Over or Under Qualifying Leads

Ease of conversion is a common goal in digital marketing but is it at odds with your sales process?  There is a balancing act in allowing users to easily access offers while not overburdening the sales or delivery team with a lot of qualification requirements.

Years ago I was confronted by a sales person after leads came back from a direct mail campaign.  After making calls from his lead list he grew frustrated from lackluster results and said, “Why do I get all of the goofy ass leads!?” While I think that the leads were only one part of the problem, he brought up a fair point.  If a lead is not a viable prospect, does it have any value?

It’s frustrating for trainers, consultants, and professional coaches to be fed “leads” that are poorly suited to their services.  However, the entire purpose of marketing is eroded if attempts to qualify leads drastically reduce marketing conversions.

To get the balancing act right, it’s important to first verify that you are working on the right side of the problem.  Lead qualification is often unduly blamed for a poor sales system or lacking an effective approach call process.

If you analyze your leads and find that there is a consistent problem with the quality then ask yourself these questions:

• Are your marketing communications going to the right group of people?
  After all if you haven’t evaluated your audience and it’s made up of people that would be bad leads, it’s a sure bet that lead quality will be poor.
• Is critical qualification data being omitted from the conversion process?
  If you need critical information for an offer’s conversion then it’s advisable to add it. For example, if you have an event that’s only for a particular industry then collecting industry information on the registration is a god screen to make sure the lead is viable. If there is any opportunity to populate that data from other sources (rather than requiring data entry from users) it’s a good option to keep conversion friction down.
• Can ancillary qualification steps be added after conversion?
  Rather than trying to place all of the qualification on the user during conversion, it is often possible to do additional qualification after conversion. Using the industry specific event as an example, a survey might be triggered after registration asking people that registered to check off common problems that they would like to hear addressed at the event.  This ensures that attendees have compelling reasons to attend and provides you with some hot button issues that the group is dealing with. If you find that attendees are struggling to identify problems then they might be directed to a more suitable offer or perhaps the event is not a well targeted.

Digital marketing drip campaigns allow for even poor leads to be nurtured into good leads.  Over qualification deprives you of the opportunity of staying engaged with those people that don’t currently make a good client, even though they might become a good client in the future. Doing too much qualification on the front end can severely hinder a digital marketing campaign because the flow of leads into the ongoing marketing campaign is constricted and restrictive conversions limit your ability to analyze whether offers are broadly resonating with your audience.