How do you identify a qualified lead?

To increase sales, it's important to find qualified leads who will likely become paying customers. Here is the process: Create a detailed description of your perfect customer, i.e., industry, company size, challenges, and budget. This profile will serve as a benchmark for identifying qualified leads. Analyze leads source. Leads generated through channels that align with your target audience and marketing efforts are more likely to be qualified. Engagement levels, like website visits and email opens, can show interest. Gather and evaluate data on the lead's job title, location, company size, industry, and revenue. Compare this info with your ICP. Use the BANT framework to evaluate the lead's Budget, Authority, Need, and timeline.

So, what sets a qualified lead apart? Firstly, a qualified lead is someone who has expressed a genuine interest in your product or service. This could be through actions such as researching your pricing, requesting a demo, or subscribing to your newsletter using their business email and not an alias. These actions indicate that the lead is actively seeking a solution and is more likely to engage in a meaningful conversation. Secondly, a qualified lead also corresponds to your target market and aligns with your ideal customer profile based on factors such as industry, company size, and job title. A lead that falls within your target audience is more likely to have a genuine need for your offering, increasing the chances of conversion.

A qualified lead is more than just a contact in your CRM! It's crucial to distinguish between leads that have the potential to convert into paying customers and those that may not be worth pursuing. A qualified lead has the authority to make purchasing decisions or influence them. While it's essential to distinguish between leads, it's equally important to ensure that the lead has the financial resources to make a purchase. Understanding their budget and financial capabilities will help you prioritize leads and focus on those with a higher likelihood of conversion.

Actually, when we started qualifying leads, we found that a tiered approach to handling these leads has led to an increase in sales. A tiered approach is having team A who would qualify leads and bucket them using defined exit criteria, these leads are passed on to team B and team C based on the 'lead time' for closure by the customer. Finally, leads that are still in the evaluating phase are shared with the CRM team.

Aligning sales and marketing teams can be the difference between success and failure when it comes to optimizing the process of identifying qualified leads! Keep track of the customer journey and encourage strong collaboration and feedback loop between your sales and marketing departments. This ensures a seamless transition of leads and insights from marketing to sales, with clearly defined qualification criteria and an effective ideal customer profile (ICP).

Intent is the key to understanding whether a B2B lead is actively looking for a solution to their problem or just casually browsing. Try more unconventional methods like following and monitoring how leads interact with your brand and others on social media platforms. Are they asking questions, sharing content, or tagging or following colleagues? These activities demonstrate a deeper level of engagement than website visits and interest in what you have to offer.