If you had to choose between 100,000 leads generated but only 10 that are of high-quality versus 10 leads generated and all those 10 of high-quality, which one would you choose? Well, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that your choice will be the 10 leads that turned out to be high-quality.

As much as this choice is easy to make, many executives and marketers believe salespeople need more leads in order to sell in this economy and so they focus all their time, energy and resources in getting more leads to their sales team. Using various lead qualification frameworks, it can be witnessed that as little as 5 – 15% of all marketing inquiries convert to sales-ready opportunities.

Salespeople do not want more leads. They want selling time that is more effective and that is filled with better quality leads that have a higher chance of converting into pipeline opportunities and ultimate customers. The highest quality leads yields an overall higher ROI.

Even though it is worth it, as per MarketingSherpa’s data, high-quality data is a B2B marketer’s biggest challenge. There are some ways to generate these higher quality sales-ready leads:

  • Add Questions that Qualify

Forms that are of a shorter length have a higher chance of generating a lot of leads but if by adding one or two extra questions you start getting sales-ready leads then that will make a world of a difference to your sales team.

  • Lead Scoring

With the data captured from the forms, you can assign points to each lead on a pre-defined scale. The higher the grade, the better quality the lead. Lead scoring helps you track engagement and lets you know who to follow up with.

  • Lead Funnel Splitting

So as to make better marketing decisions, there needs to be an understanding of what marketing actions are triggers. This will result in the funnel stretching from customer attention-grabbing point all the way to the purchase decision. The split-funnel gives marketers better insight into how each channel that is being used contributes to lead conversions.

  • Lead Nurturing

Then again, there really isn’t such a thing as a bad lead, only ones that aren’t sales-ready yet. With the help of automation, marketing teams need to identify leads that aren’t sales ready and hold them back from entering the lead nurturing funnel. Those leads need to be then educated and kept engaged until they are finally sales-ready.

In order to drive higher quality leads, there are some tips you need to know.

1. Develop a ULD or also known as a Universal Lead Definition which is a clear definition that can be shared between the sales and marketing teams together. With this definition, both the teams can be on the same page without which there will be a lot of wasted time, money and resources which will cripple the bottom line. Only through proper teamwork can organizations achieve maximum ROI.

2. Develop lead generation programs with input from your sales team. As it has become clearer now if not before, lead generation is a blend of sales and marketing and this required their combined efforts in order to achieve the company goals.

3. Qualify all your leads against the pre-defined ULD so that only fully qualified leads get passed on to your sales team.

4. Make use of effective and efficient lead management practices. Sales lead management strategies have a greater impact on short-term revenue and helps in defining qualified leads, lead nurturing, lead distribution, lead source tracking, and even CRM deployment.

5. Consistent closed-loop feedback is needed as lead generation is a repetitive process. This closed-loop feedback helps in eliciting a constant flow of relevant data from the sales team that tracks each qualified lead from beginning to end, be it to close a sale or to reject it.

6. Connect the sales and marketing data in your CRM system in order to measure conversion. With the implementation of the right CRM software, will enable effective alignment of sales and marketing which will inadvertently drive higher customer retention and even increase sales. If you are experiencing trouble with your CRM then contact us to know how we can be of service to you.

Wrap Up

All these steps help in maximizing the yield from the best leads and keep your sales teams highly productive. Remember that high-quality leads are the backbone of any thriving B2B business and if you aren’t able to attract prospects that are able to, willing and ready to buy what you are selling then you are going to have a hard time to generate the kind of cash flow you are looking for.

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