Last week one of my favorite bloggers wrote a post entitled 'Running out of things to blog about? #BlogSomething2012'. Yes a new hashtag was born but this was not a typical 'here are some things you could blog about when you can't think of anything to blog about post'. He presented a challenge to those of us frozen in our path to publish content and I told him I would take him up on it.
Christopher provided 5 photos with corresponding topics for each day of this week. I chose this one, not because of the rather cool photo, but the topic was something I couldn't resist. The topic today is how to convert qualified leads. And more specifically, how do you know what leads are qualified when you are looking at a big pool of incoming prospects. (I'm going to take the second piece of this here and continue in another post)
As a marketer, it's a challenge. As a sales person, it's a challenge. How do we know when someone is ready to be handed to sales? How does sales know the person is ready? Are they even trusting marketing or cherry picking (more on this later this week!).
How do you define 'qualified'?
Before we dive into converting the leads once they are qualified, let's consider some ideas for how we can decipher they are qualified to begin with.
1. Define what a lead means to your organization
Now I hate to even call this a 'lead' at this stage because it becomes confusing. This person is more like a prospect because they are simply what we consider our target market. This process to define your lead/prospect should be a join effort from numerous stakeholders. Invite sales, marketing, even the CEO if he/she is inclined. What does a lead look like? Is it a person with a particular job title? Do they work in a certain company? What does that company look like? Industry? Revenue size? Employee count? Be as specific as you can be.
2. Decide what counts as 'raising a hand'
I'm sure you have heard the phrase 'the prospect is raising their hand'. It could mean a few things but you need to define what counts for you. Is it that they downloaded a particular asset? Did they visit your pricing page on your website? Have they opened and responded to a recent email? Did they attend an event or request a meeting? What would the qualified lead you defined in the last step need to do in order for you to feel confident calling upon them? That's what we need to define here.
After you have completed both of these steps, the person that fits both criteria is your qualified lead. Keep in mind that someone who fits your lead definition doesn't mean they are yet qualified. Just because they have the right job title and work at the ideal company, they have done nothing to show interest or even given a clue as to their need of a solution like yours (hint: calling upon this person is a cold call).
The ideal way to get to your qualified leads from the long list of names in your database is to combine demographics/personographics with behavior. Try it out and let me know how it goes!
{image by Christopher S. Penn via Flickr}
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