the faster you respond, the more likely you are to convert the lead.” - Zach Stafford
Demo requests are the highest intent action a lead can take. But companies are still not responding to these leads quickly, if ever. According to a survey conducted by RevenueHero, demo request response times across 1000 B2B websites are falling way short:
- Only 16.5% of companies responded immediately
- Another 3.7% responded within a week
- A whopping 44.4% of companies responded a week later, or did not respond at all
Bad lead flows can really hurt your revenue and lead to low conversions, a higher customer acquisition cost, and slower sales cycles. Just by optimizing your time to close, you can increase the amount of revenue you make each quarter. The faster you can set a meeting, the faster you can disqualify poor leads, and the better your conversion rates.
8 tips for optimizing your lead flow
“Frequent exposure to ads keeps the value prop top of mind for your leads. It's better than a sales rep following up every day for a meeting.” - Krupesh Muthukumar
- Make sure you have the tools you need to get leads to your reps quickly and hold your reps responsible for their response times by setting clear SLAs.
- Lead quality should rarely be reset. Only a major event, like the lead leaving the company, should change your quality score. Your lead engagement score can be reset frequently based on feedback from your prospect.
- Remove engaged leads from all email follow-ups while keeping them enrolled in your ad campaigns. Even when an opportunity is close to signing, your campaigns can help close the deal faster.
- Have a clear policy for when a lead qualifies as dead. If the engagement drops off, send it back to marketing for nurturing.
- Don’t make your lead qualification too complicated. Avoid having too many “ifs” or “ands.” Excessive hurdles can lead to reps making mistakes.
- Optimize for the best buying experience. If your process is too rigid, your buyers may worry that you’ll be difficult to work with when they’re a customer.
- Make sure that your definition of MQL is created cross functionally, otherwise marketing may feel they’re hitting their number while sales struggles to close.
- Create an easy way for leads to book meetings directly with sales reps. Demo requests indicate a hot lead so automate and facilitate meetings with a tool like RevenueHero.
Automate and optimize
By the time a buyer reaches your demo request form, they’ve already done their research, talked to their peers, and read up on your competitors. Increase conversion rates by making it as easy as possible for your leads by optimizing your lead flow for a seamless buyer experience.
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