Qualified leads are quality leads

A key part of knowing how to convert leads into sales is a good screening process. This can help you determine how serious each one is about buying, or whether they are just browsing. Ideally, you should aim to conduct this process of qualifying prospects as early in the process as possible, so you can focus your time and energy on the business you have the best chance of winning.

Generating better leads

So, how can you generate more viable leads for your business? It can help to think of the qualifying process as a test that helps you identify which sales leads to pursue, which to discard and which may be worth revisiting later.

Here are a few questions that can help you narrow this down:

  • What is this lead's specific need? How does your offering meet this need better than a competitor's?
  • How urgent is their need? Would there be consequences if they don't act now?
  • How do they make sales decisions? If it's a business-to-business (B2B) sale, who is the key decision maker and where can you reach them?
  • Do you know if they have an allocated budget?
  • Can you offer them the required post-sales support?
  • Would they be a suitable ambassador for your product or service?

Assigning a score to each of these questions based on their relevance can help you sieve the sea of leads to reveal the most promising ones. Profiling them can then help you form a basis for more lead generating marketing activities, such as targeted online advertising. You can also:

  • Use information you've saved about previous and potential customers to target them with specific and personalised offers.
  • Use tools like chatbots and online help desks to directly and efficiently answer people's queries about your business and its products, thus keeping them engaged.
  • Use online advertising tools like Google Ads to continue to target people who have browsed your website with special offers while they are visiting other websites.
  • Distribute informative, gated content your audience will want to engage with, such as blogs, e-newsletters, podcasts, whitepapers or product demo videos.
  • Stay front of mind by engaging your audience on social media.

Having a process that accurately and consistently identifies your most promising sales leads and following up with marketing activities that can help close the deal, you can grow your business knowing you're on the right track.