Manufacturers everywhere want to increase leads, but not all leads are created equal, are they? While generating a boatload of leads from your website is great, you can’t celebrate like your ship just came in before you know how many in that boatload are actually ready to take the plunge!
The point is, you don’t want to simply increase leads so much as you want to increase qualified leads — those who make a good fit with your company and are the most apt to buy. After all, no one wants to waste time and effort on a lead that, well, leads nowhere.
That’s why putting a lead qualification process in place is a must. Having a plan to determine who’s truly a potential customer and who’s not-so-much allows you to focus your time and efforts on not just any leads, but the right leads — the ones that will make your sales team’s lives easier and everyone involved happier! To start, follow these tips to weed out the unqualified leads from your website:
1. Determine your criteria
What characteristics would make a lead a good fit? Your buyer personas will come in handy here. Consider what industries, job roles, and challenges a lead should have to qualify them as someone you can help.
2. Gather information
Design the forms on your website to specifically ask for information needed to identify whether a lead meets your criteria. Gathering details like industry, size of company, job title, and so on, will allow you to sort leads and keep your sales funnel flowing.
3. Measure data
Automation is a beautiful thing and can make sorting and tracking behavior easy peasy, freeing you up for more important things — you know, like enjoying some pretty darn awesome ROI. Invest in software that can measure things like pages visited and how long people stay on those pages. This info will give you an idea where visitors are in the buyer’s journey, and just how ready they are to make a purchase. Having such knowledge allows you to organize and prioritize leads, and helps your marketing and sales teams to optimize their time.
4. Do a little digging
Just as potential leads are checking you out, go ahead and check them out too! Look at company profiles on social media and browse websites. It’s not only okay, it’s good to do. It allows you to get an even better idea how qualified the leads you’re generating really are and whether they’re good fits worth following up.
5. Repeat the process
Once you’ve created a scalable and repeatable process, coincidentally enough, it’s ready to repeat. Continue to follow your plan to identify which leads generated through your website are qualified and which can be weeded out.
Bam! You’re done. Now all you have to do is sit back and watch the leads roll in! Correction: watch the qualified leads roll in.
For help putting your process in place, or for any other marketing needs you may have, just contact Revel at 231-727-9778. We’ve got more tips where these came from – look here’s some now!
