5 tips To Improve The Quality Of Your Leads

Prospects are often the marketing professional’s bread and butter. They are the ones who, if the strategy is well implemented, could one day be converted into customers. When it comes to generating leads, the approach used differs depending on whether you’re operating on a B2B or a B2C basis. In businesses, processes take a long time, purchasing decisions involve numerous individuals and the quality of leads is very often more important than the quantity. With B2C, the average basket size is smaller and the supply of prospects needs to be constantly renewed and updated.  No matter what your particular case happens to be, we have selected five practical and workable tips to help you improve the quality of your leads, accelerate your growth, and thus catch your competitors on the hop.

Optimised forms

This is where lead generation all begins, and it needs to be very carefully thought out and designed. You have to optimise your form right down to the smallest detail: too long, and it runs the risk of driving your prospects away. Too short, and you risk having too little information to provide a context for the enquiries and requests. In general, three or four fields is a good average to aim for.
With B2B, you can elect to prohibit Gmail type personal emails in order to filter out anything that is not a genuine professional enquiry or request.  Though it’s a method that will by definition limit the number of incoming prospects, it will guarantee you a higher level of quality. Once you have a professional email in your possession, you can then enrich it in your database with firmographic data.

Additionally, you can also eliminate spam and bad addresses by automatically sending an email immediately after receiving the information. It’s good practice to carry out an initial quality filtering procedure to avoid cluttering up your CRM or data platform.

Effective, automated scoring

In order to establish the quality of your leads, you need to rate them. This is the purpose of scoring, which assigns a value to prospects based on their purchasing potential. This rating can go up or down based on interactions with your campaigns. If your prospect opens your emails, clicks your links and asks you questions, they gain points. If they don’t respond, fail to react or have not been opening your communications for some time, there’s probably no longer any point in retaining their details. Scoring gives you a way of removing leads with little relevance to your business from your tools. Most marketing tools are today capable of automating the scoring process and aggregating the data into a single, unique platform.

Relevant lead nurturing

Lead nurturing consists of “cultivating” your prospects right up to the point at which they’re ready to make a purchase. In order to achieve this, it’s necessary to create buyer personas equipped with individualised activation systems. Each profile is set in a different marketing context with its own specifically adapted content. The more personalised your lead nurturing, the more effective it will be. Sending special offers, sending information aimed at informing and developing awareness, sharing good practice, organising competitions and offering exclusive content (white papers, videos, etc.) are all things you can do to help you achieve this.

Timely personalised messages

Each lead progresses through the conversion funnel at their own individual rate and rhythm. You, therefore, need to be able to send out the right information based on the stage they are at. Some will want to get to know you better; others will need to be reassured or won over, with the latter perhaps waiting for a good offer before deciding. This is where personalised marketing really comes into its own. You don’t treat a person who’s just learning about you in the same way you treat a hot prospect on the point of making a purchase.

A unique experience

The customer experience is made up of all the interactions and emotions experienced and felt by the customer before, during and after the purchase. In order for it to be successful, your branding must be coherent across all your platforms. The mobile website, online store, email automation, social networks, the welcome when entering the shop… the coherence of the experience creates value and provides reassurance. It’s essential not to underestimate its importance. The same design, the same values, and the same overall ambiance must be present at each point of contact. A coherent brand territory contributes to the creation of a unique experience that will enable you to encourage and get the most out of your prospects and make them part of your big family.

The question of quantity versus quality when it comes to managing prospects can often be a source of internal frustrations and misunderstandings. However, the two can work perfectly well together if your marketing strategy is coherent. To achieve this, you need to have the right tools at your disposal, namely the essential professional skills required and the technology that will enable you to properly manage your data in strict compliance with the requirements of the GDPR. Our experts from lead generation team can provide answers to all your questions. Get in touch with them today!