More conversions are achieved when leads are high quality.
How do you define "quality" when it comes to leads? A quality lead is one that has a high probability of moving down the sales funnel from awareness to interest to intent to conversion.
Lead generation doesn't happen by accident. In order to reach this goal, brands must develop a lead qualification process that effectively identifies potential customers' key characteristics.
Here are 10 expert tips for improving lead quality to get you started.
What is Lead Qualification?
A lead qualification process determines whether potential customers have the means and motive to purchase your product. It is typical for lead qualification to take the form of stock questions based on your offering. When selling insurance, for example, you might ask about age, current health conditions, and previous medical histories. In B2B sales, you might ask the lead if they're the one who makes the decisions. There may be someone else you need to talk to if that's not the case.
Through an effective lead qualification process, sales teams can eliminate leads that aren't ready to buy, allowing them to focus on prospects that are more likely to convert. As a result, businesses can funnel prospects who aren't quite ready for sales into future marketing campaigns so they can stay informed and reach out again when they're ready.
3 Reasons Why You’re Getting Bad Leads
Why do you get bad leads in the first place? What stops prospective customers from purchasing your product?
Bad leads are usually caused by three factors:
1. Poor quality pay-per-click (PPC) leads
Can your PPC campaigns return qualified leads or are they just providing more generic lead information? In that case, consider changing your PPC provider or establishing more specific PPC guidelines.
2. Ineffective offers and calls to action
Do you offer conversion opportunities across the entire sales funnel, or are you only offering early-funnel opportunities? Do you offer free materials that have nothing to do with your business? Is your website equipped with calls to action? Do they have a shiny, enticing appearance?
3. Lack of targeted landing pages
Are your landing pages compliant with best practices? What is the actual description of the offer in the text? Is the text helpful in determining WHO should fill out the form? You should consider adding more qualifying fields to your forms if you answered "yes" to those questions. Ask sales what their top three qualifying questions are, and include them on your forms.
How to Improve Lead Quality
1. Define Your Audience
If you want to get more qualified leads, you need to know who your audience is and what they're looking for. Create your ideal buyer persona first. You might be looking for someone who has access to capital and is motivated to solve specific pain points within their organization.
The ideal audience will vary from company to company, but defining this audience can greatly improve lead quality.
Google Analytics can help you pinpoint your audience here.
2. Choose Your Keywords
Choose keywords that are aligned with what your brand is trying to sell and what qualified leads are looking for. Search your target keywords to see what comes up, such as top-ranking posts and popular questions.
Create content, forms, and offers reflecting buyer preferences and aligned with your offerings based on this data. You can find your ideal keywords by using solutions like Google Ads.
3. Create Targeted Content
By creating targeted content, you can anticipate potential questions or concerns. You can allow your sales team to focus on the details of making a sale by creating landing pages and FAQs that address common issues and answer common questions before they connect with leads.
Find out what your audience wants with HubSpot's survey tools.
4. Develop Detailed Forms
Marketing teams can reduce the risk of sending unqualified leads to sales by creating detailed contact forms.
The first step is to ensure that all relevant form fields are required. A potential lead's full name, email address, company name, and position within the organization may be included.
You should also create forms that allow potential customers to describe their current pain points and the type of solution or service they want.
Create targeted forms with HubSpot's Free Online Form Builder.
5. Identify Decision-Makers
Forms with more details can improve lead quality, but they cannot ensure that decision-makers are contacting you.
Lead quality can be improved by proactively identifying decision-makers and initiating conversations. Consider your current clients: What are the roles of the decision-makers in these companies? Afterwards, contact prospective clients who hold similar positions directly by doing some research. By creating compelling content, you not only increase the quality of the lead but also streamline the sales process.
You can find decision-makers with solutions like people.ai.
6. Whenever possible, automate
There are now so many leads that companies can generate from both traditional marketing campaigns and PPC campaigns that it's easy to lose track of who is qualified and who isn't
Consequently, it's worth automating both contact and evaluation processes. With email automation tools, staff do not have to write hundreds and hundreds of messages to reach out to potential prospects, while automated evaluation software can identify potential issues with collected data that may indicate prospects aren't ready to purchase.
Streamline key tasks with HubSpot's Marketing Automation Software.
7. Align Sales and Marketing
When it comes to lead qualification, sales and marketing are often on opposite sides of the coin.
Rather than focusing on bringing in new leads, sales wants to ensure these leads are qualified before putting in the effort for conversion. It's a disaster waiting to happen if sales teams feel that marketing isn't delivering quality leads, and marketing believes that sales is being too picky.
Make sure sales and marketing are aligned from the start. Discuss what a great lead looks like with both teams, what it takes to get these leads, how leads are handed off from marketing to sales.
This alignment can be done at scale with products like Ruler Analytics.
8. Ask for Referrals
There are times when it's okay to take the easier route. It's better to ask current customers for referrals than to build a new lead roster from scratch. If they like what you're doing, they shouldn't need much convincing to pass on the contact information of decision-makers at similar companies, or to contact them on your behalf, if you offer them discounts or other benefits.
To streamline this process, consider a solution like Referral Factory.
9. Track Your Data
Track your initial sales conversions and repeat sales conversions to ensure lead quality is stable. You may want to reevaluate your lead qualification processes if you notice that either of these metrics is declining.
You can track relevant lead data across your organization with Act-On.
10. Make Changes as Needed
Last but not least? Don’t get stuck in a rut. If your current lead generation tactics aren't delivering the quality you want, consider changing them. Think about modifying your keyword strategy, creating new content, or extending your target market. For your lead generation, focus on the outcome, not the operations.
With HubSpot's Marketing Software, you can take control of your changes.
Taking the Lead
Sales conversions are boosted by higher quality leads. Getting quality leads doesn't just happen - you need to find the right audience, target your content, track your data, and make changes as needed to keep quality high and sales steady.