Effective Lead Generation Services

Lead generation is all about identifying, attracting by generating interest. Once identified, follow up with engaging and converting people into paying for your product or service offerings and becoming a consumer. Lead generation is about nurturing prospective purchasers of your products through the buying process so that they become convinced enough to place an order.  A database is maintained of concerned people who may be curious or interested in what you have to sell in software for managing all future contacts. These contacts are called ‘Leads’.

Some strategies to generate interest are through blog posts, some free coupons, some articles and free academic PDFs for people to download by filling out a form, live events, and offering some information online which they could click and read.

How are leads classified?

Usually, there are two factors that determine whether a Lead is ‘hot’, ‘cold’, ‘warm’ or ‘not interested’. The two distinguishing factors are a person’s ‘willingness’ and ‘readiness to purchase’ your product or service. First, one needs to be clear on what the criteria are of a ‘potential’ customer, and then classify Leads by prioritizing them into different buckets such as a ‘Hot Lead’, a ‘Warm Lead’ or a ‘Cold Lead’ based on their intention to purchase and do they have the money ready to make an immediate purchase. Some Leads might be willing but do not have the required money to buy and vice versa. These can be classified into a warm Lead for future sales follow up. Some Leads may be just not interested in your offerings. These leads are not worth pursuing.

Proper categorization is important

More importantly, it is necessary to ask pertinent questions for categorization so that precious time, resources, company money and effort is not wasted on cold leads or on those who are not interested in purchasing your product.

Are they the decision-makers? Are they willing to buy? Do they have the money now or in the future to make a purchase?

HQL-Hot Qualified Leads- One should be familiar with the sales funnel process to understand which leads in your database are Hot. Hot leads are those who have shown interest in your product/service and are ready to make a purchase. They already know your brand and they are familiar with your product. They want to buy.

MQL-Market Qualified Leads- Market Qualified Leads are Leads in your database that are due to some criteria that are listed, qualify to be pursued and have an intention to buy. These are people who may have downloaded your online content or filled out a form giving their contact information.

SQL-Sales Qualified Leads- Sales-qualified Leads are leads put into this bucket by your sales personnel and are categorized by them based on certain criteria that they may have been given. Here there could be a percentage of error and this could be in fact a mix of cold and hot or warm leads.

SAL-Sales accepted Leads- This database needs to be handled by experts as this is a priority list of people clearly interested in buying your product and have accepted your offerings to be superior to your competitors. They are fans or your brand and have been following information about your company on media channels. They can be met with your sales team and deals can be closed effectively. 

Use resources with care

Uniform time and effort should not be given to all your contacts in your database. It would be a waste of time pursuing someone only to later find that they were indeed a cold lead. It would be a waste of valuable resources to convert a cold lead into a warm lead unless you have accurate and specific information that they could be interested in your product. This could negatively impact your brand too.