There are a few common mistakes to keep in mind when it comes to the whole lead generation and qualification process.

Mistake #1: Not Clearly Defining YOUR Qualified Leads

Sure, you can get inbound leads, but how do you know if they’re qualified for YOUR business? Have you determined what that really means yet? In order to be able to bring in qualified leads, you have to define them first, and ensure that both your sales and marketing team are in alignment.

What is your ideal customer’s company size? What is their annual budget, and who are the key decision-makers? Do they have a timeline to buy?

While a lead can be anyone that has filled out a form to download some sort of offer from your website and can be anywhere along the sales funnel, a qualified lead has made more than one connection to your business and is likely at the point where they are shopping around for what you have to offer, with a set budget and timeframe to buy.

Mistake #2: Not Marketing to the Right People

Now that you’ve defined who your qualified buyers are, you need to make sure you’re marketing to and targeting the right people in the first place. To do that, it’s best to flesh out your buyer personas, to understand who your ideal clients really are, and thus know HOW to market to them properly. You shouldn’t just be broadly targeting a large audience, or it’ll waste additional energy and resources.

There’s no need to be inefficient. Determine your buyer personas in detail, and continue to optimize them as well as your lead scoring system as you learn more over time.

Mistake #3: Not Starting With a Strategy

It’s easy to start using a variety of tactics to market randomly to your audience. But again, this will create a lot of wasted time and energy. Make sure to start with a strategy and create a proper lead generation and qualification process, so that everyone in the company is on the same page. From there, you can choose the correct tools and tactics, instead of going backwards – trying to make a strategy work around and fit with a certain set of tools and tactics.

Mistake #4: Not Having a Clear Sales Process in Place

Once you’ve generated a lead, what happens next? Do you know how to qualify that lead properly before moving this along to the sales team so that you can actually close the customer?
Lay out a process to continue to reach out to the prospect and nurture them further down the funnel to a sale.

Do you need to follow up with an initial phone call to talk about their goals and find out additional information? Should you be setting up a demo? Perhaps it would make sense to send relevant product and service information via a drip campaign? What is the next step for your company to take? What’s the next step to qualify the lead and eventually turn them into a customer?

This leads into….

Mistake #5: Not Providing a Clear Call to Action

Although this may seem intuitive, it’s surprising how many people can make this mistake. Ensure that you first of all even HAVE a Call to Action (for any landing pages, nurturing campaigns, or sales calls). What button should they be clicking, or who should they call? What pages should they visit or online demo should they review? When is the next call in the sales process and what will you cover?

Make everything clear and simple, so that potential customers know what you want them to do next and will also understand what they will get in return for their time and information.

Summary

To summarize, common mistakes to avoid when qualifying leads include:

1. Not Clearly Defining YOUR Qualified Leads
2. Not Marketing to the Right People
3. Not Starting with A Strategy
4. Not Having A Clear Sales Process in Place
5. Not Providing A Clear Call To Action or Next Step

Now that you understand more about what common mistakes to avoid with generating and qualifying your prospects, make sure to check out our recent blog posts covering more useful lead-related tips. 

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