Leads Qualification 101: Importance of Qualifying Leads

Leads are the most fundamental requirement for the smooth operation of businesses for a long time. Companies use different mediums for better visibility of their brands. They use both online and offline tools to expand their business and get a better reach among the general audience. While offline marketing involves different tools like newspapers, televisions, and other mass media, online marketing involves organic and paid marketing. In either case, businesses hire the right experts to bring better reach among the people.

Over years and owing to the development in technology, online marketing has obtained a better prominence. Corporations invest huge amounts of money to bring in website traffic through online marketing. The visitors are captured through websites, social media, and other types of campaigns. “Are you getting maximum profits from investing in campaigns?”, that is the question most digital marketers have to answer when executives contact them. At the end of the day, it is all about results and profits. No matter what the platform is or how many leads are generated, it is significant for companies to qualify the leads. Not all the leads are the right leads for your business, hence, you have to filter out the potential customers for a longer lifetime value.

In this post, we have broken down the importance of leads generation, lead qualification process, and the tools offered by Apptivo to streamline the sales lead generation process. This Leads qualification 101 post will cover the basic questions raised on qualifying leads and why it is of utmost importance for businesses to indulge in the lead qualification process.

What is lead qualification?

Lead qualification is the process of qualifying leads, including the different lead stages It is segregating leads that have a better potential to convert into customers. With a proper lead qualification process, sales executives can effortlessly filter out the leads who have a better probability to become leads and analyze their lead base.

It is a vital tool to reduce the cost invested in bad or dead leads and focus on the customer segment that has a higher probability to become potential customers. This further ensures that the salesperson is able to categorize the leads based on different criteria, prioritize them according to predefined priority levels, and pay more attention to the leads with better scope and value.

Consider A is running an online clothing store that sells clothes for people of all ages. Caroline is a person who frequently purchases clothes online. Jesse, on the other hand, likes to purchase clothes directly from offline stores. When your system captures both of them as leads, the lead qualification cycle will shortlist Caroline as a potential buyer when compared to Jesse. With this, your sales team can focus on the lead who has better conversion value.

However, the salesperson can attain all this information on a person’s preferences only when they interact with them and gain their trust so that they feel it is time-worthy to share their information for subsequent interactions. The right balance has to be maintained by the salesperson to make sure that the lead is converted into a customer.

How do you qualify leads and prospects?

Qualifying leads in sales is a process where significance is given to details. This is the foundation process that marks the beginning of other chain processes. This decides how to capture the leads, how to respond to them, and how to convert them to a prospect with the probability to buy.

So, the first question that comes to our mind while qualifying leads and prospects is, ‘How do you qualify an incoming lead?’ The lead qualification process starts as soon as a lead submits their contact information through inbound marketing. Then, your team will analyze whether the lead is the right customer for your company.

If the lead is the right fit, he is moved to the next level of the lead funnel. Here, the sales rep initiates the first interaction with the lead to understand their requirements from your company. This gives a better insight into the lead’s need, deadlines, probability of conversion, and budget.

Once the sales lead is confident that the prospect is a potential customer who is interested in purchasing your product or service, the lead becomes an opportunity.

This opportunity passes through different stages of the sales cycle from prospecting to closed win. Once the deal is won, the opportunity is converted into a customer. In short, the lead qualification is the initial step towards converting a lead into a customer with minimum losses.

No matter what the size of your business is or what your turnover is, you have to deal with the same goal. The goal is to obtain more leads, qualify them, and convert them into prospects. Unless an effective sales strategy is put forth, businesses will not be able to attain the estimated leads. However, one must remember that B2B lead generation is slightly different from B2C lead generation as the former focuses on a narrow customer base.

Why lead qualification is significant?

Imagine your sales executives give equal attention to every lead though not all the leads are converted to potential customers. In the meantime, they also realize that they are not the ideal choice for your company. Isn’t it a waste of time and resources?

When your sales team can concentrate on more productive tasks and improve the conversion rate, they are made to work on leads that do not have the smallest chance of becoming a potential customer.

This is where lead qualification finds its importance. When a proper lead qualification process is put into your process, the sales executives can easily filter out the leads that have the actual potential to become a customer. Also, this reduces the encounter with leads who have no chance of becoming a customer or have entered incorrect information.

This will boost the performance of your leads, enable your marketing team to focus on segments that have a greater customer pool, and prevent investments that ultimately lead to loss. According to a Study, 80% of marketers believe that automation generates more leads than manual efforts. Therefore, a sales lead generation and lead qualification strategy combined with the right marketing automation tools is what you need to never miss out on a potential lead.

How sales leads are qualified through lead scoring?

Lead scoring is a common methodology implemented by sales teams to prioritize leads based on their sales readiness. This is a scientific metric where the lead scoring is carried out based on a detailed study of their profile and their behavior towards your products or services.

Furthermore, lead scoring helps sales teams to customize their approach based on the lead’s interest and the sales stage. Lead scoring plays a vital role in increasing the efficiency of the sales team where they initiate conversations only with the leads that have a higher lead score.

Also, when your sales team engages with leads that have a higher lead score, there is a better chance of converting them into customers with minimum follow-ups. This in turn will increase the revenue of your business.

Some of the common methods employed in lead scoring are Lamb or Spam, Rule-Based, Ideal Customer Profile, and Predictive Lead Scoring. While these are some of the most prominent methods, businesses constantly modify these concepts to suit their purpose or develop a completely new system.

How the right questions make a difference?

No matter how good your sales team is, you will often come across instances where you fail to convert leads into customers. This could be due to various reasons. But, your way of interaction mustn’t be a cause of conversion failure.

Every salesperson knows how to interact with the leads. But, the deciding factor is asking the right questions at the right time. It is recommended for the salespeople to have a detailed list of questions that they should pose to the leads.

For example, asking “How did you hear about us?” gives you a better understanding of the leads. With this information, the marketing team can also determine their sales strategy and from where they are getting more leads.

Likewise, there is a list of questions that provides a better insight into both your business, your services, and your prospects. It is not mandatory to ask all these questions. You have to identify the right questions and ask them at the right time. You will understand when to use which question through practice and proper understanding of the situation you are put into.

How Apptivo helps in lead qualification?

Apptivo CRM has definite tools that your business can utilize to streamline and automate your lead qualification process. Right from sales lead generation to converting them to customers, Apptivo has the perfect solutions to solve your business woes.

The Leads app of Apptivo empowers businesses to capture leads from multiple platforms like websites, social media, and other mediums. These leads are recorded in a single system along with the lead source. The collaboration tools present in each lead helps sales teams to document every interaction and ensure a greater conversion rate.

The conversion facility allows sales teams to effortlessly convert leads from one application to another in a sequential manner. The leads are converted with a single click and only the mapped fields are moved to the other app like Opportunities. With this, your lead’s data are transferred in a secure environment.

The sales funnel management of Apptivo is a detailed feature that improves your overall sales. The multiple layers assist in improving the lead generation process based on the stages. The qualification cycle of the Leads App is a layered procedure that assesses the leads in every stage and moves them to the next stage only when they satisfy the lead generation criteria.