For most vendors, B2B lead qualification is a two-pronged, collaborative exercise. It requires input from both the marketing and sales teams.
As far as marketing-qualified leads are concerned, demographic and firmographic analysis can be used to understand ‘fit’ with the Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). This analysis also helps perform preliminary lead qualification.
However, once the lead has been qualified by the marketing team as one worth pursuing, a more structured, strategic approach is generally recommended.
This will allow the lead to be passed down the funnel from marketing to sales as frictionlessly as possible.
Indeed, a structured approach to MQLs will allow you to more effectively sniff out those opportunities where the stars align. In these cases, the leads have the budget and buying intent to close a deal.
To learn more about strategic B2B lead qualification, read on.
Define Your ICP
In its early stages, a strategic approach to lead qualification involves answering a simple question: Does this lead match our ideal customer profile (ICP)?
The ICP will look different depending on the industry and sector you operate in, but as a general rule, you need to ask the following questions when constructing the ICP:
- Who the customers are: i.e. industry, company size, and revenue range
- Where do they operate: i.e. geography, markets and sectors
- What they do: i.e. business model, use case, and pain points
- Whether they are ready to make a purchase: i.e. budget range and typical deal size, historical customer buying patterns
- How they buy: i.e. decision-making, buying committee and stakeholders involved
Watch Signals
ICP fit alone is not enough when it comes to B2B sales.
A robust lead qualification process should be paired with behavioural analysis of leads to understand their intent signals.
Buying signals include actions such as:
- Repeated visits to high-intent pages – price lists and specific product pages
- Engagement related to a known pain point or issue
- A request for a demonstration or trial
- Replies to outbound marketing material like email shots
- Definite spikes in activity from target accounts, especially at certain times of the day
When ICP fit and intent signals align, leads can then be scored and prioritised for immediate sales follow-up; otherwise, they should be given more nurturing.
Use a Structure
Once a lead becomes marketing-qualified (MQL), it’s then ready to be passed to the sales team for further qualification.
Sales lead qualification is qualitatively different to marketing lead qualification.
Marketing qualification tends to be process-led and heuristic in nature – does the lead match the ICP, and have they demonstrated these buying signals?
Conversely, sales-focused lead qualification will generally be human-led, conversational, and investigative. As such, it requires structure to guide the person carrying it out.
Because sales conversations can be different from customer to customer, it’s recommended that a framework like BANT, MEDDICC, SPICED, or GPCT be used to guide the salesperson.
Feedback Loops
Finally, it should be remembered that strategic lead qualification should not be a strictly sequential process. It is more than simply passing leads from marketing to sales.
Rather, the qualification process needs to form a feedback loop.
This will ensure that both teams are on the same page regarding MQL and SQL definitions. Additionally, they are on the same page when it comes to important issues around lead handoff and nurturing.