I have already obtained a significant number of leads, how do I know if they are qualified? What can I do to find out? Are there any factors that determine this? These are undoubtedly some of the questions that haunt the minds of marketing and sales professionals when they obtain leads in their company. They may do it unconsciously, but they think about it, almost as if it were an automatic thought and simultaneous to its achievement.
In the same way, how many times have we wanted to know if our sales opportunities were the right ones? How many of the leads obtained are really qualified? There are so many questions that can arise from this fact, that in this article we will try to answer them. We already know why lead generation is important, but that is not all. Knowing if you have qualified leads in companies in the IT sector is possible. It is not only enough to generate leads in the IT sector. Don't forget, your sales opportunities require your attention.
how do I know if they are sales qualified leads?
To determine the qualification of the leads you get, you need to establish the following points:
- Look at all the data of a sales opportunity in a timeline. Visualising the information in a single contact profile will help us to get to know our leads better. In this way, the sales team will be able to have a complete context of their history. Among the contact's information, we can check the opening of emails, visits to the website, their interactions on social networks, content downloads, etc.
- Segment sales opportunities and follow up on them. Registering all lead information in a single database will facilitate the creation of lists and the automation of email campaigns. In the same way, we can import contact data and create forms to transform visits into sales opportunities. These forms can also contain custom fields to obtain specific and relevant data. With this, we can send more specific and potential emails, achieving a proper follow-up of our leads in their journey through the funnel.
- Qualify sales opportunities: We can develop customised criteria for qualifying sales opportunities based on certain characteristics, which will undoubtedly help the sales team to be aware of the follow-up of these opportunities.
- For a lead to become qualified for marketing, we must first have sufficient information about the contact. This will be one way of knowing whether or not it is a good fit.
- To determine if it is a sales-qualified lead, it is necessary to follow up on the behaviour that potential customers are having in our company in the IT sector.
- We must focus, above all, on the contacts that are most likely to become customers and know when to contact them.
In general, potential customers of technology companies are not always willing to close a sale from the first moment they are interested in your product or service. Usually, there are different interactions with the company as the prospect progresses.
why is it important to carry out lead qualification techniques?
When we apply the Inbound methodology in IT companies, the first thing we do is to define who our potential customers are or, what is the same, the buyer personas. Then, after several intermediate steps, we pursue a main objective: to convert potential customers into qualified leads. However, this is not an easy, simple and fast process. On the contrary, we need to assess and follow what are the behaviours, behaviours and activities that they are doing on the website.
Qualifying them is a fundamental task that technology companies must not lose sight of. The reason is as follows: we cannot make the mistake of giving or offering a treatment that is not appropriate for the process they are in. What we are trying to say by this is that we must be sure when we should give a commercial treatment and when we should not. Otherwise, the lead may react negatively and abandon the process. In this case, we would have lost a sales opportunity in our company in the IT sector.
what techniques can we use to determine lead qualification?
Below, we will mention two of the most used and effective techniques to determine that we have qualified leads in companies in the IT sector:
- Lead Scoring. With this practice, companies in the IT sector can score leads based on demographic and behavioural criteria. With the former, we can relate the lead to the potential customer. This technique allows us to assign certain scores depending on the business you have, for example. The more you identify with the buyer persona, the higher your score, and the higher your score, the more likely you are to buy. As for behaviour, however, the higher the score, the more interest you show in the company. Finally, once these techniques have been carried out, we can know the leads we have and know when they are ready to move on to sales.
- BANT (Budget, Authority, Need, Timing): This technique or lead qualification methodology refers to: finding out what is the range of money or budget that our client would be willing to spend; determining or finding out the decision of the sales opportunity about our product or service; finding out if the leads of our technological company need our value offer or not; and determining the time, term or urgency with which the lead considers their need.
These are two of the most widely used techniques to determine the qualification of our leads within the technology company. Thanks to them, professionals can use fields and factors that allow them to know where they should focus their efforts and which leads are the most qualified to make a purchase decision.
