4 Essential Tips for Qualifying Generated Leads in the Industrial Sector
In order to grow any business, not only do you need to nurture your existing clients, but also invest in generating new clients.
This requires strategic lead generation campaigns designed to build awareness and generate potential interest with ideal customers through various avenues. But this is only one part of the process.
Figures show that only a quarter of these leads are good enough quality to actually be passed over to sales. Yet, over 60% of B2B marketers send all their leads to sales, regardless of where the customer may be in their purchase journey. For sales, this can mean sifting through hundreds of leads to identify just a few high potential prospects, which costs businesses time and money.
This is where lead qualification comes in - making sure that marketing-generated leads are filtered correctly and that only the genuine prospects with buying signals are sent to sales.
In the B2B industrial sector, this process is slightly different to traditional B2C business models, as the sales pipeline tends to be much longer. But in this post, we’re going to be taking a closer look at what lead qualification is and share some essential tips on how to qualify marketing leads within the industrial sector.
What is lead qualification?
In its most basic form, lead qualification is identifying whether a lead or prospect is ready to make a purchase from you.
If this process doesn’t happen or isn’t carried out correctly it can result in sales teams being overwhelmed by hundreds of leads, with a large proportion of them never converting into paying customers.
Think of it as a lead generation triage, assessing the prospects' needs and the best treatment required by identifying where they are on the customer journey and what the most appropriate next step is.
For instance, the hottest leads with clear buying signals can be passed directly to sales. Warm leads who perhaps expressed an interest but aren’t quite ready to buy can be considered for customer nurturing, and cold leads who don’t fit the customer profile or show no obvious intent to buy can be disqualified.
Why does lead qualification matter?
Before we go into lead qualification tips, it’s important to know why lead qualification is important. The simple answer is that it can save valuable time and resources.
Trying to sell to someone who’s not ready to buy yet or who just isn’t interested in your products or services, only serves to waste time, and of course, money!
Instead, by filtering lead prospects you’re putting emphasis on feeding through quality opportunities with a higher chance of converting, as well as refining future potential leads that can be nurtured through the sales pipeline.
But there are additional benefits that come with lead qualification, including:
Improved customer experience: lead qualification allows you to engage with customers earlier in their journey, addressing their needs quicker, so they can receive the appropriate service
Refined sales pipeline: taking a more structured approach to sales lead qualification works to boost sales closing ratios for a better return on investment. This is particularly important in the industrial sector, as lead generation often comes from multiple sources and the customer sales cycle can be long
Better quality customer data: with a lead vetting process, you can ensure that the data you hold is up to date and accurate, which all goes towards making sure sales are talking to the right people, at the right time.
How to qualify marketing generated leads
Now we know what lead qualification is and why it matters, it’s time to look at how to do it effectively - making sure you get the best results and ROI.
1. Create a customer profile
If you don’t already have one, a good place to start is to define what your ideal customer looks like. Very often we find that our clients have a clear view of the type of company they want to sell to, but they haven’t identified the type of stakeholder(s) they need to engage to make that sale.
Often referred to as a customer persona, your ideal customer profile should include basic details such as age, location, job title and industry. In addition, also look at personality traits, interests, pain points and any other relevant detail that can be used within the lead qualifying process.
With a clearer idea of who your target customers are, you’ll be in a better position to qualify or disqualify leads and prospects.
2. Filter your lead generation sources
In the industrial sector, leads can come from various avenues, from website contact forms and web chat enquiries to website downloads which are gated to collect contact information, webinar sign ups and social media selling and event delegate contact information.
To effectively manage your lead generation and qualification, it’s helpful to break them down into different sources. This doesn’t just help you keep your data more organised; you can analyse the lead generation source data, to identify relevant trends and insights on which lead generation campaigns are the most successful. This data can also be used to improve lead generation and qualification efforts.
3. Research and categorise your leads
To get the most out of your lead qualification, research and categorise the leads using a scoring system to assess whether they’re a good fit for your products and services, plus where they are on the customer journey.
Incredibly, just 44% of companies make use of lead scoring systems within their lead qualification process. However, it can be a powerful tool for prioritising lead potential and ensuring prospects meet your specified criteria.
The scoring system doesn’t have to be complex. Simply separating them into categories for hot, warm and cold prospects can be enough. Hot, fit in with your customer ideals and have expressed an interest to buy, while warm will be suitable for customer nurturing and cold leads are unlikely to convert.
4. Use a trusted lead qualification framework
With huge volumes of potential leads to filter through, we’d recommend using a tried-and-tested qualifying framework. This will provide you with a specific set of criteria to qualify your leads consistently and efficiently.
A model like BANT - Budget, Authority, Need, Timeline - is an effective method for the industrial sector, as it allows you to take a light-touch approach to establish a prospect’s needs.
Budget: Do they have a budget for the product or service?
Authority: Are they the decision maker or do they have direct influence with relevant stakeholders?
Need: Do they have a clear need for the product or services? What are their pain points?
Timeline: Are they ready to buy now or in the future?
Time to work smarter, not harder
Implementing and refining your lead qualification process can be hugely rewarding. Firstly, more quality, qualified leads mean better closing ratios for generating revenue, but it also offers opportunities for networking, referrals and cross- and upselling.
However, getting lead qualification right can take time, money and the right know-how. If you’re not sure where to start or simply struggling to find a process that works for you, don’t fret.
At TCB, we offer a suite of lead qualification services that are designed to deliver a better ROI from the leads your marketing team generates.
With a multilingual team, we can engage and qualify your leads wherever they are in the world, whatever language they speak. Whether you have website enquiries, event follow ups or people who have downloaded your latest content, we can talk to them to understand where they are in their purchase journey to ensure you maximise the opportunity to make sales. Get in touch with TCB today to discuss your needs in more detail and see how we can help your business grow.