What is lead qualification?

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You're probably reading and hearing people talk about leads all the time, but do you really know what it means?

This is very important, as each company can identify or define it in a different way . Many companies consider a lead to be a sales opportunity, so you have to be very clear about what a lead is for you.

This is so essential because if we do not have these categories defined, we will not be able to perform a correct lead qualification.

So, below we explain what a lead is for Connext and what the different types of leads are.



You may also be interested in: Lead Generation: How to Get Quality Leads and Convert Them into Customers


1.1. What types of leads are there?

There are mainly three categories of leads: lead, marketing qualified lead and sales qualified lead.

Leads : We will classify as a Lead the user who has provided us with personal switzerland email listinformation in exchange for some type of information of interest. This type of contact is at the beginning of the relationship and generally does not know our company. This type of lead has a very low score and, therefore, its priority is quite low for sales follow-up. It will be the responsibility of the marketing team to mature this lead so that it knows more about our company.
MQL : After the marketing team has made efforts to resolve the lead's problems or queries by offering content, the moment comes when the contact starts to show interest in the company and is closer to making a purchase. This lead is then qualified by marketing.
SQL : When the marketing-qualified prospect has been evaluated by the marketing department and is considered ready to move on to the sales department, this lead is considered to be sales-qualified. At this point, the contact is considered to have been educated and has received all the information they need about our product or service to acquire it, and in some way or another has shown interest in having a direct conversation with the company.


1.2. Who takes care of them?
As we have seen in the previous section, marketing and sales are responsible for qualifying leads.

In order to manage them correctly, it is necessary to align both departments. In this way, they can coordinate and together plan the objectives that they want to achieve within the company and what strategies they will be implemented with. The goal of all this is to properly mature the contacts and convert them into clients .



“The transition from MQL to SQL is very important, so proper contact management will be an essential weapon.”



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2. Lead qualification: how to do it in my company

We must confess that there is a trick to qualifying leads: a good CRM.

At Connext we use HubSpot , which is the most powerful on the market right now and offers endless possibilities for marketing, sales and customer service. However, there are numerous CRM tools on the market that can help you manage your contacts depending on your business model.

If you want to learn more about these actions with examples, among other things…don’t hesitate to download our ebook on HubSpot!

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However, you don't just need a good CRM to get this process going. You must also consider certain actions to be able to achieve the strategies that have been set in your company to achieve the proposed objectives.

So, here are some ideas for you.


2.1. Strategic maturation actions
Segmentation. If you have a database with different types of users, you must determine what strategy you are going to follow for each of them. Don't spare any effort when trying to identify them, because precisely this differentiation will allow you to generate trust in each of them and adapt the content you offer them to what they are really looking for on the Internet.
Personalized content. Personalization has undoubtedly become a priority in any marketing strategy. If you are clear about who your Buyer Persona is, it is time to approach them and define a content strategy that is tailored to what they really need at any given time.
Accelerators. Accelerators are one of the points to explore within the Lead Nurturing strategy and which aim to speed up the sales process. If you can offer a discount on your service/product, a factor that encourages impulse buying or you are simply interested in maximizing your sales, do it.
Re-engagement campaigns. In the sales funnel, many users will be inactive or apparently invalid because we do not have enough data to initiate a commercial contact. With re-engagement campaigns we try to activate these potential inactive clients. How can you validate them before discarding them?
-Workflows
Sequences
List of domains


Email marketing. When used correctly, email marketing can become the perfect ally for your marketing strategy, as it is an essential option for promoting your content and making it reach the users you are interested in.
Automation tools. One of the most important keys to success when planning an automation strategy is choosing the right Marketing Automation software. To find out if the platform you choose is the best option for your strategies, you should look for a customized solution.


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3. Techniques for qualifying leads

If you've made it this far, this might interest you:

There are also techniques that help us qualify leads, such as Lead Nurturing and Lead Scoring.

Once all the contact information has been classified and we know which phase of the purchasing process the lead is in, we must implement Lead Nurturing strategies , so that the contacts interact with the brand and we can gradually guide them towards purchasing or contracting the product or service.

Similarly, once we have captured the leads, we must evaluate all the contacts according to their potential to become clients. We will achieve this thanks to Lead Scoring.


3.1. Lead nurturing

Lead Nurturing is an Inbound Marketing technique. It is based on creating valuable relationships with our contacts to accompany them during the purchasing process. The valuable relationship is the way to prepare and mature leads until they make a purchase.