Virginie Taborowski
Content Specialist
Last updated on
1.10.24
Best Practice
Lead qualification: Identify potential customers
5
min
Table of contents
Lead qualification helps companies to use their sales resources more efficiently and increase the conversion rate of potential customers. There are many Ways to evaluate leads: Find out how methods such as BANT, SPIN or CHAMP can help you with this.
Why is lead qualification important?
Qualifying leads is an essential step in the marketing and sales process, which helps companies effectively use their resources and their to increase sales. Lead qualification is a process that evaluates potential customers. The aim is to find out whether they match the profile of the ideal customer and what is the potential for them to become customers (conversion).
Before you qualify leads, it is therefore essential to first create a Buyer Persona to understand their target group and set clear criteria for lead qualification. By specifically qualifying leads, marketing and sales teams can focus their activities on the contacts that are most likely to become paying customers. This ultimately leads to more efficient use of resources and a higher success rate in acquiring customers.
Qualify leads and potential customers correctly
To properly qualify leads, you first need to understand what makes a good lead anyway — for you and your company. A good lead is a potential customer who matches the ideal customer profile and shows a strong interest in the products or services you offer.
Lead qualification distinguishes between Marketing Qualified Leads (MQL) and Sales Qualified Leads (SQL). MQLs are leads that have been identified based on their interest and activities, while SQLs are already more advanced and are entering the sales funnel as potential customers with a higher conversion potential.
To successfully qualify leads, you should incorporate these procedures into your process:
Ask qualifying questions
Using qualifying questions is an effective way to get valuable information from potential customers. By asking specific questions, you can better understand your leads' needs, budget, and willingness to buy. In this way, a well-founded decision can be made as to whether a lead meets the ideal customer profile and should be further qualified.
Lead scoring
Lead scoring is a process in which leads are assigned points based on specific criteria. These criteria can include lead engagement, company size, or budget, for example. Through lead scoring, you evaluate the quality and potential of your leads and therefore decide how highly you prioritize your sales efforts.
Managing leads in CRM
A CRM system is an essential tool for effectively managing leads. It makes it possible to centrally store and organize customer data, monitor interactions and track the sales process. By mapping the sales pipeline in your CRM system, you always know which phase a potential customer is in. This makes it easier to provide him with the right information.
Live chat
The integration of a live chat on the company website provides a direct and real-time means of communication with potential customers. Through the live chat, questions can be answered, problems resolved, and specific information can be provided. This not only promotes interaction, but also enables you to address your leads in a personalized way. The live chat therefore offers a valuable opportunity to capture the interest and needs of potential customers and to support the qualification process.
Lead qualification methods
In some industries, finding the right way to effectively qualify leads is a real challenge. Uncertainty often means that sales teams rely on speculation. However, this reduces sales opportunities.
But depending on which criteria are important for a company when qualifying leads, there are proven methods that you can fall back on. These methods provide a structured framework so that you can proceed systematically. Examples of such widely used lead qualification methods include:
BANT method
The BANT method is based on the criteria:
- budget (budget),
- authority,
- need and
- Time frame (Time).
The BANT method therefore checks whether potential customers have sufficient financial resources (budget), whether they have the decision-making power (authority), whether they actually have a need (necessity) and when they are ready to complete a purchase (time frame). By identifying these four criteria, you can assess whether customers have a high or rather low conversion potential. This makes it particularly easy to distinguish profitable from unprofitable customers.
SPIN method
The SPIN method is based on the criteria:
- situation,
- problem,
- Implications and
- Use or need.
It helps to understand the specific challenges and needs of potential customers. By analyzing the current situation, identifying the problems, analyzing the effects, and determining the needs, you can offer individual solutions that meet the customer's requirements. The SPIN method is particularly suitable for very complex products or software solutions. In order to successfully sell such products, it is also important that the product solves the customer's actual problems. If a customer implements a tool that they don't actually need, they will quickly cancel.
CHAMP method
The CHAMP method is based on the criteria
- Challenges
- authority,
- finances (money) and
- Priorities (prioritization).
The CHAMP method takes into account the specific problems (challenges), decision-making power (authority), financial resources (finances), motivation, and urgency of the problem (priorities). It is therefore virtually a mixture of the BANT and SPIN methods, as it assesses both the resources and the needs of customers.
