Before someone buys your service or product and thus becomes a customer, they go through several stages. We'll describe these different stages to help you understand what a lead is. At the end of the article, we'll give you some tips on how to generate leads effectively.
The different definitions of lead by sector
In B2B, a lead is considered a sales contact, whose interest in your offer is more or less proven. This contact may have been obtained through a sales representative (trade show, point of sale) or via other media (website, telephone, request for quote, etc.). It represents the entry point of the customer relationship management (CRM) process.
In B2C, the Collective for Digital Marketing Actors (CPA) defines lead as " a prospect who has expressed a clear intention to purchase a product or service and has confirmed his or her explicit wish to be contacted ".
Lead qualification: a key challenge for your business
A lead can be more or less qualified. The more qualified, the greater the chances of converting them into customers. A lead is considered qualified once sufficient information has been gathered about it. The company knows who he is, what his problems are, his expectations, his needs, his budget and his buying potential.
Working with qualified leads allows you to :
- Make sure you're not prospecting outside your target audience;
- Don't waste the time of your sales force or your contacts;
- Gain motivation by only contacting people whose needs are compatible with your offer;
- Boost your sales. Segmenting your contacts increases tenfold the likelihood that the exchange will lead to an appointment or a sale.
Generating leads is good, but generating qualified leads is even better!
Distinguishing between lead sales and lead marketing
Most of the time, lead is generated by prospecting activities. Some companies have teams dedicated to qualifying contacts. If they show genuine interest in your offer, they become sales leads. They are then passed on to the sales team. This team accompanies them all the way to the final purchase.
Downloading a white paper, meeting someone at a trade show, filling in a contact form, requesting a quote online... In B2B as in B2C, the primary objective of marketing is to generate leads for sales teams. A lead marketing lead is a contact interested in your offer, obtained as a result of an online or offline communication action.
What's the difference between a lead and a prospect?
A lead is not (yet) considered a prospect. A prospect is a potential customer who has already been contacted. It's a sales contact who has already been qualified by your marketing or sales team. They have demonstrated a clear, precise need for your offer. In other words, an intention to buy. To make a purchase, they need to be convinced of your ability to solve their problem.
A lead has expressed an interest in your product or service. He's in the discovery phase of your offer. The challenge is to convince them that they have a problem to solve. Unlike a prospect, you don't have much information about them. Once he's sufficiently qualified, he can become a potential customer.
lead is handled by the marketing department. A prospect is handled by the marketing or sales team.
MQL vs. SQL" lead types
Before becoming a customer, lead goes through a qualification cycle called the lead cycle. There are 5 stages:
- Lead unqualified.
- Lead MQL.
- Lead SQL.
- Opportunity.
- Customer.
What is an MQL (Marketing Qualified Lead)?
MQL (Marketing qualified lead ) or " lead qualified par le marketing". A lead becomes an MQL when it shows a real interest in your content. For example, they may consult multiple articles, download a white paper or regularly read your newsletter. As your actions progress, you gather information about the MQL's habits and needs. You can then turn it into SQL.
What is SQL (Sales Qualified Lead)?
This is an MQL entrusted to the sales teams. He meets specific targeting requirements. You know the company they work for, their position and their specific needs. Their level of commitment to your content is important. An SQL can be considered a "real" potential customer or "prospect". In effect, they have a project in mind and fall within your target audience.
How do you generate leads?
Lead generation is the first step in acquiring customers. Here's an overview of lead generation levers:
- Landing pages. They are concise and punchy, their aim is to arouse curiosity;
- Content marketing. This type of strategy is used to transform a lead into a prospect;
- Social networks and social selling;
- Paid search engine advertising (SEA) with Google Ads or Microsoft Ads;
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO). It has the ability to attract prospects to your website over the long term. Several techniques can be used to boost visibility, including on-page SEO, netlinking and topic clustering;
- Events and trade shows;
- Emailing. Multiple marketing automation platforms make it easy to create personalized sequences;
- Co-registration;
- SMS marketing. Inexpensive and highly effective;
- Display;
- Affiliation.
Want to know how to generate qualified leads? Want our lead generation tips ? See our articles The different types of prospecting: how to choose? and Our tips for effective multi-channel prospecting.
How do you qualify your leads?
7 out of 10 conversions are lost due to poor follow-up. One of the biggest challenges for marketers is knowing where leads are in the buying process. They use lead scoring to obtain this information on a large scale.
lead scoring is based on the calculation and assignment to each lead of a number of points. The score is generally between 0 and 100, and reflects their conversion potential and level of interest in your offer.
The score is calculated on the basis of lead qualification criteria such as :
- Contact information: age, gender, socio-demographic data ;
- How it arrived on your website;
- Behavioral data: e-mail and social network engagement, contact history, type of request, etc.
For example, if a contact opens a welcome e-mail and clicks on the link, 10 points are added to their score... + 5 points, if they visit your price list page... + 20 points, if they request a quote online... And so on for all actions that show an interest on their part.
Good to know What is lead negative scoring?
This technique involves assigning negative points to a lead. The score is allocated automatically via a marketing automation platform. The negative points reduce the initial score of the lead. They delay the perceived maturation of the contact and can even disqualify it.
Why lead scoring?
lead scoring brings multiple benefits to your business:
- Save time and money on marketing campaigns. You know when to contact your hot leads. Your marketing automation tool takes care of nurturing others;
- Better knowledge of prospects;
- Easier establishment of contact priorities ;
- The ability to personalize marketing actions;
- Automatic lead maturity assessment;
- Highlighting the hottest leads;
- Better alignment between marketing and sales departments.
Steps for implementing a lead scoring strategy
Every company and its processes are unique. So must your lead scoring strategy. It's counter-productive to apply the first model you come across on the web. However, they can serve as a basis for reflection and inspiration.
Find out how to set up a lead scoring model.
- Identify your personas and segments.
- Establish criteria for awarding points.
- Define lead qualification thresholds.
- Find the marketing automation tool best suited to your needs.
- Analyze and measure the results of your rating system.
Overview of the conversion funnel
A conversion tunnel is a marketing process designed to transform a lead into a prospect, and then into a customer.
As it progresses through the funnel, lead passes through 3 phases:
- TOFU or Top of the Funnel, the discovery stage. It brings together actions designed to get visitors interested in your brand.
- MOFU or Middle of the Funnel. In this phase of interest, the visitor becomes a lead, more or less qualified.
- BOFU or Bottom of the Funnel. The base of the conversion funnel groups together the most qualified leads. Its objective is to transform them into prospects. The end of the funnel is marked by the act of buying, and the conversion of prospects into customers.
Would you like to collect qualified leads on a 100% performance basis? Contact Dataventure, your specialist lead generation partner.
