Organizations end up navigating a pool of irrelevant prospects, making marketers feel lost. In this chaos, lead qualification is your compass.

While 61% of B2B marketers send all the leads to sales teams,  only 27% are of high quality. The rest have to be discarded because they are not ready to buy or are irrelevant.

However, there is one way to improve the numbers- implement lead qualification.

Qualifying allows you to figure out whether a lead is the right prospect. Failing to qualify a lead can cause you to invest resources in the wrong direction, or not get the intended ROI. Marketing and sales teams must qualify leads to understand how well a prospect fits the brand, and how likely the leads are to make a purchase decision.

And it is a multi-stage process. Let’s explore this in detail.

Qualified leads vs. Unqualified leads

Brands must differentiate between leads that qualify as good or high-quality and those that miss the points. Let’s take a quick look at the two types-

Unqualified leads

• Those whose needs do not align with your brand
• Leads whose demands you cannot serve due to lack of or limited resources
• Prospects whose budget doesn’t match your price models

Qualified leads are those prospects who typically tick all the boxes.

These are three common types of qualified leads

• Marketing qualified leads (MQLs)
• Sales qualified leads (SQLs)
• Product qualified leads (PQLs)

Why is lead qualification important?

The answer is simple: time and resources.

If you want to save time and money, start qualifying those leads!

It makes sure you don’t end up pitching solutions to prospects who do not express interest or who are not ready. By qualifying your leads upfront, you can save your company’s time and money in the long run.

Unless you have unlimited resources, you should qualify leads before acting upon them. When you qualify leads, you learn:

• Whether a prospect is the right fit for the industrial domain
• If they have a need your product or solution can solve
• Whether they have the authority to make purchasing decisions on their own
• It is best to access these details before reaching the prospect directly

Other advantages of lead qualification include:

• Higher close rates
• Qualifying leads early on lets you focus on the sales-ready leads, which increases deal closing rates.
• Better use of marketing resources
• You can launch relevant content only for prospects who can relate to them and find them beneficial.
• Improved data quality

You can also ensure that the data you have is accurate and up-to-date. This is important because poor-quality data can create a series of problems.

Although this isn’t an exhaustive list, lead qualification is important because it benefits the bottom line of business.

Qualify Leads with Lead Scoring

It’s one of the most commonly used methods for lead qualification. Lead scoring quantifies the qualification process by assigning value to each prospect. And this happens in the early phases of a pipeline before too much time has been invested in the prospect.

Lead scoring functions on a simple theory. If all new prospects are assigned an objective point value, it becomes easier for sales teams to determine where their time can be invested wisely.

Your brand can create its lead-scoring system to match its unique needs. But no matter what the plan is, you’ll need to gather data before you qualify leads.

Here are some of the things that you should be looking for.

How the Lead Qualification Process Works

Lead qualification helps determine the chance of a prospect converting into a paying account.  It’s usually an ongoing process that lasts through each stage of the sales journey. So long as the lead shows interest in a future sale, they will keep moving through all phases of the sales funnel.  

The first step of lead qualification starts in the marketing stage. Now, whether that happens through inbound or outbound lead generation is something you will need to decide. In this stage, your marketing team captures contact details through site visits, email subscriptions, or social media engagement. These interactions serve as a turning point for you to decide whether any lead fits the ICP.  It’s a stepping stone to qualify leads and move on to the next step. The sales rep can reveal the prospects’ needs and budget constraints.

The data assimilated during this phase enlightens about a prospect’s viability.

In case it turns out to be a dead-end interaction, try to leave it on a positive, helpful note. You never know, this can result in future business from this lead, or they may refer more qualified leads to your brand.

How To Qualify a Sales Lead

Some leads may seem easier to qualify than others.

To eliminate challenges, you need to have a data-driven, result-oriented lead qualification framework.

We have compiled a list of some common lead qualification strategies that can help you convert more cold leads into qualified leads.

BANT

BANT- Budget, Authority, Need, Timeline, helps you cover some typical characteristics from a customer’s perspective. Let’s walk through these:

• Budget – Does your solution fit the prospect’s purchasing budget?
• Authority – Is the prospect authorized to make decisions?
• Needs – Does the prospect need your product or service? Or are they just exploring and weighing options?
• Timeline – Is the timing best for the prospect to make a purchase decision? Are they ready for it?

If you want a simple way to begin lead qualification, BANT is your best bet.  It centers around 4 important principles that qualify leads. This checklist helps you filter out irrelevant leads or leads less likely to convert, in no time.

Customer needs and resource constraints are some of the main factors determining the quality of prospects. Brands must verify if every prospect fits all the criteria before investing time and sales efforts.

CHAMP

CHAMP- Challenges, Authority, Money, Prioritization is an alternative framework to BANT. Using CHAMP allows you to prioritize a lead’s pain points. You can then focus on delivering the ideal solution that addresses the challenge. Solving the pain point with personalized solutions helps improve customer relationships and build brand trust. As a result, they move through the sales cycle faster.  

The CHAMP framework is suited for situations where some leads are unclear about your brand’s offerings. Understanding prospects’ challenges will help you connect with the audience and improve your chances of lead conversions.

MEDDIC

Now the MEDDIC framework could seem quite complex, but it is effective. This lead qualification approach focuses on these criteria:

• Metrics – Are there any quantifiable results like more ROI, that prospects can expect to derive from your brand?
• Economic buyer – Who is the buying decision-maker? Who is authorized to make a purchase?
• Decision criteria – What is the checklist that the prospect typically follows for decision-making?
• Decision process – What approach do potential leads follow while assessing a brand’s offerings?
• Pain point identification – What challenges are the prospects facing?

Champion – Among the potential customers, is there anyone who is already satisfied with the services and can serve as a champion for it? In other words, talk about it or provide a referral.

To successfully apply a MEDDIC framework, gather detailed information about potential customers. This strategy is a good fit especially if you are doing business with a low volume of high-ticket sales.

SPIN

This is an effective method to qualify leads, with a focus on these areas:  

• Situation – With the SPIN approach, you can understand the lead’s context. Check whether their current goals and capabilities align with your brand’s offerings.
• Problem – SPIN helps you identify the pain point of the target audience.
• Implication – Weighs options and explores the consequences of these problems. Will the solution have the impact the audience seeks?
• Need-Payoff – Demonstrate ways in which the solution will benefit the prospects

Integrating this lead qualification framework allows brands to engage strategically with leads and create relevant solutions. It draws upon valuable insights that allow scope for a curated method, improving lead conversions and customer satisfaction.

SCOTSMAN

SCOTSMAN is a popular sales methodology to qualify new leads. Created by Advance, which allows a detailed analysis of prospects before they move too far in the funnel. The acronym stands for solution, competition, originality, time, size, money, authority, and need.

Let’s walk through each of these.

S: Solution

The solution you are trying to deliver for a specific pain point of a lead

C: Competition

A lead that is speaking to you is also researching other options. Knowing your competitor gives you the advantage of highlighting the strengths that make your brand unique and the best choice for the lead.

O: Originality

Once you know who you are competing against, focus on outshining the competition by drawing upon your unique ability to solve the challenge.

T: Time

Like any method, getting the timing right could be a huge game-changer when closing a deal.  This aspect of the SCOTSMAN will explain if the lead is interested in a solution.

S: Size

The size of the opportunity would explain whether or not the lead is a good fit. For instance, if your solution is designed for a small team but the lead is an enterprise company, you must look for leads that align with your brand.   

M: Money

You would be surprised to know that budget is the make-or-break aspect of the deal. Figure out if the lead has enough financial resources to take things forward.

A: Authority

Is the person you are communicating with, in a position of authority to have a final say in the purchase? Or is there more than one team member required to sign off on a deal? These details are best sorted out earlier.  

N: Need

The final aspect of the SCOTSMAN sales methodology checklist is needed. You want to make sure the prospect understands their needs well, and these align with what your solution can do for them.

At this point, brands must use the right questions to ensure that they can articulate their needs clearly, and prove that your solution is ideal for their pain point.

FAINT

Stands for Funds, Authority, Interest, Need, and Timing.

This lead qualification technique functions on the funds available, decision-making authority, and the interest of the audience in your solution, apart from the need and time frame. In this methodology, leads will only need your solution if they know the value it adds to their growth. With FAINT, you can experiment with ways to generate interest or need for the product/service among the prospects. This qualification stage allows you to create opportunities to place your product as a must-have rather than a nice-to-have: a feature that makes FAINT stand out.

So, where does lead qualification fit in?

Ideally, lead qualification should happen before moving leads into the sales cycle. This is right between the periods where they were considering cold traffic and converting into paying accounts. It emphasizes the need to develop a clear roadmap for your brand’s sales funnel. Without having a clear picture of the purchase patterns of customers, it could be tough to fit the qualification process into the customer journey.

Lead Qualification Criteria

Let us understand the pointers that help qualify a lead, based on their readiness and willingness to purchase.

The ultimate goal is to distinguish between leads with the most potential to convert into paying accounts and those with the least.

The business objectives help define the lead qualification criteria. However, you can qualify them by understanding their goals, pain points, buying authority, and budget.  

In a perfect world, the marketing qualified leads (MQLs) and sales qualified leads(SQLs) would coincide. However, if the sales team rejects too many leads, the marketing qualification criteria will need tweaking.

Qualifying a Lead with Marketing Automation

Marketing automation is revolutionizing industries, ‘stepping up’ processes, and helping brands bring their ‘A-game’. It does so with software that automates many aspects of marketing and lead gen, making it easier to manage them and improve productivity. The best part is you can integrate software solutions to automate all marketing activities— from the initial opt-in to follow-up sequences and behavioral emails. Automation can streamline the overall customer acquisition process.

In other words, each time a prospect wants to receive email updates. For instance, your system will automatically generate email responses designed to qualify their interest in your solution.  

Let’s consider another example. If a prospect submits a sign-up form, the marketing automation software will automatically add them to a contact list. Then, it sends curated content that moves them towards making larger purchases. Alternatively, you can change the command and set it up for a different objective.

How To Improve Your Inbound Lead Qualification- 3 steps

To keep up with the changing B2B dynamics, the techniques and processes for qualifying leads also evolve. Employing these steps will help you achieve better results in lead qualification:

Have a qualification expert

The process is both critical and complex. Businesses have started investing in designated software and a team member to gatekeep new inbound sales leads. You can assign an expert the nitty-gritty of the process, which would ensure consistent and high-quality leads.

Pay attention to emails

Although different channels are available to foster engagement with customers and build brand reputation, emails remain a significant communication route. An email list holds great value, so when customers invest efforts to interact with emails and express interest in your brand, they could qualify as leads.

Keep at it persistently

Persistence plays a huge role in improving the lead generation strategy performance. The best way to determine whether a lead is qualified is to discuss their pain points and the solution they seek. The mode of communication doesn’t matter. But persistence does, without being sales-y of course!

Work on scheduling a sales meeting or contact them to understand if they are interested.  The best way to find out if your lead is qualified is through a real conversation with them about their needs. Your goal is to put behind the maybes and focus on the yes’s.

There are a ton of different ways to qualify a lead. But this checklist might simplify the process.

Figure out their interest in your product or service

Some customers who do not initially show interest might grow it. But, this could involve more research about your brand. So, if a lead is not showing much interest, the best thing to do is target them with content that demonstrates brand value.

What about the resources?

If a lead does not have adequate resources to make a purchase, it’s best to move on to the next lead.

Are they ready to make a purchase soon?

It’s important to factor in time when qualifying leads. The bottom line is that someone could be interested in your offering and have the resources, but if the timing is not right, it’s best not to pursue them.  

Is the lead you are speaking with authorized to make a buying decision?

This step will only apply to B2B deals, where the lead you’re targeting may or may not have the final say over the company’s purchasing decisions for their department.

And in case the lead is not part of the decision-making committee, focus on their company. Find out who are the persons within the business with the power to make the sale. You can either go about it with research or directly ask the lead you targeted.

How do you use the Checklist?

Use the checklist to gather essential data that helps you score them effectively.  And how you implement this would depend entirely on the answers. For instance, if you get a ‘yes’ for the entire checklist, place the lead at the top of the scoring system. If some are ‘yes’ and some are ‘no’, keep the lead in the middle of the ranking system. It helps you figure out upfront how promising different leads in the funnel are.

AI forecasting for lead qualification

Brands can leverage AI to qualify leads and derive inputs. AI and machine learning models help you filter out leads that have the highest likelihood of converting into paying accounts. AI achieves this by analyzing historical data to discover patterns and behaviors that show increased conversion probability, which helps brands invest their sales resources.

These are some key features of AI-integrated forecasting-

Predictive Analytics:

AI evaluates extensive customer interaction data alongside behavioral patterns to determine which leads will likely convert. The algorithms process variables such as past interactions, website visits, email engagement, and demographic data to generate lead conversion scores.

Behavioral Insights:

AI tools allow you to monitor and assess a prospect’s digital footprint. This makes it easy for sales teams to concentrate on high-value leads when AI systems detect repeated product page visits or specific content interactions as strong buying signals.

Lead Scoring Optimization:

The traditional lead scoring method depends on manually entered data and fixed scoring metrics. Machine learning systems maintain lead scoring models through continuous refinement and updates that help improve accuracy with the accumulation of new data over time. Employing an AI system improves your brand’s capability to qualify leads. And this happens by integrating information from external sources including social media and industry trends.

Sales Forecasting:

Businesses can enhance sales forecasting accuracy by integrating AI capabilities into their CRM systems. Your sales teams could benefit from AI models that analyze historical sales cycles to forecast lead conversions and optimize resource distribution.

Automated Follow-ups:

AI-enabled systems use lead behavior to automate the scheduling and sending of personalized follow-up communications. AI triggers automated emails or reminders to leads who show product interest but have not completed purchases to encourage them to convert.

Lead qualification- more than a strategy

It can elevate lead conversions for B2B brands looking to maximize their efforts and drive better results. Lead qualification lets you focus on the leads with maximum potential, saving costs and valuable time. Plus, it benefits brands by wise allocation of resources. The outcome- overall better chances of closing deals.

Effective lead qualification helps businesses focus their resources on high-quality prospects- improving sales efficiency, shortening the sales cycle, and increasing conversion rates.

Each framework enlisted in this blog has its strengths and weaknesses. However, the best approach for your brand will depend on the nature of your product/service, the complexity of the sales process, and the specific needs of your target audience. Modifying these methods per your brand and audience could improve your lead qualification efforts even more.

Irrespective of the framework you decide to implement, the main point is understanding your prospects deeply and aligning your efforts with their needs, budget, and decision-making processes.