‘’61% of B2B marketers find generating high-quality leads as their biggest challenge. ‘’
Converting leads is a hassle job. Being a sales rep yourself, you understand the entire energy and time that goes into that lead conversion of Qualified Leads.
There have been moments where you might have felt that a lead will convert. But found them not matching your ideal lead profile later on.
The problem here is that you have been trained to cater to each and every lead. So when you come across one qualified lead, you assume that the remaining too will fall in that category.
Qualified leads are what your focus should be on. To clarify, not all the leads that come to your website are qualified.
Qualified leads aren’t just leads that are ready to buy, there is a deeper meaning to it.
It is 2021, if you want to be on the top of your game, you have to capture qualified leads as much as you can. To help you in this journey, this article will be your cheat book.
We have covered everything you need to know about qualified leads and how to get them. Conduct the following:
Let’s get started.
This chart will help you in thinking how you can capture your qualified leads. It will also explain to you how you can push them to become a sales lead.
Let’s understand this better with an example:
Paul is your potential lead who has visited your website.
The first stage is unawareness, Paul has no idea what your brand can do for him, he must have stumbled upon your ad on social media which brought him to your website.
When you see Paul, your next step would be to engage with him, by asking him questions such as:
This is when you enter the second stage of the sales funnel which is awareness. Here educating your prospects about your brand and the solution you offer and how you can cater to them better than your competitors will be more visible.
When your prospects find themselves curious to learn more about your brand after you brief them on your brand and the solution, here is when you enter the third stage which is retaining the interest and learning more.
Here is when your e-books, blogs, case studies play a role to convince the prospects that you are the perfect fit for them.
Once your prospects have the knowledge they require to understand you better, they will then start to make the decision to invest in your brand and the solution it offers. This is the fourth stage which is the consideration stage.
This stage is important because here you have qualified leads and such leads are following you and educating themselves but making a purchase hasn’t been conducted yet.
‘’More than 79% of marketing leads don’t convert into sales with the lack of lead nurturing as the leading cause.’’ This is one of the main reasons why just having qualified leads isn’t enough, you need to push them to make a purchase. To conduct this action here is when your scheduled meetings, pushing the right content, sending email content and more relevant actions come to place. The more you work on convincing your prospects to go ahead, the closer you bring them to make that purchase.
Once convinced, the prospects will go ahead to become that sales lead which your brand is ideally looking for.
But wait, the process isn’t over yet. A purchase doesn’t determine that the prospects are convinced, they will still have doubts, which brings us to our last stage, the post-purchase stage.
Here is when your work increases, your prospects will have doubts whether they made the right decision or not which in turn you need to convince them once again stating that their decision to invest in you was right and they should do it again.
The reason why the convincing requires more attention is because your prospects are aware that they have made the investment but they need to be sure that what they invested on is the ideal or rather the right solution for them.
If the last part isn’t done well, you’re back to getting just qualified leads who are still unsure or doubtful of investing in you. While this article helps you to capture more qualified leads, the after journey is what will matter which is exactly how this sales chart will help you understand.
Now that you have understood the key element of converting prospects into leads, let’s help you understand better how to get those leads in the first place to make the process better.
Also Read : Your Conversion rate can grow 2x more than it is currently: Here’s how
Let’s understand this better with an example:
You have two prospects in front of you called Sally and Molly.
Sally is your first prospect who you contact and conduct the normal sales engagement such as contacting them, following up with them, and more.
Molly on the other hand didn’t make you do half the efforts. Molly happened to visit your social media page which led her to your website. On your website, she started exploring your products and content provided and decided to learn more which is why she contacts you herself.
The second example is what a qualified lead means.
These are leads that are ready to become your sales lead but haven’t yet decided to make that purchase. They are possible sales leads but just require a push to make that purchase.
Qualified leads are important because, from the thousands of leads that you receive via your website, not all of them will be your ideal audience. Only a few are the ones that will make an impact on your business.
Due to such leads, it has become difficult for sales reps like you to find your ideal audience which is exactly what you need to eliminate when you are working in 2021.
To help you understand better about qualified leads, let’s move on to our next category.
An MQL stands for marketing qualified leads and these is the qualified leads that we are discussing today.
These are leads as stated earlier that has the potential to become sales lead. They just require the right nurturing to be pushed into becoming one. These are leads that are ready to get in touch with a sales rep and start to think about the decision to purchase. Such leads require the right nurturing to move forward.
Once the MQLs are convinced that is when they move to the SQLs which stand for sales-qualified leads. These are leads that are ready for purchase and they can move forward to becoming a sales lead.
Qualified leads are important and they will go on to be important because as you can see in the image above, such leads increase your chances of speaking to the right person who is genuinely interested in your product.
Such leads need to be spotted in front of your eyes more often so that sales become a smooth process for you which is why we have a complete list of how you can identify them.
You can spot your qualified leads when you are aware that this person holds the authority to make an instant decision to purchase from you. These are leads that are on the lookout for suitable solutions that can match their needs and instantly if right invests in the solution.
Such leads are easy to spot as with their details and the questions they raise to learn about your product will be evident.
For example:
The second lead which you can spot which falls under the qualified lead category is prospects who are in the same industry as you or who also have similar products as you.
For example, Adam is on the lookout for softwares that can help its brand grow better in terms of sales, since you’re a brand that offers good sales softwares, it is evident that Adam could become your potential sales lead.
If you’re a brand that sells CRMs to make the life of sales reps easy, you are bound to engage with prospects that will have needs regarding that.
Their needs here would look like this:
The lead need here is to identify a solution that can make lead data capture and storing more convenient. Your solution can get it done hence the need matches what you have to offer which makes such leads fall under the qualified category.
Your ideal lead profile would be categorized in multiple ways such as:
When you create such ideal lead profiles, you’re making it easy to spot your qualified leads.
All these pointers are of great help when identifying your qualified leads. Since you’re aware of how to spot them, let’s make it easy for you to understand how you can capture them immediately.
You are a well-established brand and it is understood that you can expect a good amount of leads and traffic on your website each day. But the one thing you need to understand here if you wish to increase your qualified leads is the factor that not all of the leads that you receive will fall under the qualified lead category.
A few leads will be hot and warm leads that will make it to the qualified leads list but there are a few which would be cold leads.
To identify such leads, you can understand the following:
These are leads that have no intention of buying from you and are just here to scroll around and walk away.
Since now you’re well aware of what qualified leads are and how to capture them, it becomes easy for you to divide the lot from the crowd of leads you get.
‘’Content marketing costs 62% less than traditional marketing and generates about 3 times as many leads. ‘’ Content is the king. Content is also helpful in capturing qualified leads for you.
How are your leads qualified?
They fall under the qualified leads category when they understand that they need to learn more about your brand but are yet doubtful to invest in your product. Such leads if given the power of different forms of content such as blogs or case studies, they can go on to make a huge impact on their purchasing decisions.
Also if these content is shared in the initial stage of the lead falling under the qualified lead category that too can push the potential prospects into the qualified lead category sooner. The quicker, the better.
Wouldn’t it be great if your first time leads receive more attention at the beginning?
Say that you have a lead that is scrolling your website and hasn’t yet become a qualified lead. For it to become a qualified lead, engaging with the lead while scrolling your website can make a difference to become a qualified lead.
For example, say that the lead is reading one of your blogs, you can place a pop-up assistance to help them read the next blog relevant to their current. Or the lead is reading about your features or case studies, you can also add a chat window or call window pops up to engage in a conversation.
Let’s understand this with an example:
Adam is on your pricing page and is viewing it at the moment, you can place a chatbot to ask and answer questions like:
This can trigger your new prospect to be pushed towards becoming a qualified lead.
You are aware of the meaning of what a qualified lead is and are also able to identify which ones are they, so now all you need to do is take a closer look at them.
Study your current qualified leads such as
All these data can be useful in immediately analyzing and identifying your ideal qualified leads.
When you have a new prospect in front of you, don’t move away from nurturing them sooner. By nurturing your speeding up the process of getting that prospect to become a qualified lead. You can make use of content in the form of blogs and more to grasp the lead’s attention so that with regular nurturing the chances of that prospect to become a qualified lead increases.
When you’re aware that in the awareness stage, there are more chances of your prospects to be converted into a qualified lead, make use of such a step well. Increase the education details you provide for the qualified leads to curb their doubtfulness to invest in your brand.
Let’s understand this with an example:
For instance, say that in the awareness stage, more and more prospects are understanding and learning about your brand and the product. You can use this step to add more blogs for them to read, more case studies to be read. You can go on to share e-books and testimonials for the prospect to get a better picture of what you do as a brand and how you manage to cater to their needs with your product. This will in turn help your prospects to move towards the next step in the sales funnel easily.
The last factor here is to invest in a good communication tool. A good communication tool that makes it easy for the prospect to engage with you or reach out to you is a sign that you can expect well-qualified leads in your brand.
Multiple good communication tools are available but we believe that a communication tool shouldn’t be that difficult for an engagement, it needs to be quick before the prospect changes his/her mind to become a qualified lead.
We have covered such a tool in our next category.
Callback softwares are easy communication solutions that can help you engage with your leads sooner.
Let’s understand this better with an example.
Our solution Limecall is a callback solution. On the website we offer three different ways of how prospects can engage with you, one being a live chat medium with the team experts, and the other being connecting instantly with sales or billing in less than 28 seconds.
This type of communication medium is important because when you have a lead that is approaching you to learn more about you, making them wait or having a communication medium that is complicated will not help in your favour.
You require atool that can help you connect with them instantly so that nurturing them starts sooner and they’re converting into a sales lead takes place quicker.
Why don’t you get a glimpse of how a callback solution functions so that you can have a better idea of the solution? You can head here to get started.
Just like you, there are multiple other brands that have conducted qualified lead actions and have found success through multiple ways of applying patterns and practices. We have covered the ones that can help you better understand it and guide you through new techniques in our next and final category.
Also Read : Actionable Tips for SaaS Businesses to Adapt and Grow in the Wake of Covid-19
An online article shared the useful tips from the top experts on this topic.
Founder of Yes Man Watches
‘’I’d say one of the keys to generating qualified leads early on is creating a group of early adopters or beta testers. This group will create a community around your product and launch. They’ll be the ones talking about your platform or product on social media and the ones who recommend you to their friends. By creating a community around your company, you’ll have people on the outside eager to provide their feedback, which will make them feel like they are a part of your team.’’
Founder and CEO of Socedo
‘’It all starts by identifying what value you can provide to customers! You should start by creating a piece of content like a how-to e-book, webinar or free trial that gives a high level overview of the solution you can provide. Publish this asset behind a gated registration form so you can collect contact and qualifying information from leads who have shown an interest in the piece of content. All of these people have a need for your solution and are good qualified leads for you or your sales team to reach out to.
Now you need to find people to get this piece of content in front of. Twitter is perfect for this because you can easily identify prospects who would be interested in the content based on what they are tweeting about. Look for people using relevant keywords, event hashtags or people engaging with influencers who write about similar topics. Once you’ve found these prosepts engage with them lightly on Twitter by favoriting some of their tweets and following them. The leads who follow you have shown enough interest in your value proposition and content that you can send them a link to the gated content you created.
Do this with 100 Twitter prospects per day and you’ll find that 5 to 10 of them will download your content and turn into qualified leads.’’
Director of Products at the digital telepathy
‘’If you’re just launching your product, chances are you have at least a few beta users – these folks will be your key to attracting your first warm leads. Find the folks who’ve participated the most in your programbeta, and treat them beta like royalty – “charter member” pricing, bonus features or discounts, swag, or even free lifetime memberships are all good ways to give back.
Next, find out how these kinds of active beta users talk about your product, and use that language in your marketing materials, and when you create syndicated content- people like them will use the same language to find solutions to the same problem, so speaking in their language will lead them right to you. ‘’
CEO of Attach.io
‘’If you’re starting at day 1 with 0 customers, Inbound Marketing tactics like blogging and answering questions on Quora are great, but it can take a lot of time and effort to start generating results.
Until your Inbound Machine is working, you can’t afford to wait around for leads to come to you. Don’t leave the fate of your startup to chance- you need to go to them.
At this early stage, you need your first few customers. The single most valuable thing you can do is by doing things that don’t scale ( at first), like with email outreach:
1. Come up with your Ideal Customer Profile hypothesis
2. Find out where these people are – online or offline. This might be groups they belong to, blogs they read, or even just their LinkedIn profile.
3. Find their contact details (there are plenty of examples how to do this)
4. Start with 20 of them, and reach out one-by-one. At first, the majority of them won’t respond, but don’t let this discourage you, it’s normal. You’re looking for Innovators and Early Adopters, the small segment of the market that are visionaries and risk takers.’’
You no longer fall in this category because you now know what a qualified lead is and how you can capture them well.
You will have multiple opportunities waiting on your website in the form of leads but your focus needs to be catering only to those leads that will match your ideal profile of brand growth.
So tell us, what did you think of this article? Was it helpful? What content caught your attention the most.
We would love to hear from you, do share your opinions with your tweets.
, January 22, 2021, LimeCall Team
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