The quality of your leads determines how likely a curious potential buyer is to become a paying customer.
Naturally, it’s a big deal to make sure that when you’re generating leads, you’re not just getting a large volume of browsers – a.ka. “window shoppers” – but as many serious wanna-be converts as possible.
If you’re still wondering how to get leads in general, nevermind how qualified they are, check out our blog on inbound and outbound lead generation strategies to get started.
If you’re ready to drill down on how to get high quality leads, in this blog we’re going to teach you:
- How to tell the difference between a qualified lead from unqualified
- How to use unqualified leads to your advantage
- Tips on how to weed out the qualified from the unqualified
- How to balance qualified and unqualified leads for a winning strategy
- How to get super-smart sales engagement tech that’ll sort your leads for you
Let’s get started.
“Being an SDR isn’t always about reaching people. It’s about reaching people to address a problem with a message that is specific to them. An SDR with a qualified lead, a solid outreach strategy, and the ability to solve a problem will be able to book more quality demos every day.” – Ryan Quinn, Sales Development Rep, Hyperio
How to tell the difference between qualified and unqualified leads
There are a few things that will tell you which of your leads are qualified and which ones aren’t.
- How well the customer fits with your brand (eg. are they an independent customer checking out products on a B2B site?)
- How well the customer fits with your product (eg. do they actually need what you’re selling?)
- How and where they’re engaging with your products (eg. did they visit your website one time, or are they reading your newsletters too?)
- How much buying authority or decision making approval they hold (eg. do they hold the authority to move the purchasing and procurement process along?)
To track these lead identifiers, you need to know what the buyer journey looks like (check out HubSpot’s customer journey map and templates here).
It’s a good idea to understand the buying journey and experience for your own company.
Try interacting with your website, social media platforms, etc from the buyer’s perspective to help get some personal insights into what’s appealing and what is not.
- Is it easy to understand the product offerings?
- Is it clear how to reach out for a demo or questions?
- Are you experiencing a timely follow-up?
You can also invest in software that will help you to track things like customer engagement, data, and marketing automation.
Tip: Looking for a definition on all the software options available? Check out our blog on the integration of software platforms here. Hyperio is great if you’re looking for a great sales engagement platform, but if you’re looking for a solid CRM software, check out HubSpot’s tools.
How to use unqualified leads to your strategic advantage
Obviously having qualified leads who are ready and willing to buy your product are important – but the casual browser who happens upon your brand is important too.
How so?
Well, it’s all about brand recognition and word of mouth. My mom may accidentally stumble upon a HubSpot ad and not care at all – but she may also mention it to me, who’s now mentioning it to you, and between the two of us, we’re way more qualified than my mom. This is going to lead to a sale at some point.
At the same time, you don’t want to invest a lot of time in leads that are not going to pan out. It’s okay to drop a lead that doesn’t seem to match up with your brand or product to focus on leads that perfectly fit your buyer personas.
(Don’t know what a buyer persona is? Read here.)
Tips for weeding out the unqualified leads
There are some pretty simple strategies to single your qualified leads out from the others. We’re talking about gated content.
Gated content is… exactly what it sounds like. Say you have some really juicy and delicious details that your target audience reeeeeally wants to have. And they can have it! Right after they:
- Provide a work email address
- Sign up for a a newsletter
- Purchase a subscription
- Buy a membership
These are some examples of “gates” you can put up to lure in qualified leads and ditch the non-converters.
You may have heard that gated content is slightly controversial.
Some companies argue that putting gates up may alienate or dissuade some of their prospective buyers. In some cases, this may be true.
You may have trouble getting someone to pay to read a long-form document on a topic that is frequently addressed elsewhere free of charge, for example.
If you want someone to pay actual money for your content, you need to have a pretty solid fan base and customer trust established, and have cornered the market on certain subjects.
On the other hand, the most serious prospects are going to be happy to throw down a work email address to access content that genuinely appeals to them.
Gated content is your surest way to pinpoint your hottest leads
If you’ve ever tried to access gated content, you may notice that there are some pretty common questions asked, such as what your work email is, what position you hold, and how many people you employ.
Have you ever wondered why?
Easy answer: this tells the company you’re browsing a) where you work, b) how much authority you have, and c) what your budget probably looks like (aka whether you can actually afford the product they’re offering).
If you’re curious for a real example, check out this blog by Hootsuite. In it you’ll see that they produced a large document and a short blog that waters down the essential take-away points, while keeping the big details behind the gate – accessible once you tell them how important you are.
Balancing qualified and unqualified leads
If you want to generate a ton of inbound and get leads at the door whether they’re qualified or not, that’s fine – but you need to have a strategy in place to make sure you can highlight the qualified leads.
(Want to read more about Market Qualified versus Sales Qualified Leads? Check out our blog to learn more.)
Sales engagement software will help you cull the herd, so to speak, and get those red hot leads into the pipeline through personalized omnichannel outreach strategies.
The software can help you keep up to date on real-time changes in customer’s lives for your sales development reps to jump on.
Most importantly, the smartest sales engagement software helps you identify where to spend your time today – i.e. the hottest leads that are buyer-ready – while working leads that are less qualified, but may be qualified one day soon.
Are you ready to find out where you can get software that will help you with these things?
Get Your Super-Smart Sales Engagement Software
You guessed it! It’s us – Hyperio.
But don’t just take our word for it. Hyperio’s ready to prove why investing in this software is the smartest choice you’ll make all year. See how our company will partner with yours with a free personalized demo.
Book your appointment into our calendar and start your free trial today.
