How a product configurator helps to generate more leads

Author: Walter Burgstaller

Importance of leads for companies

Leads play a crucial role for businesses, as they are potential customers or clients who have an active interest in your products or services. By generating qualified leads, companies can drive growth and increase sales. Leads serve as the foundation for lead management, which enables companies to conduct targeted marketing and sales activities . Through effective lead nurturing, companies can convert potential customers into paying customers and build long-term customer relationships. Leads are therefore an indispensable component of a successful business strategy and contribute significantly to the company's success.

Lead generation challenge

A major challenge in lead generation is identifying and acquiring qualified leads. Often there is a large amount of potential customers, but not all of them are actually interested in a company's products or services. The goal is to reach potential customers who have a high probability of becoming a paying target. Another obstacle to lead generation is competition. Companies compete for the attention and interest of potential buyers. It is therefore important to stand out from the crowd, to offer appealing offers and added value. This way, potential customers are more likely to leave their contact details.

Lead generation and marketing activities, especially in the area of social media, go hand in hand to address the potential target group and generate leads. Social media provides an effective platform to reach a wide audience, build engagement and convert prospects into paying customers.

Advantages of a product configurator for lead generation?

The product configurator is a powerful tool for lead generation and part of lead nurturing. Lead Nurturing is the lead nurturing to give prospects exactly the information they need to make a purchase decision.

Using a product configurator is an extremely effective method of acquiring new customers. Lead generation refers to identifying and attracting potential customers who are interested in your products or services. A lead is a prospective customer who voluntarily leaves his or her contact information in order to receive further information or to get in touch with the company.  A configurator provides the prospect with all product information, often in 3D, and creates product clarity about possible variants and options, as well as the quality and materials of the product. This product clarity - also with the option of augmented reality - is exactly what customers are looking for, need and want in order to make a purchase decision. In addition, a well-implemented configurator is also "fun", which appeals to the gamification in us humans.

What is the procedure?

• A) Save: Leads who have an interest in buying, but do not want to make the purchase immediately, often show a desire to save their configuration. In this case, only the email address is provided, along with a request for consent for "automated data processing". This information can then be integrated into the lead marketing process.
• B) Inquiries: The configurator should offer the possibility to the prospective customer to find directly the field "Send inquiry". Here it is natural that the name and the contact address can be requested.

This gives you all the important contact details of the potential customer, including name, e-mail address, telephone number and any other relevant information. Sales can now contact them to clarify further questions or discuss the offer.

Customer loyalty and resales

Customer loyalty and repeat sales play a decisive role in the long-term success of a company. If the company succeeds in retaining existing customers in the long term and motivating them to make regular repeat purchases, this can lead to a stable source of revenue and a positive reputation. Aspects of customer loyalty and repeat sales are positive customer experience through the configurator, which is perceived as good service, increases the likelihood that they will remain loyal to the company and recommend it to others. A product configurator also lends itself to "sharing one's personally configured product" on social networks and helps to make other interesents aware of your product. Word of mouth also takes place on social media platforms.

Regular and targeted communication with customers is important to keep them informed about new offers, product updates or relevant information. This can be done through email marketing, newsletters, social media posts or personal calls.

Success story: How Schrack Technik generates 50% more leads with the product configurator

With 25,000 products and 1,000,000 orders per year, Schrack Technik is one of the leading technology companies in power and data distribution in Central Europe.

The challenge: The design of an meter distribution & distribution panel can vary greatly. The goal was to make the selection process as simple and intuitive as possible for customers. The key tasks were to enable customers to select the right installation and meter distributor without the help of sales staff and to present the product clearly in 3D.

The solution: All this was successfully implemented with a product configurator. Thanks to the appealing visualization and filter option of the products, customers can configure the right distributor for them very quickly. This makes the ordering process particularly user-friendly, so that even a complex distribution panel & meter distributor can be ordered in just a few steps. Go to Case Study: Configurator for meter distribution & distribution panel.

Schrack Technik generates an unbelievable plus 50% more inquiries through the product configurator and, in addition, a significant time saving in the preparation of quotations. This could be reduced to half the time.

Conclusion

A well-implemented product configurator can prove to be a true lead machine, regardless of the type of business - be it B2B, D2C or B2C. Companies can see a significant increase in inquiries by implementing a product configurator, and these inquiries also have a high completion rate. The use of a product configurator enables customers to design their own individual products and generates a high propensity to buy. Furthermore, a product configurator offers the additional advantage that companies can differentiate themselves from their competitors. One customer, who does not wish to be named for competitive reasons, enthusiastically commented, "The product configurator is a real game changer for us."