Experienced marketing and sales professionals know that quality beats quantity when it comes to leads. Here are six proven methods for dramatically increasing your lead quality (and sales results).

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6 Surefire Ways to Increase Your Lead Quality
1. Gain agreement between marketing and sales on what
“qualified” means
The first step in this process can take on the feel of business therapy. As impossible as this may
sound, in order to truly increase the quality of your leads, sales stakeholders and marketing
stakeholders must first definitively agree on what makes a lead qualified. This process can be a
testy one as these two groups tend to not see eye to eye on this issue. An authentic dialogue
between marketing and sales that looks at the profiles of past leads that everyone can agree
were properly qualified is a good place to start. This profile should cover both demographical data
points like company size, industry, and role of the decision maker, as well as behavioral markers
like content exposure, time on site, frequency and referral source. Once both parties definitively
agree upon this profile, the definition of a qualified lead is no longer a mystery. This is a major
step toward marketing and sales alignment, and higher quality leads.
2. Evaluate them for demographic fit
This step puts into practice the work done is step #1. Once you understand the demographical
profile of a prospect that fits your ideal customer profile, you can measure against that benchmark.
If a lead pops up who is a perfect match, he will score high your lead scoring model. If he shows
up with a demographic profile that doesnʼt match, he will be scored lower and messaged
appropriately in your campaign responses. That said, keep a look out for new types of buyers for
your products or services. If you see an uptick in certain new demographical profiles, this could
mean a new user of your product and a new set of target demographics that should be added to
the target list.
3. Observe (and score) your prospects’ online behavior
Remember the adage, “Actions speak louder than words”? Itʼs true! Behavioral markers reveal a
prospectʼs readiness to buy. The ability to observe a prospectʼs behavior across your website,
email, and social media platforms gives you irrefutable insight into their true intent. Is your
prospect doing deep research that indicates a purchase is on the horizon, or just tire kicking? Do
certain page views and return frequency indicate a prospect with waxing or waning interest? And,
as you present a prospect various offers through a nurturing program, what is his response, and
does it reveal sales readiness?
Remember that prospects tend to take different paths on their journey to “qualified”. Be sure to
score these behaviors individually and then roll them into a summed behavioral score. This will
give you a flexible but accurate way of determining who exactly has demonstrated their readiness
for sales contact through their actions–not just what they tell you through a form.

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4. Ensure leads are tracked and scored automatically within
your marketing automation platform
Every lead has their own Day 1 in the nurturing process. This sentence alone makes the case for
automating the nurturing and scoring of leads in your funnel. Creating an accurate profile of an
ideal lead and then scoring the demographic and behavioral fit of that lead is simple to
understand. And if your opportunity funnel only has a handful of people in it, you could do it
yourself, manually. But scaling this model is nearly impossible without automation.
Imagine an example week where you generate 10 net new leads each day. By Friday, you now
have 50 leads in various stages of their evaluation and buying process. After 4 weeks, you now
have 200 leads to track, each of which is following his or her own path to sales readiness. For
some, the journey is quick because the need is immediate. For others, the path is longer and
involves more nurturing and relationship building. We simply donʼt have the time, attention to
detail or the analytical horsepower to track, measure, and respond to all of these individual
interactions over the totality of an ever-changing prospect database. The point: automate or
suffer mediocre sales results!
5. Respond quickly to signs of readiness
Believe it or not, some prospects show up ready to buy, now. While we spend lots of time
extolling the virtues of lead nurturing, there are still those wild cards out there who will go directly
to the contact form on the website, fill it out, and press play. Clearly, this is a prospect that is
ready for human interaction. Make sure you respond! Your systems should be configured so that
this action generates a call. And fast. Ideally within the hour. Hot prospects can easily get
distracted by the noise of their day, or instead, find a company that will respond quickly to them.
(Theyʼre always just one Google search away.)
6. Only pass leads to sales that have met your definition of
qualified
Your systems should only pass leads to sales that have been qualified through this new
demographical and behavioral filter. The process of passing the lead to sales should also include
the prospect profile that you have built over time. Think of it as a folder that you hand to a sale
person. Inside that folder is a summary of every interaction with that prospect: content
downloads, page visits, email opens, etc. Integrating your marketing automation system with
your CRM system allows you to automatically pass along this critical info. This is sometimes
referred to as sales enablement.
Ask yourself, “What information can I equip my sales team with that will make that critical first
interaction the most meaningful and relevant?” Behavioral history gives that sales person the
context to make that first conversation exceedingly relevant because the sales person is
addressing topics and hot buttons that are of current interest to the prospect.
A lead scoring model that combines an agreed upon qualified lead profile and passes only those
leads that have scored the threshold for qualification will generate more qualified and closeable
leads for your team.

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DOWNLOAD A COPY OF THIS TIP SHEET:
http://intelligentdemand.com/resources/tip-sheets/
About Intelligent Demand
Intelligent Demand is a strategic marketing, demand generation and content
development agency based in Denver, Colorado. We design, implement and
optimize automated revenue delivery systems that dramatically improve the
effectiveness of your marketing and sales activities.
We offer deep experience and skills in the following areas:
* Demand generation strategy and system design
* Technology consulting and implementation
* Content development and creative services
* Campaign analytics and optimization
Choose us and youʼll get a faster, less costly and lower risk implementation of your demand
generation project that is rooted in insightful strategy and proven best practices.
Visit www.intelligentdemand.com to learn more. Or email us directly at
success@intelligentdemand.com.