I will tell you a secret, but you don’t have to keep it. If you are looking for a B2B lead generation strategy, there is no magic bullet. No single button you can push to magically get more inquiries from your potential customers.
Do you want to know another secret?
Well, qualified leads are the lifeblood of your business, whether online or offline.
What’s a qualified lead?
A qualified lead is a prospect that your marketer has judged likely to convert into a client based on in-depth analytics and lead generation intelligence. Suppose you are a single, beautiful lady and you have several suitors knocking on your door. A qualified lead would be the suitor who is most likely to become your significant other based on your objectives and qualifications honed after many years of dating.
Every business has unique criteria for evaluating the quality of a lead. It could be because the prospects downloaded a specific eBook or made inquiries over the phone or online forms. Whatever the case, it is up to your marketing department or preferred lead generation company to judge leads based on a well-thought-out scoring system.
Why are qualified leads so important?
Qualified leads are highly valuable to a business because they focus more on quality than quantity. For example, it is better to have a small group of qualified leads linked to higher purchasing power than hundreds of mildly interested email inquiries from a recent webinar.
Think of C-suite marketing. It is better to have a few C-suite executive leads than thousands of non-C-suite leads. The former is linked to a higher likelihood of becoming decision-makers. Besides, quality triumphs over quantity because non-qualified leads are less likely to convert even if you have many of them.
I’m not the only one saying that quality trumps quantity. Actually, 70 percent of marketers often cite the need for better quality leads in any lead generation campaign. Higher conversion rates translate to more effective marketing processes and sales. This is why you should focus on improving the overall numbers and the quality of leads from your advertising funnel.
Benefits of a well-thought-out lead generation strategy
Still not convinced about the importance of qualified leads? Let’s analyze the benefits of a strategy that brings qualified leads.
Avoid wasting precious time and effort.
Identifying your qualified leads ensures that the work your marketers have done doesn’t go to waste. Once the qualified leads are handed over to your sales department, outreach (from your sales team) is more targeted and more likely to become a sale. Besides, your sales team won’t be searching for needles in a haystack.
Manageable sales workload
Your sales representatives may not be ready to waste their energy and time on prospects that won’t convert. More importantly, your business can’t afford to waste its resources on pursuing false leads. That means knowing who your qualified leads help your company improve its team’s workload and ensure that the limited resources available are focused on the prospects that are likely to generate the highest return on investment.
Better alignment for your marketing and sales departments
Qualified leads are essential in establishing a service-level agreement between your marketing team and a sales team. Once there is a well-thought-out criterion for determining the specific leads that get passed to the sales team, there will be fewer chances of misunderstanding and confusion.
This kind of alignment facilitates an effective feedback loop between your marketers and sales representatives. Your sales representatives will get few or no rejections because your business’s lead scoring system will be targeting prospects who are more likely to convert (qualified leads). When this process between the two departments is smooth, your business resources will be spent more efficiently, and you can expect a better return on investment (ROI).
Wrap up
Your business can benefit from identifying and pursuing qualified leads. That means your marketers won’t be handing random contact details to the sales department. Instead, your sales department will be pursuing prospects who have a higher chance of becoming loyal customers. The result would be a significant improvement in productivity, more sales, and higher revenue for your company.
Do you now understand why an effective lead generation strategy would help you grow your business while you sleep?
Download our lead generation guide to learn more.
