Lead Qualification – More than Just Lead Scoring

Most B2B marketers qualify leads at some level and may even have developed a basic scoring model.  However, few have taken the important step of developing and documenting a formal lead qualification model and even fewer have engaged sales to develop it jointly. Yet research continues to indicate that companies that have a documented lead qualification model achieve…

• Marketing and sales alignment
• Higher quality leads
• Increased close rates
• Overall improvement on lead generation efforts

Lead Definitions

According to a study published by MarketingSherpa, 52% of B2B organizations state that lead generation is their biggest challenge. One of the reasons for this challenge is the lack of a definition on what constitutes a lead. What marketing defines as a lead is often not aligned with sales. Therefore, leads sent by marketing are often ignored, and end up yielding little to nothing.

Start by creating a standard set of lead definitions that are understood and accepted by both marketing and sales. Definitions should be determined for every phase of the lead cycle:  Inquiry, Response, Lead, Prospect, Marketing Qualified Lead, Sales Accepted Lead, Sales Qualified Lead, Closed Deal, etc.

Lead Scoring

Lead scoring is simply assigning a numerical value to the established lead criteria. Companies will err if they jump to the lead scoring step prior to establishing the definitions and criteria because their scoring model will not have a solid basis. By establishing a point value to the lead criteria, organizations will have the ability to rank leads and ensure that the highest ranked, i.e. those most ready to buy, are then routed to sales. Other leads that do not meet the MQL value should be nurtured until such time they are ready to be passed to sales.

To score leads, you should assign numeric point values to BANT criteria (Budget allocation, Authority or role in the decision making process, Need for product or solution, Timeline), criteria used from your customer and prospect profiles, and behavior or interactions with the buyer. Behavioral components include items such as the number of campaigns prospects respond to, what events they are attending, what assets they download, etc.

Companies that adopt this lead qualification process will see increased close rates and a tighter alignment between marketing and sales.

But its not enough to just score and qualify leads. It’s also important to understand when to hand them off to sales, or even when sales needs to direct leads back to marketing. We address this in Lead Routing.