A Sales Management & Marketing Guide: What's the Average Conversion Rate for Material Handling Leads?

Conversion rate is arguably one of the most -- if not the most -- important performance metric for material
handling companies. As you may know, it refers to the percentage of users who purchase a product or service. With a high conversion rate, your company will generate more sales using fewer resources. So, what's the average conversion rate for material handling leads, and what steps can you take to increase your company's lead conversion rate?

Lead Conversion Rate Explained

First, familiarize yourself with the term "lead conversion rate." Conversion rate is a metric that can be applied to any marketing or sales tactic, including lead generation. The term "lead conversion rate" refers to the percentage of your material handling company's leads that make a purchase. In other words, you convert those leads into paying customers. If your material handling company attracted 500 leads last month, 50 of whom made a purchase, your lead conversion rate for that month would be 10%.

Exploring Material Handling Lead Conversion Rates

If your company transports, stores, packs/unpacks or even automates materials or parts within a warehouse, distribution center or manufacturing facility, different companies will experience different lead conversion rates. With that said, a report published by Salesforce found that 13% of all B2B leads convert into opportunities. And of those opportunities, only 6% convert into sales.

How to Increase Your Lead Conversion Rate

Here is your guide to maximizing every lead opportunity. The content can be for you…personally, or it can be for a member of your team. Regardless of years of experience, we can all improve our lead conversion rate.

#1: Use personalized messages when communicating with prospects or leads. When a lead first provides your material handling company with his or her information, you should use that information to personalize your communications with the lead. At minimum, you should know the lead's name, in which case you can address emails and other marketing material to the lead by his or her name. It's a subtle modification that can boost your lead conversion rate by as much as 30%.

#2; When making a phone call, be sure your sales, inside sales or telemarketing team uses the person’s name. Be careful if you choose the say the person’s last name as well. Try saying their first and last name so it sounds more ‘natural’, rather than trying to figure it out to the gate keeper. It’s a dead giveaway that you’re cold calling.

#3: If you’re leaving a voicemail message or if you’re speaking to them ‘live’ for the first time, address them by their first name and how you both are now connected. “Hi Tom, this is Susan from Material Handling Inc. You called and left a message because you’re looking for repairs on your fleet. Tell me what’s been going on?”

#4: Follow up your phone call (if you connected or not) with a personalized email letting them know you called and left a message. This will be a great way to have them recall the voice mail message you left and get a quicker response back from the lead. When they call back, be ready. Be sure to communicate in a way that makes them feel special. “Hi Tom, thanks so much for calling me back. I was doing a little research for you, but I need to ask you a few questions first.” Each one of these communications shows the prospect respect, undivided attention and an interest to know more about their problem.

#5: Another way to increase your lead conversion rate is to harvest high-quality, targeted leads. If all your leads are generic and not necessarily related to your material handling company's industry, you'll probably experience a low conversion rate. But if you focus on high-quality, relevant leads, you'll achieve a higher conversion rate.

Where can you find high quality leads that are for the material handling industry? That’s where SalesLeads Inc. comes in. Many times, material handling companies want to be able to find out when a new construction, renovation, expansion, or modernizing equipment project is going on before it actually happens. That’s what we do.

Every time a new Project Report is released, you’ll get a notification. The purpose is so you and your team can call the validated contact name to begin the sales cycle. Yo
u’ll receive all the pertinent information such as project description, contact names, titles, email and direct phone numbers. Now it’s up to you to use the personalized communications we just discussed for a higher conversion rate. The best way to be convinced of its value is to try it out. So, try it out for free. You only have business to gain.