Lead qualification, identify ready-to-buy leads
With the previous measures, we made sure that you have relevant content along your entire customer journey. It was about answering the typical questions in the buying process and then increasing page relevance by providing content on a regular basis. Leads can be generated when good added value is provided, for example in the form of whitepapers. This way, the visitor is de-anonymized and reveals his contact details.
A well-thought-out content structure using pillar pages helps you ensure that Google and visitors perceive you as an expert. Then, to keep your leads moving forward in the buying process, you need to increase their engagement. Use personalized lead nurturing to provide the guidance they need along their journey. Leads have already shared their contact details with you. Now it's time to find out more information about them. After all, you want to know which leads are ready to buy or ready for a consultation and can be approached by sales. The keyword is: lead scoring.
Unfortunately, we often observe that existing lead scoring models are not meaningful enough. Why is that? Traditional lead scoring takes into account a set of fixed factors that help qualify a lead's readiness to buy. Experienced companies have likely established scoring criteria that include a combination of demographic characteristics, lead source, and estimated budget. Popular marketing automation software such as Marketo and Hubspot supplement this data with so-called "behavioral characteristics," which include online activity such as page views, email activity or content downloads.
Now what exactly is insufficient about this? The "behavioral attributes" used by traditional lead scoring models focus on the top of the lead funnel. But we've seen that today's customer journey is a lot more complex, and accordingly the funnel is an outdated model.
So how can we develop a scoring model that reflects the circularity and complexity of today's customer journey?
Qualifying and scoring leads for purchase readiness detection
Today, there aren't many shortcuts to being seen as an authority online. You have to work hard to get qualified leads to actively contact you and be seen as an authority
Building an authority online means more than just being a thought leader in your industry. You need to be recognized as an authority by both the search algorithms and your customers. Search engines rank you and customers trust you - and both lead to building your company's visibility and attracting new customers.
Companies usually don't deal with lead qualification and lead scoring until they want to prioritize their contacts. Depending on the score, contacts are invited to exclusive events, for example, or receive intensive support from sales. However, scoring is not a panacea and is not suitable for predicting sales with certainty, for example. If you want to go a step further, you should rely on algorithms that compare your existing customers and their characteristics with the leads in your database. The more similarity a lead has with existing customers, the better it will score. This chapter is about lead qualification and lead scoring (see also ◉ Fig. 5.1).
Lead qualification
In view of a usually rather low conversion rate, it is important that you move the deals in your pipeline from sales opportunity to close as efficiently as possible in order to maintain a cost-per-acquisition (CAC) model that enables scalable growth. A thoughtful lead qualification process lays the foundation and ensures that the quality of your sales funnel is enhanced.
Lead qualification is a process of evaluating and determining whether a lead is qualified enough to continue through the customer journey and thus move from a lead to a potential customer. In general, there are two ways companies acquire a lead:
- Inbound: A website visitor fills out a form or requests information through inbound channels: Landing pages with forms, newsletters, blog comments, social media or webinars. The contacts generated from this are followed up by the marketing team and later followed up by sales reps.
So it's nurturing leads who have shown interest in your solution and have already engaged with your company through marketing channels. - Outbound: The lead research team creates a list of leads that exactly match your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). Later, they are contacted by your Sales Development Representatives (SDRs), who introduce them to your offer and set up qualified meetings. In other words, it's contacting potential customers who have never had anything to do with your company's product or solution (cold calling).
Sales Development Representatives (SDRs) or Business Development Representatives (BDRs) are inside salespeople who focus solely on prospecting. Unlike sales reps, who must meet quotas and close new business, SDRs contact and qualify new leads and move them forward in the sales funnel.
Unqualified vs. qualified leads
When you work with leads, you basically differentiate between unqualified and qualified leads. With an unqualified lead, it's still unclear whether they're really pursuing an interest in buying and whether they even have more than a passing interest in the products.
The following characteristics are typical for an unqualified lead:
- Don't yet have a proper overview of the company's offerings
- Don't know what solution they need
- Have not yet received sufficient information
- Are not (yet) committed to purchase
- High churn rate
With qualified leads, a further differentiation is required. You differentiate in practice into marketing qualified leads (MQLs) and sales qualified leads (SQLs). Basically, qualified leads are more determined and more likely to make a purchase after appropriate nurturing.
The lifecycle of leads
Regardless of the acquisition channel used to turn a lead into a marketing-qualified lead (MQL), marketing and sales must agree on the criteria that make a MQL a sales-qualified lead (SQL). Even though these terms sound similar, you should know the difference. Often, the handoff of leads between marketing and sales fails because there is no common understanding of what exactly a qualified lead is. So as not to fail at the very beginning of the qualification process, we have explained for you here which qualification levels there are in lead management (see also ◉ Fig. 5.2).
Unqualified Lead
Unqualified leads don't know exactly what your company offers, or they are contacts about whom you still have too little information. In some cases, it's possible to convert an unqualified lead into a qualified one through consistent lead nurturing.
Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL)
An MQL is a prospect who has been generated through an inbound channel but has not yet shown a willingness to buy. Through the lead nurturing process, however, his buying interest may change. You reach this stage, for example, when a user shows activity on your channels. An MQL is interested in your offer, but is not yet ready to buy.
Sales Qualified Lead (SQL)
A Sales Qualified Lead (SQL) is a contact who has shown active interest in the company and its offerings. He has already had many points of contact (touchpoints) with a company and has actively expressed his interest in receiving more information about products and services. The lead is therefore handed over to Sales for further processing.
An SQL can also be a lead qualified by the SDR and originate from an outbound channel. Triggers for this qualification are, for example, the request for a demo or the desire for an individual offer. In this case, it is also worthwhile to pass on the information directly to the sales department.
In most cases, an SQL is divided into various sub-phases and assigned a lead status accordingly. The lead status refers directly to the specific measures that the sales department has to take. The most common lead status options are:
- New
- Open
- In Progress
- Open Deal
- Unqualified
- Attempted to contact
- Contacted
- Bad timing
In addition, you can integrate Lead Status into custom workflows and automations to improve your lead tracking and reporting. Making the most of lead status is a real gamechanger when it comes to reporting and analyzing your existing sales team and processes. In the sales process, these lead status definitions provide more clarity on what needs to be improved and optimized. Only then can you become a RevOps organization - more on that in ▶ section 5.3 then.
Opportunity
Once the lead is convinced by the demo, the consultation and the offer, the final phase of qualification begins. In this section, you can take the initiative yourself to bring about the successful conclusion. Usually, a consultation is suitable for this step.
Customer
A customer is a contact or company with at least one closed deal. Ideally, your CRM will automatically assign this status whenever a deal associated with the contact or company is classified as closed.
Evangelist
An evangelist is a customer who has advocated for your business and provided a referral. Evangelists, of course, are especially coveted; after all, they do valuable advertising for your business.
We strongly believe that contacts should go through every stage of the lifecycle, regardless of the original source (outbound or inbound), to ensure consistent data capture. Because that's the only way you can truly identify the bottlenecks in your customer journey.
For example, a high number of MQLs that don't convert to SQLs could mean that your lead-to-MQL transition criteria don't reflect your ideal customers. Similarly, a high number of subscribers not converting to MQLs could mean that your (content) marketing team needs to rethink its approach.
When it comes to lead qualification, the same rule applies: quality over quantity. Those who comprehensively qualify their B2B leads in marketing save time, money and nerves. Many companies know the problem of losing potential customers halfway through the process. Always keep in mind that one good customer can ideally replace more than 100 cold leads. Clear priorities always get you ahead.
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