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27/08/2019
Your business's financial health depends of a constant flow of sales opportunities. And while it's important to have a well-aligned strategy between marketing and sales, the actual machine only works when there's a constant supply of qualified leads to be converted into customers.
Just generating leads isn't enough. It's important that these leads are more likely to buy, or have a vested interest in what you're selling.
A non-qualified lead is someone that:
A qualified lead is someone that you ‘score’ depending on their activity. If they meet your requirements, you've generated a Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL). This could be someone that has:
The next step is to analyse their information to determine if they fit with your provided service or product. If they do, then it's an opportunity and they move to the next stage as a Sales Qualified Lead (SQL) and it's time to close the deal.
Unqualified leads don't fit with what you're selling. They may have filled out a form on your website to gain access to your content, but they don't respond to follow-up emails or make any enquiries.
One of the most powerful tools available to any business is social media, which helps generate qualified leads because it allows you to group your followers into different categories. The most valuable can then receive highly targeted offers.
Social media is an absolute must for any small business, an essential tool for generating qualified leads.
Other tried and true methods include:
Corporate events are famous for grabbing the attention of influencers and decision-makers. Some sponsorship tiers allow you to send messages and exhibit your solution to a qualified base of attendees. With that, they can be encouraged to visit your website and find out more about what your company offers.
You'll have noticed that you need to do quite a bit of qualified lead prospecting to keep the sales machine running. These techniques can be combined to help you reach your conversion goals. They also work for different kinds of businesses.
For these methods to work properly and help you achieve better qualified leads, it's important that your sales and marketing teams are aligned. It means they have a better control of lead generation results, meaning you can achieve more SQLs and MQLs.
POSTED IN: Finance advice,Growth
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