Today, the growth of any business relies on personal human contact. No matter if you are in the B2B or B2C segment, your company growth depends on new leads. Here, it is important to understand that even in B2B, leads are people, not companies. After all, even company to company interaction happens through people, and each of those people is your lead.
Distinguishing between different types of leads for your business will help you find the right strategies that eventually sell your product or service. The simplest and most basic subdivision is into new leads, working leads, and nurturing ones (someone you have already done business with). Still, when we dig into details, the actual subdivision will be a tad more complex. Let’s take a look at all possible business leads types and how you can engage each one.
Temperature-based lead scale
This scale shows how willing a lead is to engage with your business. It has little to with the amount of time or marketing spent — it is all about readiness to do business with you.
Hot lead
A hot lead is someone you’ve probably spent some time interacting with and have reached an understanding. In a B2B sphere, a hot lead is someone wrapping up all the necessary paperwork. This person has a distinct need for your product or service and the authority to settle all necessary contracts (or at least recommend your business to someone who can).
Warm lead
A warm lead may or may not become a hot one. If a hot lead has the need, budget, and authority to sign a deal, a warm one may miss some of these points. You can also refer to warm leads as working leads because they are already interested in your company but still entertain doubts about doing business with you.
Cold lead
Most businesses see cold leads as dead-ends, but a cold lead can quickly turn into a hot one with a careful marketing approach. A cold lead is someone potentially interested in your products or services. However, this person may not know about your brand just yet. So, it is up to the marketer to engage them.
Most businesses communicate with cold leads over email. Here, the key to success is to create carefully targeted cold email lists. Fortunately, specialized tools can give you access to leads’ personal email addresses, so this part at least can be automated.
Information awareness lead scale
Email finding tools are not the only means of getting your leads’ contact details. Today, most businesses have a lead capture form on their websites where interested prospects can leave their email addresses in exchange for valuable information. Once they do, they can be subdivided into information qualified, and marketing qualified leads.
Information qualified
An information qualified lead is someone who filled in your website form hoping to get an ebook, sign up for webinars, and get any other freebies your business offers. This is why having a form like this is essential for B2C and B2B companies — it gives them a chance to get leads’ contact details and potentially engage them in the future. When an information qualified lead gives you their contact details, your next step is simple — provide the information your prospect is interested in. Eventually, you may build trust and wrap up sales.
Marketing qualified
Once your information qualified lead downloads your ebook, subscribes to a newsletter, or watches your webinar, this person becomes a marketing qualified lead. In a way, both information- and marketing qualified leads are ‘warm’. Still, marketing qualified is ‘warmer’ yet. This person has already spent some time learning about your business. Now, it’s up to your marketing team to nurture this lead. If the sales did not happen after sharing free promo material, keep sending emails with further information on the subject (all info should be useful) and consider throwing some discounts or informing prospects about special offers.
Sales readiness lead scale
The final and probably most important lead scale is how sales-ready these people are. Similar to the information- and marketing qualified scale mentioned above, the difference between sales-ready and sales-qualified lead is subtle. Yet, it is apparent.
Sales qualified
A sales qualified lead is someone who is ready to talk with your sales representatives. This person may have dropped you a line in chat, replied to your email, or even requested a meeting with your sales rep. Once this happens, you should react to any questions and requests asap, because the sooner you respond, the higher your chances of making a sale are.
Sales ready
A sales-ready lead is someone who has already chatted with your sales rep and received answers to one’s questions. Sales-ready leads can also be qualified as ‘hot’ if we go back to the temperature-based scale. However, marketers should not forget that lead generation does not stop at making a sale.
One of the most common mistakes in marketing is paying a lot of attention to new (warm or marketing qualified) leads and ignoring already existing customers who have done business with you. Still, engaging with previous buyers and informing them about new offers is more budget-wise than generating leads from scratch. In a way, your existing customers can be treated as sales-ready leads — especially if you sell subscriptions to software, offer essential retail products, etc.
As you can now see, each business lead can fall into different categorization criteria. So, defining your leads is not just about seeing the difference between newcomers and leads in process. Sometimes, a new lead can already be sales-ready. The reverse scenario is as likely — your carefully nurtured leads may still be unwilling to buy.
So, it all goes down to human interaction. Your marketing team should clearly understand all possible lead types and search for personalized clues to engage your prospects. Ideally, you should consider hiring a marketing research analyst to make sure the whole marketing division is moving in the right direction.
