Want More Qualified Leads? Try This

61% of B2B marketers send all leads directly to sales, however, only 27% of those leads will be qualified. (Source: MarketingSherpa)

Is it just us, or is there something a little funny about those numbers?

While it's certainly important that you're serving up a healthy stream of leads to your sales department, throwing senseless leads at the issue will ultimately solve nothing. 

In order to close more sales, your team needs to be pouring their time and resources into more meaningful conversations with educated, interested leads, not just any old contacts.

But how do you increase lead quality?

To help, we've come up with 3 simple tips to help you turn up more qualified leads to keep your sales team happy, and your business profitable. 

1. Inbound > outbound

Commercials, print ads, direct mail...

How can you expect to capture the right leads when you're casting such a wide net?

While many marketers are under the impression that a high quantity of leads is enough to keep their sales team at bay, success boils down to quality not quantity. 

So while your outbound techniques may help you scoop up a handful of leads, it's important that you evaluate their level of interest before you pass them off to sales. 

Often times, the follow up that comes with trying to persuade less than qualified leads is a nightmare to say the least. Due to their initial lack of interest or need for your product or service, it can be challenging to reconnect with them, let alone carry out a fruitful conversation. 

Focusing your efforts on inbound marketing initiatives will help to refine your lead capture process, making it easier for you to pass off a qualified list of leads, not just a collection of contacts.

2. Adjust your forms

Think about the current required fields on your lead capture forms.

Are you asking enough? Are you asking too much?

Streamlining the information collection process is not necessarily about the number of questions you ask, but rather, the quality of those questions being asked. 

To help draw in more qualified prospects, consider the benefits of trimming the fat off your forms. Before you make a field required, ask yourself:

Do we really need this bit of information?

Is this information so critical that we are willing to run the risk that some visitors won't convert?

Another form adjustment that you should consider would be to add a blog subscribe check box to each of your forms. What does this have to do with lead quality? Leads that are receiving your daily updates straight to their inbox have a higher chance of consuming your content, ultimately resulting in more educated leads for sales to jump into communication with. 

(For more on how to add a check box to your form, check out this resource from HubSpot.)

3. Leverage social media

With HubSpot's Social Inbox, users can quickly and easily track mentions of keywords or keyword phrases that are relevant to their business. 

This is done by creating a stream focused on a word or phrase, that can then be used to filter through the noise and surface only messages containing the desired word or phrase.

Having the ability to hone in on those who are already asking questions or facilitating conversations about XYZ will help you to turn up more meaningful engagements. The more interest a user has organically, the easier it is to nurture them to a point where they are ready to be passed off to sales. 

Ready to set up a stream of your own? Follow these simple instructions:

• 1) Click on the Monitoring tab under the Social option in the main navigation.
• 2) If you have multiple accounts hooked up, start by choosing the appropriate account to interact as.
• 3) Click the + all the way to the right.
• 4) Identify whose tweets you wish to monitor, which keywords/phrases you want to turn up, and set up a notification system to be sure that the right people are alerted when a word is mentioned.
• 5) Select create stream and you're ready to go!