“Conversion” and “conversation” are just two letters  apart, and that’s hardly a coincidence.

Okay, it absolutely is a coincidence, but it’s also a convenient correlation to keep in mind as you follow up with your leads. While generating enough interest to attract leads is often easy, the conversion process requires a lot more nuance.  Converting leads from “potential interest” to “definitely purchasing ” requires a subtler and more multi-pronged approach than old-school “hard sales” techniques.

Use a combination of tried-and-true engagement strategies, crystal clear copy language and individually tailored appeals to make that trip down the conversion funnel a smooth and satisfying one. 

Engage With Email

There’s no need to fix what already works, and email marketing has been working for decades. According to the Direct Marketing Association, email marketing returns about $38 for every $1 spent, on average. Driving the point home, the DMA finds that email marketing has generated the highest ROI for marketers for 10 years running — when it comes to converting, there are few ways to stretch your dollar further than with email marketing.

To optimize efficiency, use Mailchimp to automate the mailing list process. Gravity Forms provides a Mailchimp Add-On that integrates with every form on your site — not only allowing you to capture new subscribers from any form field, but also accommodating segmented mailing lists to target groups of subscribers with a personalized touch.

Keep Your CTA Simple

With a simple WordPress download, you’ve got the Gravity Forms HubSpot Add-On, a plugin that syncs and tracks form submissions while its CRM integration keeps tabs on which websites your leads have visited, what forms they’ve filled out and where their interests lie based on browsing behavior. 

The power of that knowledge comes in the form of specificity: You know your leads like a friend and can appeal to them as individuals. Keep your call-to-action just as specific. 

Speaking of HubSpot, the company’s blog once featured a site that increased their conversions by 106 percent by adopting a clear, concise CTA. “Sign up.” “Subscribe for free.” “Start now.” Keep it clickable and challenge yourself with how much enticing info you can deliver in just a few words. 

Humanize Your Content 

It’s 2019. People are inundated with ads on almost every device or OS they interface with, and they know when they’re being sold a product. Keep your follow-up copy as free from typical marketing hype and obvious salesmanship language as possible. 

Rather than a hard pitch, think of the follow-up as an opportunity to tell a story. Share customer testimonials from real people — social proof is a valuable, trust-boosting currency. Let your potential customers know how your product will help them with real-world use-case scenarios, homing in on the human rather than the marketing speak.

One key to conversion is focusing on contextual relevance. For instance, online ads are known for in-your-face engagement tactics like autoplaying or click-baiting. According to a MediaPost report from 2017, when online publisher LittleThings cut back on their ad clutter to solely offer ads that were contextualized for each website visitor, they saw revenue increase by 36 percent. Your follow-up is a little advertisement; to convert a customer, it benefits from specific context rather than broad generalization. 

Offer Less, Convert More

Although it may sound contradictory, putting reasonable limits on the number of choices you offer people pays off — no matter what form your follow-up takes.  Psycho-economist Sheena Iyengar famously demonstrated this in her seminal Journal of Personality and Social Psychology study, in which she offered some customers 24 varieties of jam and other customers just six varieties. Only 3 percent of customers made a purchase from the 24 options while a whopping 30 percent made a purchase when confronted with six options.

Too much choice can act as an overwhelming demotivator, whereas limited options more often lead to greater subsequent satisfaction. Instead of viewing the choices you offer with your follow-up as a buffet, think of them as a well-curated selection delivered personally from you to the customer. 

Like Iyengar said in her 2017 TED Talk, offering a smaller variety of clearly realized options “brings us that much closer to realizing the full potential of choice.” Combine that curation of choice with an engaging email campaign, a laser-focused CTA, and marketing that’s contextualized to your customers, and you’re on the right track to drive that follow-up right into a conversion.