Lead Generation vs Lead Conversion: What Is the Difference?

Marketing terms often get confusing, especially those with similar ideas and strategies. For instance, how do lead generation and lead conversion differ in the ways that they help businesses?

This article provides an inside look at San Diego lead generation strategy, including what it does for your business:

• The difference between lead generation and lead conversion.
• Three ways you can upgrade your San Diego lead generation.
• Three methods to convert even more customers.

Want to learn more about the differences between the two? There is much to learn from this blog post, so get ready to take notes.

Let’s go!

Lead Generation: How to Attract More Website Traffic

Think of lead generation as drawing in potential customers, focused on generating interest. It is a digital marketing strategy that begins with raising brand awareness to reach as many people as possible. With it, you can identify people in your target market who show interest in your brand. It involves not only identifying but also capturing and nurturing sales-ready leads with a high level of interest, a growing commitment, and money to buy your products and services.

When someone calls or sends an email, capture their details. This first step is crucial because with that information, you can keep in contact with leads and nurture relationships with them. An example is using paid ads to attract San Diego leads to boost sales for your surf-and-skate shop in Mission Beach. 

The ads drive people to your website. You then collect their contact information (i.e., name, phone number, email, etc.) through a chatbot, landing page, newsletter, or other types of lead magnets. Keep in mind, though, a lead generation strategy does not guarantee that you will convert most or any of the leads that you get.

Lead Conversion: Turning Leads into New Customers

Lead conversion is part of a digital marketing strategy where you convert or turn leads into sales for your business. It usually involves the bottom portion of the sales funnel, which also includes nurturing leads. 

Lead conversion occupies the most time in any marketing strategy.  This can be exhausting and complicated.  You can leave a lead generation strategy running on its own to passively bring more people to your sales funnel. With lead conversion, however, you must be hands-on. Remember that each lead is unique.  You cannot treat all leads equally because some are more likely to convert than others.

Lead conversion adopts a more proactive marketing approach to take your target audience further or deeper into the sales funnel. Because the process is intense and mistakes often result in lead loss and missed sales opportunities, many small businesses hire a San Diego lead generation agency to avoid this situation.

Three Best Ways to Improve Lead Generation

Although lead generation is a short-term strategy that usually happens at the bottom of the sales funnel, high visibility and long reach are the most crucial features of every San Diego lead generation strategy. You want to bring as many people to your business as possible to boost the odds of finding quality leads. 

Here are three strategies to apply that give you this exact benefit:

1. Make it easy to reach people by including email marketing in your SEO strategy. Start a newsletter for your business and put sign-up buttons in visible places. You can even use lead magnets, such as an ebook on the best surf spots in San Diego, to attract people.

2. Run a paid-ad campaign on platforms that your target market uses. Optimize the same search-intent keywords that they use when browsing online. For example, you can bid on “biggest wave in San Diego” or “San Diego boardwalks” for ads targeted to beachgoers.

3. Get feedback straight from the source: the customers. Run a quick interactive survey to encourage people to answer it. Knowing what your target market responds to the most or the best is invaluable and helpful data.

You have plenty of other tactics to choose from, especially with the help of a San Diego lead generation agency. Their web or graphic designers can produce creative and attractive social media content that compels the target audience to give your brand a second thought. They collaborate with you on events to generate more local attention.

In addition, they can measure the success of lead generation by looking at how many people are showing interest through key performance indicators (KPIs), such as bounce rates.

Three Methods to Boost Your Lead Conversion Rate

To improve your lead conversion rates, know and use the best methods to get personal with your audience. In other words, establish a genuine connection between them and your business. 

Here are three strategies to use to achieve this objective:

1. Communicate regularly and consistently. Constant contact is the key to winning over your leads. The more people see and interact with your brand, the more they remember and relate to it. However, learn how to send messages and content in intervals to avoid overwhelming the target market. For example, limit Instagram posts to three to five times a week.

2. Optimize your site’s user experience (UX). Your brand’s UX is a significant factor in whether you can convert customers. It tells them a lot about how your business runs. For example, they will not likely trust a UX design agency’s abilities if its website is slow.

3. Visualize and understand the customers’ buying journey. The sales funnel is one of the best tools you can rely on for results. It is a framework for how you plan to attract, nurture, and convert leads. For instance, a sales funnel for paid ads allows you to track where your prospects are and how close you are to converting them.

To increase your success in converting leads, gather data to understand what appeals most to your target market. Consider other options as well. These include offering a free sample, trial, or consultation to help them know your brand better. Put the decision in people’s hands.

Summing Up

Leads are vital to keeping your business thriving, but how and whether you generate or convert them is a matter of two distinct methods. You need both to keep your sales funnel full and active at all times. 

Effective San Diego lead generation and conversion work off simple ideas. You can create buzz around your brand and build a strategy to leverage interest to turn people into customers. Ideas such as the ones outlined above are the perfect place to start your plans.

Need help in improving your lead generation and lead conversion strategies? Contact Digital Authority Partners (DAP) and schedule a free consultation.