Qualify Leads Before Chasing The Sale

by Tom Ruwitch

I met recently with a frustrated marketing executive who complained that he was doing his job but that his company’s sales representatives were dropping the ball.

“We deliver tons of leads to them,” he said. “But they don’t close the sales.”

“Are they qualified leads?” I asked.

He paused and said, “I think so.”

“How do you know if a lead is qualified?” I asked.

“Well…” he said, pausing again. Then he smiled and said, “Maybe I have some work to do.”

How do you know if a lead is qualified?

If you can’t answer that question, your company probably exhausts precious resources chasing bad leads.

Social media, search engines and other digital marketing channels enable us to connect our businesses with enormous audiences. A well-promoted webinar, online contest, or content giveaway can attract tons of leads. But many of those leads will not ever qualify as legitimate prospects.

Marketing drives sales not by maximizing the quantity of leads but by delivering quality leads. As marketers, we must disqualify the bad leads before our salespeople waste time chasing them.

The best way to identify leads who are not ideal is to predefine those who are.

Here are three steps to help you do this:
1) Define the ideal lead’s basic profile, including company type (example: Midwest manufacturing company with $5 million to $10 million in annual sales) and job title (compliance officer).
2) Use marketing tactics to discern the lead’s interest in your products and services. You can do this by tracking click-throughs in emails, conducting online surveys, monitoring who stays to the end of your webinar and so forth. There’s no single formula for scoring leads. Just have a plan to do so. You don’t need sophisticated CRM software to get started.
3) Have a plan to follow up with leads quickly to gather more information and bridge the gap between marketing and sales. If a lead downloads your e-book, follow up with a phone call or email survey to see whether the lead has any questions and to gather additional qualifying information.

You want to discover not only whether the lead has interest in your product but also whether the lead has buying authority and resources.

Deliver leads who match your ideal profile and who have the interest, authority and resources to buy. You won’t find as many of them, but your salespeople will close at a much higher rate.

Tom Ruwitch is founder and president of MarketVolt. To attend a free webinar in which Tom demonstrates how to quickly and affordably set up automated marketing processes, go to MarketVolt.com/automation.