Every sale starts with a lead and there is no shortage of methods of getting some. What matters most though is the quality of leads that are coming through a sales pipeline. Hence, professional lead generation services can definitely make a difference because relevant leads being gathered are carefully examined and analyzed.
High-quality leads equal great sales and the possibility of repeat revenue, and there is no substitute for quality leads.
Today we examine what a high-quality sales lead can do and the elements of lead quality.
What is a High-Quality Sales Lead?
A high-quality sales lead is a lead that you can rely on to convert for the organization. It has to provide contextual information, maintain a level of accuracy, and be relevant to the needs of the organization. Without high-quality leads, an organization has nothing to work with and it is a waste of both time and money to pursue leads that have no purpose.
1. Contextual Information
A lead can’t just be a name and an email address; that just won’t cut it anymore. A quality lead has to provide contextual information about the person such as their company name, position, age, and anything else that will help a marketing team determine where the lead fits in.
However, that’s not all we’re looking for.
There are more details that we could dig into such as their buying signals and information about the organizations that they work for.
Contextual information is important for an organization to paint a picture of the lead that they want to target. It is vital in creating buyer personas and target lists for different types of prospects. It also aids when adding layers of personalization to individual emails and the like.
51 percent of marketers all agree that they need to enrich their data in order for them to achieve success in their email marketing campaigns. This statistic tells you how important contextual data is in ensuring personalization.
By knowing these facts you can create a marketing plan with different touchpoints for remarketing and retargeting. For example, you can send them an email, follow up with a phone call, and even retarget ads to them on Facebook depending on their buyer profile. This multidimensional approach in marketing allows you to nurture a lead until it converts.
One of the first determinants of a high-quality lead is how much information it provides you.
Related: A Step-by-step Guide to Building and Profiling the Right B2B Leads List
2. Accuracy
Accuracy deals with the source of information about your sales lead and plays a crucial role in the success of the lead generation process.
Inaccurate information leads to a number of problems such as the inability to understand your market and the risk of the wrong approach being used to reach the prospect.
However, it’s not just inaccuracy that an organization has to be worried about. They also have to make sure that their contact lists are updated on a regular basis.
Picture this, you might have a great marketing plan and the lead might be receptive to your communication, but if the prospect’s email address and the phone number have not been updated, it wouldn’t amount to anything.
This is why there has been a lot of pressure on lead generation experts to verify the leads that they are generating to ensure that valuable resources are not being wasted with bad leads.
Make sure that your leads have been verified properly.
Related: ABM Best Practices: Selecting and Profiling High-Value Accounts
3. Relevance
The relevance of your leads is dependent on one critical question: who are your ideal customers?
It is by understanding your organization that you can answer this question and make sure that you are hunting for the best leads that fit your bill. You might rack a bunch of great leads with accurate contextual information, but if they won’t be inclined to convert, it could all be in vain.
However, it is also important that your customer profiles are communicated to your lead generation team so that they can focus their efforts on getting the right leads that are relevant to the organization’s needs.
Remember one of the biggest reasons ad blockers came into the market was because of ads that were irrelevant to the user experience.
Related: [FREE EBOOK] Targeted B2B Marketing: Guide, Checklists and Worksheets
The absence of these fundamental factors that determine a high-quality sales lead can be costly for any organization. Regardless of the type of software or lead nurturing process that you use, bad leads will always be bad leads.
By ensuring that your lead generation process covers these three vital points when it comes to screening for leads, you can make sure that you have good quality contacts consistently coming in. There are a lot of ways that you can do this with software, and there are even lead generation companies that specialize in this.
Remember, your leads determine your sales.
