In the B2B sales process, the most crucial aspect is to identify and qualify sales leads that hold the utmost potential. However, almost 67% of these sales are lost because the sales representatives are unable to qualify the leads prior to taking them down the sales funnel. So, simply put, qualifying the leads plays a critical role in the overall lead generation process. It helps businesses to identify and prioritize all the prospects and segment them accordingly.
Basically, lead qualification means you’re evaluating and scoring the collected leads based on their interests, fit, and readiness to make a purchase or take the services from your brand. By qualifying these leads, you can segment them into multiple categories like hot, warm, cold, or qualified. And, the marketing as well as the sales effort can be tailored accordingly to yield the best result. In addition, lead qualification also helps businesses save their time, effort, money, and resources by focusing only on those leads who have the highest potential as well as the lowest acquisition cost.
In this article, we will find out the process of how brands qualify their leads for better lead generation in 2023. So, if you’re still confused about lead qualifying processes, let’s quickly dive in to explore,
Why Should You Qualify Leads?
The most asked question by B2B sales representatives is why lead qualification is important. So, let’s answer that first, right? Well, lead qualification is crucial because it helps you optimize your overall lead generation ROI and improves your conversion rates. By qualifying these leads, you can avoid wasting your resources on those prospects who are not at all interested in your product or services.
Additionally, lead qualification also helps you increase the overall sales effectiveness and efficiency by targeting those who are most likely to convert. Besides, if conducted professionally and precisely, the lead qualification enhances your customer retention rate and customer satisfaction by providing them with relevant and personalized solutions. And, lastly, you can analyze the data of lead qualification to understand the market insights and customer behavior as well.
The Levels Of Qualifying Sales Leads
Well, there are two different levels of qualifying sales leads. All the leads that marketers collect must go through these funnels to get the “sales ready” tag.
So, the different levels of sales leads include:
- MQL or Market Qualified Leads
Market-qualified leads refer to those that your marketing team labels as potential customers who would be ideal for targeting. To find out the prospect’s interest in your services or product, the business’s marketing team often comes up with free trials, content, or e-books. If people opt for them, they are labeled as MQL.
- Sales Qualified Leads or SQL
Once the lead passes MQL, it becomes sales qualified lead or SQL. This is when your sales team finally accepts it to become a potential customer who meets all the criteria. Understanding these two different lead qualification levels is important before you find out the step-by-step process of lead qualification.
3 Steps to Qualify Your Sales Leads
Qualifying leads is certainly a daunting task, especially for beginners. However, there are professionals like us who can help. Still, if you want to gaze at the process of how marketers qualify the sales leads, let’s keep on reading,
- Precisely Study Your Buyer Profile
Prior to even starting the process of lead generation, it’s crucial to understand the buyer profile. For that, you can ask various questions like, who would be your ideal buyer? what are the challenges they are facing currently that you can solve? Who are you selling your products to, the manager, executive, or company’s owner?
These are the few questions that can help you clear your doubts about your buyer profile and enable you to create a precise persona that further streamlines your lead-qualifying process. This will save a lot of energy and time. Because nothing could be more disappointing than giving effort to those leads who don’t convert.
- Understand Intent & Interest
There’s a thin line between a prospect’s interest and intent. You have to clearly understand the difference between labeling them as the most qualified leads and less qualified leads. For this, you can leverage the help of CRM and take a look at the lead’s activities. For example, if the prospect is reading your blogs, or leaving any comments on it, they are showing interest in your product but yet not ready to make a purchase.
At the same time, if someone is visiting your sales page consistently and looking for pricing options, it simply means that they are showing an intent to make a purchase. So, obviously, those with an intent are better labeled as more qualified leads. By labeling them, it becomes easier for your marketing team to continue their lead generation process.
- Double-check On The Person You’re Selling
There’s no doubt that CRM software is highly useful and crucial in your overall lead-generation process. But, trusting it blindly won’t be a wise decision. So, even when you see the prospects showing high scores on this CRM software, it never means they are the right people to sell your products to. For example, maybe you’re trying to sell your products or services to executive-level people, but the CRM lead is a low-level manager.
This is why you should always inspect who you are getting in touch with before you invest your money, time, and effort in it. If it sounds too critical, there are professionals to help you out.
Get Highly Qualified Leads With SocialBloom
The lead qualification process isn’t easier especially if you’re a novice. However, SocialBloom is here to help you out by providing high-quality leads that are most likely to convert. We are one of the renowned and trusted experts in the B2B lead generation industry, helping clients all over the world. If you want to seek help from the most trusted professionals and grow your business exponentially, schedule a discovery call with us now. easier, especially