Having the ability to close internet leads is a survival skill in our digital climate. 

Internet leads are usually served cold, and it takes intention and persistence to close them. Countless studies have been published on how timing affects conversion rates. The fact that contacting a lead within 5 minutes exponentially increases conversions is common knowledge – but it’s not common practice. The first step to closing internet leads is to understand their value.

The nature of internet-generated leads makes it easy to dismiss them. Many times, there isn’t face-to-face contact with a potential customer. They’re just a name and phone number delivered to you by email or text, and it’s easy to pass them off without much consideration. It is essential not to treat internet leads casually. If you give up quickly or ignore a lead to move to the next name on your list – you are creating a self-fulfilling prophecy of failure.

Think about each internet lead as a customer that walked into your place of business. Imagine you’ve walked into a store Wednesday morning and asked for assistance in trying on shoes. How would you feel about purchasing from that store if the salesperson cheerfully told you that they’d be able to help you on Friday afternoon? Internet leads are no different. They filled out a lead form because they’re shopping right now. If you don’t get them the solution they need today, you’d better bet that your competitor will.

Your competitors are looking for new customers, too. Chances are, they’re using some of the same marketing tactics as you to attract these leads. You’ve got to be quick to respond to your leads and treat them like valuable referrals. Clients will move forward with the business who puts a good solution in front of them first.

Internet consumers are moving from one subject to another at the speed of light. If you don’t engage them quickly, they’ll move on to the next thing, whether it’s a competitor of yours or their favorite subreddit.

New leads are 100x more responsive if your sales team reaches out to them within 5 minutes as opposed to within 30 minutes.

New leads are 3000x more responsive if you reach out within 5 minutes vs five hours later.

The average response time to internet leads is 47 hours.

Over 50% of leads end up choosing the company that reaches out first.

When you reach out to a prospective customer quickly, you demonstrate your responsiveness to them and their needs. This goes a long way toward building a relationship and closing the sale. Remember, you should consider every lead you get like someone has walked into your office; don’t make them sit and wait for an hour or two (much less a day or two). They will lose patience and move on.

One way to cut down on response time is to automate your initial response to leads. To do this well, make sure that your messages are customized for who is receiving them. By segmenting your web leads by source (for example) you can create custom auto-responses that are relevant to each web lead. This level of personalization can turn a seemingly impersonal auto-responder into a fantastic follow-up tool.