You generate leads through Marketing Automation. But that is not enough. This article explains how Marketing Automation can help you qualify your leads.
Marketing Automation and Lead Management
Online marketing has a lot of tasks for you to fulfill. Marketing Automation helps you to master them. Especially in lead management you save valuable time and resources. By linking CRM systems and Marketing Automation tools, a smooth connection between marketing and sales is achieved. Sales management employees can thus easily access all current customer information. Marketing Automation also optimizes lead-nurturing, meaning customer care and promotion of customer relationships. But before your colleagues from sales deal with leads, you should qualify them. We will show you what qualifying leads means and how automation can help you do so.
What is a lead and how can I qualify one?
In short, a lead is a potential customer. Only a serious interest shown by a user can identify leads in the digital business world. Users express it by exchanging their data for information from your company. For example, when a potential customer subscribes to a newsletter with his email address and contact details. This is referred to as lead generation.
In the following this lead is to be qualified. Do this by identifying the lead. Is the generated lead the appropriate target group? Does the lead have potential? Perhaps the registered company is too small. The more services you can perform on the generated lead, the more eager it is. If your company generates only a few leads per month, they can be prioritized manually. However, if you have a large number of leads already generated by Marketing Automation, categorizing them using the tool is definitely worthwhile.
MQL and SQL - Basic distinction of leads
The moment a customer contacts your company and expresses interest, we talk about a Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL). Next, he is provided with appropriate marketing material, such as helpful content or relevant information. But this is not a Sales Qualified Lead (SQL) yet. Usually, it will take extra contacting to actually turn the potential customer into a buyer. The lead should only be passed on to the sales department if there is a serious interest in purchasing.
Sales and marketing jointly decide which basic evaluation criteria are relevant for a Sales Qualified Lead. In the process, both departments determine the principles of your lead scoring. By awarding points, you can determine the threshold value above which it is worth it for Sales to communicate with the lead. This threshold is individual for each company.
Lead prioritization
Of course it depends on which product or service you want to sell. For example, if you can sell a large number of licenses to the same company, the size or number of employees of the contact is crucial. The history shows you whether the lead has already shown willingness to buy or whether conversions have occurred. In general, the classic ABC analysis helps you to classify your customers. You may extract the information below about the lead:
- Not suitable: If the generated lead proves to be unfitting, it must be sorted out.
- Not ripe yet: These are leads that have not yet made a final purchase decision. In this case, lead nurturing should enhance customer loyalty.
- Ripe Lead: The lead ready to buy is transferred to the sales department.
Follow-up - influencing purchase decisions with target-oriented content
Tracking your leads can be done in different ways. Whether you contact your customers online or offline, you should prepare powerful content. The reaction of the potential customer shows whether the interest continues or is gone. Please prepare telephone calls based on existing data. You can then convey a real interest to the customer. When approached in writing, the content should most certainly offer the customer added value. Despicable advertising slogans rather repel prospective clients. Targeted content can be created and distributed using Marketing Automation. The profiles created upon user behavior provide the basis.
DSGVO compliant leads - what do you need to consider?
According to the DSGVO regulations, all leads must have given their consent to receive emails or other marketing measures. This is done, for example, by actively clicking a checkbox. For the generation of leads it is also important to use the double opt-in method. This is the only way to generate new leads in compliance with DSGVO. Additionally, the use of the submitted data must be clearly defined. The generated leads must be saved in databases. According to the DSGVO, the location of the server within the EU is mandatory. With promio.connect you receive the appropriate DSGVO conform software.
How does lead qualification with promio.connect and promio.consult work?
From lead generation and lead nurturing to lead qualification, promio.connect offers you a powerful Marketing Automation Tool. Thanks to intuitive operation, you can easily administer and prioritize your generated leads. Moreover, Buyer Personas are created. These are used for content creation and for targeting your Marketing Qualified Leads. Thanks to a port to your CRM, your employees have real-time access to the relevant data.
You will not only receive our software solution, but also individual advice on your outbound and inbound marketing from promio.consult. Working together with you, we develop a legally compliant and profitable concept. This enables us to cover a wide range of lead qualification measures. With our many years of experience in digital communication, we are pleased to support you as a competent partner. Your inquiry is always welcome.
