How Are Leads Qualified?

11 Jun How Are Leads Qualified?

Every sales team goes through the same training when it comes to qualifying leads, which means your sales teams are doing the same. They’re looking for leads that carry buying power, have an approved budget and who communicate a well-defined need.

These are the things your sales teams are looking for, but how exactly does that translate to your leads being qualified through your sales pipeline stages?

Keep reading to learn more about how your leads are qualified and the steps you can take to make sure they convert.

What Is a Lead?

Simply put, a lead is a potential customer who has shown interest in your products or services. Rather than you going out and finding someone through cold calls, a lead comes to you. This interest can come from a variety of different sources, including marketing campaigns, online contact forms or other sales activities.

And while you might be tempted to think that you’ve got a solid chance for conversion after you get a lead, you might be surprised to learn that almost 75% of leads (or more!) never become more than that.

This is why it’s so important that you take all of the leads in your lead funnel and put them through the qualification process.

How Leads Move through Your Sales Funnel

Once a lead enters your funnel, it’s up to your sales and marketing teams to qualify the lead appropriately. Effective sales funnel management is essential to qualifying your leads. Let’s take a look at the different stages your lead can go through.

Marketing Qualified Lead

When a potential customer becomes a lead, it means they’ve shown interest in your company. This may be as simple as coming to your website through Google and then leaving. They’re interested, but they’re still not qualified.

To become a marketing qualified lead, this potential customer needs to come back to your website and interact a little more. Maybe the lead signs up for your monthly  newsletter or downloading a free e-book.

It’s important to remember that marketing qualified leads are still easily spooked. Be careful not to overwhelm them with sales offers or emails.

Sales Accepted Lead

After the marketing team forwards leads along to the sales team, each team member should do a cursory review of each lead to make sure they’re actually good leads. This is a quick process, but can make the difference when it comes to a successful conversion rate.

Many sales teams forgo this step entirely, which is a big mistake. The point between marketing qualification and sales qualification is where a lot of leads drop off. A cursory approval from the sales team can help you achieve your conversion rate goals more often than not.

Sales Qualified Lead

Marketing qualified leads that have been thoroughly vetted by the sales team and identified as ready for the next step in your sales process are called sales qualified leads. Your sales team will undergo a variety of steps before qualifying their leads. These steps typically involve asking questions about the lead, including questions like:

• Do the lead’s needs fit your product or services?
• Is the lead the decision maker?
• Is the lead ready to buy today?
• Is the lead looking for a replacement to their current product or service?

How Aktify Can Help Qualify Your Leads

With our groundbreaking product, Revive, we can help you take back control of your lead funnel. Rather than sit on a bunch of stalled leads that never go anywhere, Revive automates the outreach process, sending cold leads more opportunities for interaction with your sales and marketing teams.

Reach out and contact us today to learn more about what we do or to ask us any questions you might have. We look forward to hearing from you!