Been wasting too much time targeting the wrong people? Sounds like you need some lead qualification in your life.

Creating the right lead qualification process cuts down on the challenges that qualifying your leads can present – and we’ll take you through how to do it.

Below, we’ll explain everything you need to know about the lead qualification process so you can start finding – and keeping – qualified sales leads from now on.

What is Lead Qualification?

You’ve got your fair share of incoming leads – and that’s great. But how do you know which of them will be ready to buy your products or services?

With lead qualification, of course! At its core, the process answers the following two lead qualifying questions:

• Will your product or services fulfil their needs?
• Can they afford them?

If your leads satisfy the above, then you can move ahead with trying to convert them – and disregard any leads that don’t.

Lead Scoring vs. Lead Qualification

You’ve probably heard the term lead scoring in any research you might have done on lead qualification before. And while they’re related and compliment each other, they aren’t the same thing. So, what’s the difference between the two.

Lead qualification lets you know which leads are the right fit for your business. Lead scoring, on the other hand, gives your leads a numerical score when you bring them into the sales funnel.

This score is based on their engagement and qualification factors, the methodology and criteria of which you or your sales lead will decide on. With lead scoring, you’ll able to use this data to work out the warmth of the leads you choose to pursue.

The Importance of Lead Qualification

A lead qualification process is important for a number of different reasons. As we’ve already touched on, it makes sure you aren’t wasting time on people who are never going to convert.

But that’s not the only advantage. Targeting the right people brings about other benefits as a result, including:

• An improved customer experience: Lead qualification lets you focus on a smaller, more specific segment of buyers. From a customer experience perspective, the more tailored, personalised approach can be a huge plus.
  
• Higher closer rates: When you’re only targeting sales-ready leads, you or your sales team have a greater chance of closing prospective deals.
  
• Better use of marketing resources: Since they know to pursue only qualified leads, you’ll be ensuring that your marketing team aren’t wasting valuable time and resources targeting irrelevant leads.
  
• Greater bottom line: With the boost in leads, efficiency and productivity, the improved sales results will have a positive effect on your ROI too.

How Does Lead Qualification Work?

Lead qualification involves acquiring data from the relevant people. 

This is done by capturing it through various channels from things like quizzes, surveys, cold calls, emails, social media activity and even offline, in-person events. Through these approaches, you can learn more about people’s online activity to work out whether they’d be interested in your products and services.

After this, your leads will be contacted for more details, such as their:

• Budget
• Buying authority
• Specific needs and challenges

You’ll also need to monitor your leads’ click-through rates, website visits and social media interactions to gauge their interest in your products and services.

With this info to hand, you can then start scoring leads based on how likely they are to go ahead with a purchase. Once you reckon they qualify, the sales team will draft a proposal that meets the lead’s requirements so your leads can understand how you can meet their needs in more detail.

Types of Qualified Leads

How far along in the sales process, as well as how much they understand your business, will determine whether your leads fall into the following categories:

Marketing Qualified Leads

An MQL is a prospect that has shown an interest in your business and has interacted with the marketing team. They know the challenges they face, but haven’t entered the sales cycle yet.

Sales Qualified Leads

SQLs are prospects that have been qualified. They’re in a position that’s nearing a purchase – you can encourage them to act through well-timed follow ups. 

How to Qualify Leads

So how do you actually go about qualifying leads? There are plenty of different ways you can qualify leads, and your business framework and needs will determine your approach, but the below can help the process to take shape more effectively:

Audience Information

Do the people who have shown an interest in your business fit the demographic information (e.g. age, location, interests) of your target audience? Landing page forms, and the answers you receive from them, can help determine this.

Business Information

Similar to the above, do these prospects fit the bill, business-wise? Again, using landing page forms, you can determine the size, type and industry of the businesses they work for, as well as whether they’re B2C or B2B – so you can decide to pursue them further.

Interaction Information

How they interact with your website is a huge source of lead information too. If you offer downloads or offers, which of these did they make use of – and how many times? Did they land on any high-value pages or fill in high-value forms (such as demo requests)? Conversely, did they stop visiting your website or downloading your offers?

Engagement Data

You can look to their engagement with your marketing for key information as well. If they’re signed up to your emails, investigate their click-through rates on promotion emails or demo offers – a big indicator of how interested they are in you, and who you can start focusing on.

Their engagement with your social media activity is super useful too. If they’re commenting on posts, clicking through to links you post, or sharing your content, then that’s an encouraging sign that they’re interested.

Lead Qualifying Frameworks

To make your lead qualification process easier, there are plenty of lead qualifying frameworks – pre-defined criteria that can be matched to your target audience – out there.

We’ll cover the most popular ones below…

CHAMP

What it stands for:

• CH: Challenges
• A: Authority
• M: Money
• P: Prioritisation

A customer-centric framework, CHAMP is most concerned with solving the lead’s problem. Decision-making power and budget proposition are weighed up, before it evaluates whether the solution is a priority for the prospect.

GPCTBA/C&I

What it stands for:

• G: Goals
• P: Plans
• C: Challenges
• T: Timeline
• B: Budget
• A: Authority
• C: Negative consequences
• I: Positive implications

Well suited to B2B companies, GPCTBA/C&I assumes the prospect is already familiar with your business.

Instead, it considers the prospect’s goals and plans, the timeline they want the solution implemented over the course of, the budget to stick to, and their authority.

After that, it balances out the positives and negatives that might come about as a deal. It’s a lengthier sales process because of all of the above, but it’s one of the most thorough for the same reason.

BANT

What it stands for:

• B: Budget
• A: Authority
• N: Need
• T: Timing

Around since 1950, BANT might sound long in the tooth, but it’s a proven way to qualify sales leads – especially where budget is concerned.

And while it’s not the fastest to implement, it can speed up the qualification process in a matter of days. Once it’s been determined whether the prospect can actually purchase your product or service, BANT moves onto whether they have purchasing authority.

After that, it works to understand their problem so the sales rep can more readily pitch the relevant solution before focusing on how urgent their purchase is.

MEDDIC

What it stands for:

• M: Metrics
• E: Economic buyers
• D: Decision criteria
• D: Decision process
• I: Identify pain
• C: Champion

Talk about good bedside manner, MEDDIC’s focus is on learning the prospect’s pain points.

Beginning with understanding the measurable value that your solution can provide to them, it then confirms whether you’re talking with the person who can make buying decisions – as well as the factors that affect the decision-making process.

It then learns their pain points that you can target through your pitch, before it moves onto identifying a sales champion within their organisation; someone who can improve your future sales process by using their influence to sell your solution from the inside.  

FAINT

What it stands for:

• F: Funds
• A: Authority
• I: Interest
• N: Need
• T: Timeline

Suited to prospects who need to make unplanned purchases, FAINT focuses its attention primarily on budgets. Not every organisation will have a formal budget for every purpose – and FAINT understands this, but nevertheless, needs to know whether the prospect has the purchasing capabilities to buy from you.

Once their authority has been gauged, FAINT seeks to generate interest from the prospect. The more interest that can be created, whether it’s through targeted marketing or your sales team, the more likely you’ll be able to strike a rapport with them.

Interest can then be turned into need. By uncovering specific need, you can draw attention to the value you can create for them.

The last tenet, Time, concerns purchase intent – and the timeframe they’ll make the purchase in. This requires a degree of pushing on your part, but once you know the timeliness, you’ll have a qualified lead for your efforts.

Enhance Your Digital Marketing Maturity

Part of how successful your lead qualification process will be depends on your business’ own digital marketing maturity. With the right level of maturity, you’ll put yourself in a better position for commercial growth – but it’s important to know which level you’re at before you go rushing into things.

Luckily, our Digital Marketing Maturity Quiz can let you work out your current status. Head here to take the quiz – and then download our free Digital Marketing Maturity Matrix so you can start creating a roadmap for future success. 

We hope you’ve found everything above helpful. But if your sales are still struggling, then be sure to get in touch with our experts. Head here for more info on how we can do that or give us a call on 0345 459 0558.