You’ve finally created a list of viable prospects that are most likely to hold interest in your product or service. Now comes the tricky part—turning them into paying customers.

Conversion is the most critical stage in any sales funnel. In many cases, it can mean the difference between gaining another customer and losing a prospect forever. That said, this is the stage where you pull all the stops to convince that prospect into purchasing your product or service. However, doing this as efficiently as possible can pose a challenge.

With that in mind, here are some tips on how you can convert more prospects without putting a significant increase in workload for your team:

1. Use an RFP software

A request for proposal (RFP) is a public project announcement that calls for bids from contractors. If responding to RFPs is one of the ways your business seeks clients, it only makes sense to use RFP software.

RFP software makes it easier to respond to RFPs swiftly and accurately. For instance, if your business offers web development services, using RFP web development software simplifies adding and editing content, allowing you to secure more deals in less time and with less effort.

2. Automate as many tasks as you can

A traditional sales funnel often involves many tasks within each stage, most of which are time-consuming and prone to error. Automating takes the most menial tasks off your sales team, creates consistency, and improves accuracy from each stage—right from lead generation down to onboarding and retention.

More than a third of sales-related tasks and activities can be automated, which is the main reason why so many industries are rushing to automate the bulk of their business processes. Sales are no exception. However, in sales, automation does not aim to replace human workers—rather, it aims to take over low-value tasks to help salespeople focus on more important matters.

Automate as many tasks as you can, but avoid using excessive tools that defeat the purpose of automating. Having a good sales tech stack is the key; in your tech stack, you must have the right amount of tools and platforms that make work easier—not the other way around. Keep in mind: automation tools still require a certain level of human supervision. Hence, you must consider the number of people that you have when selecting sales automation tools.

Here are some examples of sales-related activities that you can automate:

• Lead distribution
• Cold emailing
• Email personalization
• Lead prioritization
• Report generation
• Administrative tasks

3. Create a powerful content strategy

When it comes to content, quality reigns over quantity. A large amount of content will not impress prospects if they do not find value therein. Thus, having few but high-value content is always better than having large amounts of low-value content.

That said, you have to make every piece of content count, be it an article, infographic, picture, or text post. Putting together a great content marketing team is the best way to do this. However, it’s not always possible nor cost-effective, especially if you are a small or mid-sized business. In this case, outsourcing may be the next best option for you if you can’t have an in-house team. Aside from providing you with a diverse pool of content creators, outsourcing can also help you control your costs without compromising the quality of your content.

4. Prioritize personalization

The importance of personalization cannot be overemphasized, especially when it comes to cold emailing. If your business uses cold emails as one of your primary outreach methods, personalization is key to capturing the attention of your prospects.

People are more likely to pay attention to your message if it makes them feel like a person, not just a random contact on your mailing list. Furthermore, good personalization helps improve your email deliverability (the rate at which your emails get delivered to recipients’ primary inboxes, not the spam or Promotions tabs).

Here are actionable ways to improve email personalization:

• When doing prospect research, have at least five bullets about the client that you can use to establish rapport
• Look at prospects’ LinkedIn ‘about me’ sections to find common points
• Start the email with a compliment
• Segment email lists and send unique content to each segment
• Always use their name in conversation

As you can see, increasing your conversion rate doesn’t have to add a truckload of work to your already busy sales process. With the right strategies and tools in place, you can easily convert more prospects into customers in the most efficient and cost-effective ways possible.