Qualified Lead
What Is A Qualified Lead?
A Qualified Lead in marketing is a prospect or potential customer who has high chances of converting into a sale - or some other form of beneficial action for your business. It’s also sometimes referred to as a Marketing Qualified Lead or MQL.
Usually, such leads are generated due to successful marketing efforts, which means that they can be identified based on how much a prospect has engaged with your marketing content or ads.
For instance, from a site visitor who regularly peruses through your articles and clicks on links compared to one that bounces from your site without any engagement, who’d be more likely to convert?
The answer is, of course, the first one. And thanks to data like this, we can identify qualified leads, which can help us estimate future business growth or sales.
Understanding Qualified Leads
Usually, a Qualified Lead has visibly engaged with your brand by performing activities such as intentionally submitting contact data, registering for a program or newsletter, adding eCommerce items to a shopping basket, downloading materials, or regularly visiting a site.
These are promising leads interested and thinking about you but haven't exactly made the progression into a sales conversion yet.
Be that as it may, they're still more likely to respond to a sales pitch or ad by you than an ordinary lead. For instance, if a site visitor has submitted their email address to you, it shows potential; it means they're interested to hear from you in the future.
So. A Qualified Lead is interested in what you have to offer and is likely to invest in your products or services in due time.
How to Identify Qualified Leads
Qualified Leads show interest in buying from your business. They're open to the possibility of a deal and take an initial step to engage with your business without investing money. While marketing endeavors can acquire such leads, it's the lead's behavior that helps marketers identify them. Usually, they make some type of active contact effort or engage with your digital brand to explore what you have to offer.
Examples of Qualified Lead actions:
- Downloading trial software or a free eBook
- Utilizing software demos
- Filling out online forms
- Submitting an email address for a newsletter or mailing list
- Favoriting items or adding items to a wishlist
- Adding items to the shopping cart
- Repeating site visits or spending a lot of time on your site
- Clicking on an ad to find your site
- Contacting you to request more information
These are probably the most widely recognized activities, yet this isn't intended to be an extensive rundown.
The ideal approach to sort out what is and is certainly not a certified lead for your business also relies upon many other data such as lead scoring, analytics, product delivery, and demographics.
The Two Key Elements of Qualified Leads
So, let’s explore in detail what distinguishes qualified leads from regular ones.
Lead qualification typically consists of two key elements: the prospect’s fit and their level of engagement during the sales process as they make a buying decision.
1. Fit
This is the part of qualifying a lead that depends on your particular buyer personas, or data, for example, work title, industry, organization income, location, and so forth. From these standards, marketing and sales can determine what a buyer may look like. It's typically based on past patterns about what kinds of people are effectively occupied with your purchasing lifecycle.
So, the extent to which your lead matches your ideal customer profile will determine whether you decide to identify it as a Qualified Lead.
2. Engagement
This is the assurance of a potential lead's degree of purchasing interest. A lead's action can uncover how close they are to a buying decision.
For instance, if a lead has just visited your site once, or has recently started following you on Twitter, they might know about your organization yet aren't especially connected at this point. But on the other hand, a lead that demands a demo or perspectives evaluating data shows significantly more interest.
Thus, engagement considers all parts of their online conduct, from email reaction, site page visits, eBook downloads to social media involvement.
Key Takeaway
Qualified marketing leads are great for business, and your marketing campaign aims to maximize these. By creating original and creative content and bringing value to your audience, you can pull in more qualified leads and increase your chances of future conversions.