Leads are a key part of getting new business. While every business has its own processes, generally the funnel moves from attracting leads, to nurturing and closing sales. And while it may not be incredibly difficult to accumulate leads, the same can’t be said of gaining qualified leads.
By definition, a lead is any person who indicates interest in a company’s product or service in some way, shape, or form. A visitor often turns into a lead when they open up a line of communication with the business. Leads generally already have an existing interest and are actively searching for information about a product or service to solve a problem. But not all are created equal – you’ve likely come across an abundance of leads that have very little merit of becoming legitimate business. Due to this, it gets difficult to distinguish between junk and leads that are worth your time.
Leads also have different stages of readiness. There are a variety of ways stages of readiness are categorized – in inbound marketing, often they are referred to in relation to the sales funnel: Top of Funnel (awareness); Middle of Funnel (consideration); and Bottom of Funnel (decision). The further along a prospective buyer is, the closer to the bottom of the funnel.
Attracting Leads
Gaining qualified leads has shifted heavily from mass calling/cold emailing, to a focus on attracting people – hence “outbound” vs. “inbound”. The way people buy has changed and people generally like to do their own research. That’s why creating value through a variety of inbound marketing approaches has become so much more important.
Content Marketing
Providing something useful creates an environment where leads reach out from their own interest. A primary example is the use of social media. Content marketing is a method of providing a form of value that will peak interest. Creating social content can also help with general engagement and performance, including traffic and ROI. Here’s an article on how to use content marketing to improve ROI.
How SEO Can Attract Qualified Leads
Optimizing your social and website content for search engines will give you a better chance at getting your offer out there. Content that is optimized is more likely to be in the right place at the right time for viewers to take notice. At the same time, some simple metric analysis can go a long way for positioning yourself. Checking out Google Analytics can give a better insight into where most of your prospects are coming from and how they interact with your website and socials.
Relationship Building
The ultimate goal behind any form of lead generation is to gain qualified leads via relationships. Customers like to be taken care of, and the best way to do this is to establish a relationship with them that is beneficial to both parties. You can leverage social platforms to connect with others of similar interests and business goals.
- Lead generation from LinkedIn was successful for 65% of B2B companies.
Understanding your leads via relationships will make it much easier to cater to them. From there, you can nurture and ensure a smooth hand-off to the sales team to which they become a successful customer.
Qualifying Leads
When it comes to qualifying leads, there are different types that segment them further. Each has a slightly different means of approach which we will cover.
Marketing Qualified Leads
Marketing qualified leads are contacts who’ve engaged with your marketing team’s efforts but aren’t ready to move on to the sales process. These leads are more likely to become a customer than others and are therefore more likely to be fit as a Sales Qualified Lead. It’s important to be precise when deciding on MQLs, and to back it up with data, since nurturing leads does take time, effort and money.
Sales Qualified Leads
Sales qualified leads are prospects who’ve taken actions that indicate they’re interested in becoming a paying customer. If the marketing and sales teams align, the sales team can investigate whether pursuing the MQLs are worth the effort. Sales qualification can make it clear as to whether or not a lead is worth nurturing and what is needed to make the journey better. From there, you can segment different buyers and the sales team can handle each in a unique way for a personalized experience.
Nurturing leads
Along with the sales qualification process, it’s key to have a strong lead nurturing process. A smooth hand-off will create a better chance of qualified leads staying interested. In fact, leads are 9x more likely to convert when businesses follow-up within 5 minutes.
A nurturing strategy correlates to the relationship building mentioned earlier, in that understanding and getting to know your leads will result in an easier conversion process.
For a lead nurturing guide, check out this article.
Creating a Strategy
There are different approaches to gaining qualified leads, and the right one will likely depend on what your typical customer looks like. However, there are some good, straightforward methods that can help you as you craft your process.
Start with Attracting
Sometimes it can be difficult to get prospects to gain interest in your product or service. As laid out by Hubspot, there are some steps you can take that will get you closer to leads.
- Lead Capture: As a prospect visits your website, you should be attempting to obtain a method of contact for future engagement
- Lead Magnets: If you’re finding that prospects aren’t actively providing their contact information, you can offer something of value in exchange for it.
- Landing Pages: Landing pages can act as an external channel for prospects to engage with and to give something valuable
- Lead Scoring: This is useful for segmenting prospects based on their engagement and gauging if a lead is qualified. For more on lead scoring, check out this free template
Create a Funnel
Funnels are a method of moving potential leads through a pipeline in efforts to grow their interest and close a sale. There are generally 3 stages of funnels, each of which for a different subset of leads.
- Top of Funnel (ToFu): This is more or less an awareness stage. Prospects may be unaware of you and your offer. Here you try to attract large groups of potential leads in hopes of appealing to handfuls at a time.
- Middle of Funnel (MoFu): At this point, prospects have a problem they are looking to solve. They’ve identified you as an option but are considering others as well.
- Bottom of Funnel (BoFu): Leads in this stage are defined as qualified leads and are on their way to making a purchase.
Setting yourself up using funnelling is a great way to walk potential leads through the journey to becoming a customer. A well crafted nurturing strategy can have predefined steps for all 3 stages, that way you know how to get leads to the next step.
Quality over Quantity
When it comes down to it, you should be cautious about which leads you decide to pursue. While catering to numerous leads at a time sounds great, you have to assess your means to service, and if you could do so in the best way possible for each one. Creating a cycle that allows you to prioritize healthy, qualified leads will be best for ensuring your resources go toward the right efforts.