Ep 12: Turning Leads into Customers

There is a crucial distinction between leads and conversions when it comes to marketing strategy. The team at 5 & Rise Marketing Solutions dives into the process of generating and nurturing leads, setting realistic client expectations, and the importance of consistent messaging across all platforms. Emphasizing the involvement of metrics like engagement rate and frequency, the conversation offers insights into the various touchpoints needed before a successful conversion. The episode concludes by highlighting the need for a strong foundational strategy before launching ad campaigns to ensure a seamless lead-to-client journey. 

00:00 Introduction to Leads and Conversions
00:45 Understanding Leads vs. Paying Clients
01:52 Setting Up Effective Ad Strategies
04:26 Qualifying and Nurturing Leads
05:51 Importance of Location and Expectations
08:57 Metrics That Matter
12:00 Holistic Marketing Strategies
17:52 Client Goals and Advertising Platforms
21:23 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

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About 5 & Rise Marketing Solutions
Our team has been in the marketing game for a combined 5 decades, and we’ve seen it all. From crafting killer ads to building standout brands, managing social media like pros, and creating captivating content, we’ve got you covered. Whether you’re a startup dreaming big, a seasoned business ready to expand, or an organization looking to make waves online, we’re here to help you grow.

We’ve worked across a wide range of industries, from real estate to nonprofits, tech startups to sports, and everything in between. Wherever you are, we’ll meet you there, bring our strategic know-how to the table, and rise together.

And hey, we’re not just keeping up with the trends—we’re setting them. Join the journey.

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Simplified Social Hub
Simplified Social Hub simplifies social media management by consolidating essential features into one user-friendly platform. It empowers businesses and individuals to effectively manage their social media presence, enhance audience engagement, and achieve their marketing goals.

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Transcript

0:00

Welcome to Off the Record Marketing Deconstructed. On today's podcast, we are going to be digging into the difference between leads and conversion and how those two relate to each other. It's important to have that process in place so that when these leads start coming in, we know what's going to happen. Everybody would love to have a one cent cost per conversion and get a hundred percent conversion rate. Neither of those things are realistic. It provides us background information. It gives us context on why certain things may be working or not working. Those things matter. We don't just track those for fun. Yes. Like they mean something, although it might not. You know, we have so many clients. That we're doing lead generation for. And I think I, there is sometimes a difference of. Opinion or understanding about what a lead is versus what an actual paying client or a paying patient for some of our health professionals. Um, and I've had a lot of conversations with some of our clients about, you know, well, we're not, we're not getting any leads. And, you know, my response is we're getting a lot of leads. How are we converting those leads? Or how are you having conversation with those leads to actually convert them from a lead to a prospect, to a paying client, patient, customer, you know, whatever that is. And there's always, it seems like a huge disconnect between bringing those leads in and what happens next. Um, and so guys thoughts on that. I guess kind of like walk us through like the process of what we would like tell a client like from the beginning if they're asking us, you know, we need more patients, customers, whatever, like, where would you start from a ad perspective? So I think, you know, as we, we work through everything, right. And we look at things holistically, we always start with. Message, ideal client, what do things look like, consistency across the board when people go to find them. And then we take all of that and we put it together in what we're doing for their ad and lead generation process, right? Um, it's really important to make sure that we know exactly who we're targeting. I think the big thing is, so we put together our creative, right? We put together our captions, our headlines, our targeting, uh, our ad spend. We set everything up. And then we look at how are we going to generate those leads? Do we have a landing page that we're going to go to? Are we doing a platform form? Like, whether it's a meta form or whether it's a Google form, it just depends on what platform we're working on. And then from there, oftentimes clients will say that they, once we get the leads in, then they'll take them and have those conversations with them, book appointments, that kind of thing. But I think that's where the drop off is, is because there's Some not they're they're not quite sure once that leave comes in what that next process is. And so often they want to do it. Um, but they don't necessarily have the tools to do it. And so I think that's where. We can offer to help clients do that, but so often it becomes an additional expense and, and they have a team in place. And, um, and so I think that's where we need to really work with our clients on figuring out what that process is, even before we start running those ads. I think it starts with the expectation and then into the, that nurturing sequence. Right. So, you know, if, if every lead that came in was, was qualified a, they have to pay us a lot more and, um, and, and B we wouldn't need to be, we probably wouldn't need to be doing ads anyway. Um, so there's a, there's a. Qualifying process that happens on those leads 1st, right? It doesn't whether the agency does it or whether the client does, like, someone has to qualify those leads to weed out the ones that we don't really want to waste our time with. And then, yes, after that, there's that that what we would call like a nurture process. Nurturing process, right? There's usually lead generation and lead nurturing. Um, and so, you know, we have one client where they have like a six month nurture process with like 17 different touch points and it's a combination of phone calls and emails and, and, um, you know, it's, it's, it's super, super detailed, right? And it's kind of templated in some ways. Um, but not every client is like that. Exactly. Yes. So that that's, that's one client, right? And then we have others where. Where, you know, maybe they're just starting to, to, to implement some sort of digital strategy or ad strategy. Right. And, and that expectation kind of has to be set on the front end that a, you don't have, you've not done this before. Right. So we're gonna have to figure this out as we go a little bit in terms of what a cost per lead should be, what a cost per conversion should be, um, uh, to, to. We need to get to a baseline point. And what a conversion rate in that type of industry looks like. So you're not shocked either way, you know, low or high, you know, certain food, quick things have a higher conversion rate as opposed to a longer term or obviously bigger purchases. You have different expectations for your conversion rate. That I think is sometimes where the, the disconnect can be between marketers And, and brands, right. Is the actual expectation. You know, everybody would love to have a one cent cost per conversion. And again, a hundred percent conversion rate. Neither of those things are realistic. They're never, ever, ever going to happen. Sorry. All you business owners out there, right. It's just not reality. That doesn't mean that you're not going to get your money's worth. It just means that that expectation has to be set based on who your target audience is, what your location is, right. The difference between New York city and. Shared in Indiana, right? Are, are fast. And so, so that, that expectation piece I think is super important as marketers are, are working with, uh, business owners or decision makers, C suite level executives on these strategies. And I think we look at things a little bit differently too. I think location that you mentioned, Sean, too. So, so we have clients that have locations all over the country, but what works in, in one location. Doesn't work in the other location, and so it takes a little bit of time to figure out, um, you know, what's the messaging for that location? What's the targeting for the location? What's the radius for that location? And if you're in a larger metro area, it's going to be a higher cost per lead, most likely than another location. It just. It just really all depends. And I think so many times clients come in thinking that like, okay, let's turn those ads on and get those leads running. Um, and there are some agencies that do that, but it also is becomes a higher spend off the bat because you haven't done all of your learning and. Planning ahead of time. Um, and now I'm actually starting to, I think we are starting to have conversations with their clients before we even start lead generation about, um, the process. Because it's important to have that process in place so that when these leads start coming in, we know what's going to happen to them, right? Who is going to be responsible for following up on the leads? What's the process to do that? Um, what happens if we talk to a lead and they're not quite ready? How do we nurture them? What does that sequence look like? And so I think for us to make sure that we are giving the best service to our clients, we have to Do that and have those conversations and set that up before we even start the process so that on the other side of it, um, it's a much better scenario for the client. Yes. Well, kind of going back to what you said, Sean, I think it's the setting the expectation or like the client having realistic expectation, but us as the marketing hand, the agency, it's also the education piece, like educating them before the process even starts so they can have the realistic expectation. Yeah. And you know, there's, there's all kinds of data points that we look at as the marketers. That the business owner or the, or the decision makers don't may not even know exist and that's fine. They don't have to be involved in those nitty gritty details, but you know, something in the sales process, I think the number now is like seven touch points or something before, you know, like that's kind of, yeah. And, and. You know, there's, again, depending on industry location, right? I mean, you might be advertising a product or a service that someone can't just see an ad on Facebook or Instagram and immediately make that decision or sign up in that exact moment. And we talked about this in a previous episode where, yeah, cost per lead, cost per click, those types of things are a cost per conversion. They are very important. And we do pay a lot of attention to those. And that's very important to determining ROI. But, you know, if hypothetically, depending on what your service is, what your product is, Someone might, um, see it and then they might screenshot it, bookmark it, you know, whatever, click the link and then save it for later to talk to someone else about their spouse, their kids, their parents, whatever. And then maybe they go back to, to your website, your landing page, whatever, and sign up that way without going through your ad. Okay. That's not a conversion in your ad account now. Right. But it's still a conversion from your ads. Right. And so it's, it's the, the numbers are a little bit wonky, which is where things like, Engagement rate come into play. Click through rate frequency. Frequency is the number of impressions, which versus the number of reach the amount of reach. So the reach is one person. But if one person sees that twice, it's two impressions. And so the reason frequency is important is because. Um, you don't want it to be too low, right? Because then you're not, you're not staying relevant and staying in front of people. They also don't want it to be too high because you don't be wasting your money on people who aren't going to engage with your ads. Right? So once you get to that, like two, three, four, five, again, there's all kinds of variables that go into it. You know, that's kind of your healthy frequency range. So there's all these things that like, because there are some of those variables, depending on what industry you're in, where a convert your ad might spark interest, but not measure as a conversion in your ad account, that there's some of these other numbers like engagement rate, like click through rate, like frequency, some others that are just as important to look at because it can tell you some of that, that other side of the story. And I think that's important for a client or future client to hear is that like they're, those metrics matter. Like we don't just track those for fun. Like they mean something, although it might not look like it's a direct correlation to your ROI, like it's still, it still matters. Yeah. And that provides us background information. It gives us context on why certain things may be working or not working. It might not directly mean something to them, But it might mean something to us on when we're, whether we're diagnosing something, if it's working or not working, it just gives us a little bit more information to go off of rather than just click through rate and. You know, cost per click, if that's it, then that gives us very little information outside of, you know, just those two topics. Yeah. And Cassie, you asked a little bit earlier about like, what's the process. And if we look at that from a little bit of a broader perspective and not dig so deep, right, we kind of talked into the ads is overall, um, your ad strategy is very much like. Other marketing strategies that you do because, and we use our rise process, but you know, we wanna be able to reach our audience, right? So, um, we look at how are we gonna reach that audience? How are we going to let them know about you? Bring that brand awareness to them. And sometimes if, if you're a new business or, um, you haven't done a lot of, um, marketing or advertising or, uh, you've been. dependent on referrals, those kinds of things, it's going to take a little bit of time for people to see you and get to know you, which is where overall you're looking at not only ads, but you're looking at your organic, right? So we want to look at reaching people. And then once we start bringing those people into awareness of your brand, then that's kind of where we want to initiate them, which is. Second step in our process, right? So we want to actually now start there. They're learning about you. Now we want to actually start talking to them and sharing, educating a little bit more about what's going on, right? Once they are getting a feeling of knowing you, um, and More interested in your business. Then we look at how are we going to shift them from, um, a lead, right. To a prospect. So now it's kind of like, we want to get them in your universe and then. Figure out how we're going to shift them from this leader to this prospect, into a paying client or customer or patient, or, you know, whatever your brand is. And then once they're in your universe, Right. We want to engage and expand with them further and hopefully they can become an advocate and then start spreading the word organically to, um, their world. And so all of those things that we do on a regular basis from a marketing strategy, Are things that come in play when we're looking at your ad strategy as well. And so for us, um, It's important to look at all of that from a high level so that then we can actually Bring it down to Each of the different areas that we work with. And in this case, we're talking about ads. So leads to conversions, and that's why that process is important. And then that process becomes important from the ad side, right? Is once we get those leads, how are we going to nurture them? How are we going to engage with them? How are we going to stay in front of them? And that's where we really look to partnering with our clients to make sure that everything that we're doing across the board works. And the the kind of layman's terms of that and to connect it also back to the to the metrics pieces, having that if we if we're seeing a lot of, for example, we're seeing a lot of leads, but not enough conversions. The question everybody's going to ask is. Why, right? So in again, take all this with a grain of salt because it's different based on business based on product service industry, all these things. But okay, so the advertising is working because we're getting a lot of leads, right? So what's happening after they see our advertising or after they fill out a form or after they click a link? Is there something on the on the website? Is there something with the language? Is the ad misleading compared to what they're seeing on a website? Is the web?

Transcribed by https: 15:36

otter. ai Um, do they maybe click on your, your profile and you don't have an active social media account, right? Is there, is the SEO on your website or is the aesthetic of your website? Like, there's all these things that we would look at to try and understand, which is where the kind of holistic piece comes in and that like foundation, you know, if you, if you come to us and you have no marketing, Baseline or strategy prior to coming to us. And you say, I want to turn on ads right now, we're gonna advise you against that. We're gonna say, let's get your social media optimized where it needs to be. Let's make sure your website is the messaging is what it needs to be. The aesthetic is what it needs to be. Because then whenever you do bring people into that kind of environment, or you do kind of create that interest. Uh, you have the kind of ancillary pieces that can continue, uh, to, to, to talk to them, right, to connect with them as opposed to just, um, getting them to fill out that form and then keeping your fingers crossed, basically. Yeah, I think also, um, I was kind of piggybacking on what you were saying, Sean. For instance, like we have a client that, um, that came to us and is really trying to, to build their list and build, um, their audience. So that eventually they have a larger audience that they can start targeting. Um, but the message that they wanted to put out from an ad strategy to a particular targeted client is different than, The messaging that's on their website. And so I think it was important for us to share that, you know, if your messaging on your website isn't really matching, or if there's nothing on it that attracts that client that you're trying to target, when they go to look at your website, it's going to cause confusion and a confused person isn't going to buy or continue to engage. And so that's again, where you have to look at what you're trying to attract. is something that you need to attract across the board. Um, and you may have two or three different types of clients or customers, right, that you want to attract and that's okay. You just want to make sure that they're seeing that across everything that you're doing. If, if we're a client, um, I think about this a lot because there is so much variability among what's appropriate with. Um, with cost per numbers and convert, you know, percentages and things like that. And, and I always think about like, you know, the, the, the ROI piece, there are some clients where one, a 1 percent conversion rate, right. Or a hundred dollar cost per conversion, or even more, maybe is absolutely worth it. Right. And so, but then there are some, uh, there are others where if we don't have their cost per lead down below a dollar, Financially, it's, it's a, it's a bad, it's a bad investment from the business star's perspective. Um, and so. I always think about, um, you know, the, the platforms and things that we're doing advertising on, right? Like the difference between pay per click ads, right? The difference between there's, I mean, I'm always shocked by the amount of, of smaller local businesses that you hear doing radio or television ads, right? Not because it's a bad investment, but I, I, to me, that's like, okay, you must only need one conversion, right? From that. To be able to make your money back or to make it worth your while. Um, and so I, like trying to put myself in the client's, uh, uh, chair, their shoes. Right. And be like, okay, based on all these variables, should we be doing pay per click? Right. Should we be doing more of a, I mean, Facebook, Meta, Instagram, right. That's more of like a wide, a broader audience. Right. In terms of reach, things like that. Do we need to look more at traditional marketing? Should we get a billboard on. I think it also depends a lot on what their goals are. What's the client goal? Is it to, um, bring in as many potential clients as possible or is it to get their name out there, um, to attract clients, again, clients, customers, patients, whatever it is that, that we're trying to do for that. Particular our client, but, um, so goals are really important and everything that we're doing too. And then we look at putting all of that together, right? I mean, that's one of the things that I think we do really well for our clients is, um, putting all of the pieces together where we're building awareness at the same time that we're attracting, their ideal client to them. Um, and then helping them connect the dots from once that lead comes in, how do we convert them to that actual paying client? And it could happen like that, or it could be over time and, and how we nurture them. Right. And again, that depends on what your sales cycle looks like and what your product looks like and what your, the value of what you're offering looks like. Um, So there are so many different variables that go into place. And so I think if you're a marketer watching this, or if you're a business owner watching this, I think those are all things that should be considered. Um, that you can't, you can't just start putting ads out there, trying to get people in and expect quality leads and, um, quick conversions. I think that that is, um, I think that's a myth of what people are taught or told or their expectations. Um, and so we look at things a little bit different. Thank you for listening to today's episode of off the record marketing deconstructed. If you would like more information about our team, you can follow us on social media at five and rise. Or you can visit our website at fiveandrise. com. We invite you to share, subscribe, and leave us a review and tune in to our next episode.