Closing the Deal: Converting Business Leads to Actual Clients

As David Slater aptly points out in his white paper, “Growing Your Law Practice by Leveraging Technology,” grabbing that juicy search ranking is only part of a truly successful web marketing initiative.

In the world of online marketing, there are two “conversions” that must be addressed – first, the conversion of a website visitor into a viable business lead, and second, the conversion of that business lead into an actual revenue-generating client. A failure at either of these two conversion stages renders the entire web marketing campaign useless in terms of concrete results.

We have previously addressed a few points regarding the issue of visitor-to-lead conversion on this blog, so we will skip discussion of that phase for now. Instead, we will focus on several aspects of lead-to-client conversion in internet marketing.

No matter what business you happen to be in, closing the deal with potential clients is crucial. Part of this conversion process is simple professionalism – as in:

• Are you courteous and respectful of the potential client’s needs?
• Do you display your knowledge of the subject matter?
• Are you accessible, responsive, and responsible?

This last point is particularly important when dealing with online marketing. When bringing in clients via the web, being accessible, responsive, and responsible boils down to one thing – speed. In a fast-paced world, and ESPECIALLY in the rapid-fire-short-attention-span-instant-gratification world of the Internet, your ability to respond to business leads quickly is paramount.

Let me be clear – when I say “quickly,” I do not mean “within a week” or “within 3 business days.” I mean “as fast as humanly and technologically possible.” Every second counts in this business. David Slater points out that his firm’s use of push-email is a huge factor in their ability to respond to new leads almost instantaneously. The moral? Modern technology is fast, so learn to use it to keep up. Emails, text messaging, collaboration software – familiarize yourself with these things and integrate them into the way you do business.

Of course, all the technology known to man won’t do you any good if you don’t put forth the effort to be there and use it; there is no technological remedy for not picking up the phone during normal business hours…

Need advice on integrating the web into your business operations? Contact the web marketing experts at TSEG at (512) 394-7234.