The reverence the word holds is immense. And why wouldn’t it be? Brands are giving people a sense of belonging, appeasing our tribal nature in all the right ways.
That’s why every great leader speaks of their brand with reverence, love, and care. They have to! Because that’s what people are buying for— they are buying from the brand. The saturated marketing is full of similar products, and the only thing standing between the buyer and the vendor is the perception.
The brand image, so to speak of. And brand images are formed only through an identity deeply rooted in the organizational mission.
As time passes and our computing powers evolve to create content with autonomy, this brand identity will become crucial to survive. Without it, companies will find themselves adrift, competition racing ahead of them.
But what can organizations do about it?
There are many options, and the short one, the tl;dr, is to embrace your process, your mission.
That is your identity.
Your brand.
However, for those who want the long answer. There are two vital ones that we’ve been able to find.
Before diving into the meaty parts of the discussion— let’s reintroduce the concept.
The identity of a brand is what it does.
What is brand identity?
Generally, brand identity is the visual and contextual cues your brand represents. However, brand identity is not limited to such a definition— this is just one side of it. Brand identity, as a more inclusive definition, should mean:
The unique activities a brand performs are its identity
The experience they deliver to their users
The mission they embody
How well they embody that mission
The impact of the actions of the user
Perception of the user
Many think that brand image and brand identity are two distinct concepts; they are not. The perception of the audience— is brand image, which is an intrinsic part of the identity.
Brands are never disconnected from what they do.
Average brands fail at this.
There is a reason so many organizations lose face value with their customers— they lack this authenticity. They show something they are not, and their buyers quickly grasp this fact.
Their identity isn’t forged in their mission. Fortunately, the modern buyer is more aware than ever. And they are actively looking for markers that foster trust. Their brand interactions, especially during consideration, are done with a fine pick comb.
Any sign of distrust will thrust brands to the bottom of the barrel.
First in, last out.
Brand identity is forged in the heart of the organization.
The question is, what can you do about it? A lot of organizations usually peddle inauthenticity— they simply cannot walk their talk because, well, they aren’t doing what they are saying.
It’s disingenuous. However, brands with strong identities may fail, and an inauthentic brand may not. That is the truth.
Yet, brands that drive revenue through inauthentic means begin failing sooner or later. And if the buyers decide enough is enough, the business will run dry. That’s why so many organizations pivot. They have lost the battle with the buyer and need to save face.
Time and again, brands with a powerful identity and reputation manage to survive even the harshest of critics— it’s because they align with their goal and deliver on it, even if sometimes the process might be messy.
The question is: Can you replicate it?
Possibly not. The answer to this is easy. Every brand has to discover itself through an arduous and creative process.
While no one can walk your hand through crafting your brand identity, there are frameworks you can use. Here’s one:
Why was the organization founded, and what is the vision driving it?
What roles do your employees play in your organization?
What do you do to make sure the vision is realized?
Deeply understand what you’re offering the buyer.
Why are you offering it?
What’s your opinion on the industry you’re serving— essentially, what are the holes you have noticed?
What are you doing to fill these gaps?
How are you doing it?
Reflection of such kind will help you gain clarity. As Ciente has echoed many times, strategy is about performing unique activities. And these unique activities are the ones that give identity and meaning to your brand.
It gives a non-living thing the properties of personality and charm.
The two answers and the importance of brand identity.
There is a lot of data that answers why brand identities are so vital. But there are two pieces of literature that we must draw our attention to.
While they may seem disconnected, they discuss consumption and the role of choice in these habits. The report outlines what B2B marketers have known for a while— 96% of B2B prospects do their own research before speaking to SDRs.
They advise that organizations form a consultant-consultee relationship with their prospects by educating and delighting their buyers. Essentially, brands will have to add value to buyers’ lives.
But will they trust any brand?
No. And that’s why brand identities are important.
They will trust the brand they feel familiar with and the one that has made them feel heard. Without this identity, organizations won’t be able to gain buyer mindshare.
HubSpot suggests adding more choice in the mix, giving power to the buyer— letting them self-buy and serve. However, a severe problem arises here: 60% of software buyers experience regret.
Why is that? It’s the paradox of choice— faced with many choices, people experience fatigue and enter analysis paralysis. And to escape from the discomfort, make choices that might not be aligned with the overall goal.
The paradox of choice outlines that facing an overwhelming number of options can lead to decision paralysis, increased effort, and dissatisfaction.
It’s a logical fallacy.
And here, in this messy fallacy, lies the ability of brands to survive by crafting an identity that helps buyers break away from this paralysis.
So, what can brands do here?
Their identity, the core, must speak to their intended buyer. But you may think that it might limit your impact. Not at all.
When you speak to one group of people or speak their language, you start creating value that is timeless. And people favor such timeless wisdom— they enjoy knowledge that helps them tackle multiple scenarios at once.
The importance of brand identity isn’t limited to knowledge. It’s also about reducing choice by giving people a sense of belonging and security.
In the always-on world, brand identity is a survival metric.
If you provide multiple options to the buyer, their fatigue will guide them towards a brand they know. However, some brands don’t get it.
They do everything yet forget to form an actual personality. Dull and uninspired messaging will not work. Look at AI and its replication quality and speed— nothing can match it.
But AI systems will not replace personality, charm, and voice— things that require originality.
Understand that your brand identity stands between you and the loss of your business. Explore Salestech.
Consumer Decision-Making: Purchasing Value and Experiences
B2B buying isn’t linear or predictable. But brands can grasp the nuances by dissecting consuming decision-making. Decode the nitty-gritty.
Studying consumer behavior, especially the psychological factors behind a purchase, is crucial to a business’s success. Selling to potential customers isn’t as easy as exposing them to products and services and hoping this ends in a purchase.
Businesses need to know how and why consumers buy particular solutions against others. While psychological factors are inherent in B2C and B2B buying structures, the motivations significantly differ. B2B buying decisions comprise companies with groups of individuals (buying committees) from different backgrounds and motivations.
However, understanding fundamental factors that drive decisions in the buying landscape can offer a better base for exploring purchasing motivations.
Sales-Free Experience and Buyer Challenges
According to a Gartner study, over 75% of buyers prefer a sales-free experience. These are the new-age consumers – highly aware and self-driven. But, Gartner’s research also asserts that self-service purchases online are also most likely to turn into regrets.
So, what is the actual root cause? A hiccup on the sellers’ part or the buyer’s difficulty in making a purchase?
“As hard as it has become to sell in today’s world, it has become that much more difficult to buy. The single biggest challenge of selling today is not selling, it’s actually our customers’ struggle to buy,” states Brent Adamson, the Distinguished VP at Advisory, Gartner.
The underlying motivation for a purchasing decision is – buyers want value.
However, complex and lengthy buying processes, uncertainty, and other disruptions overshadow potential customers from seeing it. These end up undermining buyers’ confidence and clarity.
Complexity of B2B Buying Committees
And in B2B, marketers sell to a whole group of decision-makers rather than individuals. There are so many layers to break down here. Even the group of decision-makers entails distinct levels of expertise, influence, and authority.
Thus, they influence the purchasing process differently. B2B buyers reflect a complex set of needs as compared to B2C ones. There are emotional and rational requirements that operate on two different levels – personal and organizational.
Even the alternatives available that buying committees can consider are increasing, owing to the fast pace with which the market is expanding. From new tech and startups to suppliers and services – the market has become an overflowing basket saturated with options.
How can a buying decision be simple when the choices aren’t?
As humans, we make conscious choices every step of our lives. We intuitively understand that we are making a choice, but psychologically, it’s not a straight road. It’s a cluster of decisions.
Making a decision or a choice is an amalgamation of alternative courses of action – ones preceding the final choice and carrying a sense of conflict and uncertainty.
This is prevalent in B2B buying processes.
Meanwhile, for B2B buyers, this decision-making process is a loop where they revisit certain decisions again. It comprises a lot of back-and-forth discussions, convincing decision-makers, re-strategizing, etc.
So, to say it’s unidirectional would be untrue.
The Six Buying “Jobs” in B2B Decision-Making
According to Gartner, there are six buying “jobs” in a decision-making process. Unlike “stages,” these don’t need a sequence or a fixed order.
Gartner uses the term “jobs” to demonstrate the B2B buying process where each job has to be completed before moving on to the next one, irrespective of the order.
Identifying the problem:
The buying committee recognizes the pain points that lead to several online searches. During independent research, it’s easy to disagree on the actual concerns. Hence, regrouping and discussions become necessary.
Exploring different solutions:
What could be the possible solutions? The buying group then surfs the net for whitepaper downloads, supplier website visits, form fill-ups, outreach, etc. During this stage, buyers may also consult external experts.
Building requirements:
What would the ideal solution look like? Here, the buying committee aligns its expectations and develops criteria for the solutions it seeks. From requesting proposals to scheduling meetings with potential suppliers, data is integral to deciding on a solution.
Selecting the solution:
Evaluating between sellers that ideally fit their defined criteria. It often includes buying committee discussions, requests for more sales information (such as case studies), legal flats, and capital review boards.
Validation or confirmation:
Is this the right choice for our business?
Creating a consensus:
A buying group has different stakeholders with their own expectations. Hence, an alignment between them is vital to finalize a decision. This is requisite at all stages because every decision requires approvals.
Decision-making is non-sequential and complex. So, the sequence of these six “buying jobs” isn’t set in stone. As disagreements or new information arises, the decision-makers visit each job numerous times.
It highly depends on the buyer’s satisfaction in completing each job so that they can move closer to making a purchase.
The Nature of Consumer Decision-Making
Overall, consumer decision-making isn’t about choosing between objects but specific behaviors or attitudes. From selecting a particular information source in their research phase and “when to make the purchase” to “from which business” and payment channels – every decision involves choice alternatives, as mentioned before.
These choice alternatives have transformed into a dizzying array. Market congestion has coerced buyers into extensive research and information processing so they could make informed decisions.
Decision-making is a paradox.
On one hand, buyers wish for control over their challenges, but they also want simplicity. In the age of tech paralysis, these two rarely go hand-in-hand. Every option is an added benefit to the buyers – if one doesn’t meet their requirements, the other might.
It’s still another choice buyers have to consider making. But how often do buyers know what they want?
Every decision is a series of behaviors that rely on contextual influences, such as economic factors, peer pressure, social roles, or cultural attributes. This underlying theory mirrors how every marketing strategy is a chain of actions intended toward a specific outcome.
In short, the choices are directly reliant on the context within which it takes place.
The ‘context’
The psychoanalytical consumer decision-making model asserts that buyers have underlying motives for a purchase – unconscious and conscious. They are driven by a mix of conscious and subconscious desires, which is why buyers might be drawn to specific products or brands without entirely understanding why.
Decision-making is rudimentarily influenced by external factors known as contextual influences. They highlight the information available to consumers and how they process it to make decisions.
In B2B, one of the crucial contexts required for purchasing decisions is collating necessary information.
Think of whitepaper downloads or case studies. Why are case studies such a vital step in sales? It’s value-proof, detailing how reliable, authentic, or an ideal fit a brand’s solution is. Additionally, such pieces of information are a support for decision-making.
Information is crucial at every step of B2B decision-making. This varies from tangible ones, such as pricing structure and meeting ethical standards, to intangible ones, such as brand awareness and reputation.
More often, a brand’s reputation is likely to take priority over price in high-risk purchasing situations. But if a decision is low-risk, cost and convenience take the front seat.
The ‘risk’ factor
In the B2B landscape, buyers are assumed to be more objective and focus on the purchase risk before making any decisions. Risk is a crucial determinant in choice decisions.
What will the business risk losing (adverse consequences) if it makes an incorrect decision?
Predicting the outcome of a decision or a choice is not easy – it’s never accurate. So, how can the buying committee navigate significant purchasing risks?
They focus on the importance and complexity of a purchase. Mapping the importance of a purchase for the organization helps ascertain its impact on the business goals. This facilitates buyers to focus on the brand with a positive reputation in sailing through potential problems.
Whereas, with the lesser complexity and higher sophistication of the purchasing process, the decision-makers are likely to oblige. In complex or excruciatingly long sales cycles, buyers find it tasking to weigh the choices or even predict the offerings’ performance.
This increase in ambiguity might also lead to significant risks, compelling the buyers to move on.
Today, B2B is commoditized. This has embedded specific tangible (price and scalability) and intangible (cultural fit and aesthetics) elements in brand offerings, fostering choice paralysis.
Thus, B2B buyers must engage in complex decision-making processes to grasp brand offerings. Subsequently, it’s the brand’s responsibility to offer sufficient cues that highlight the intangible attributes.
In simpler terms, decision-making crucially depends on the brand information communicated to the buying centers. It permeates the overall process, but to what extent? This is questionable.
With market saturation, complexity in decision-making has become the norm.
It’s about predicting what, as buyers, we truly want from weighing the choice alternatives and evaluating the information in our hands.
But, the truth of organizational buying is that even the most thought-out decision-making processes are susceptible to errors.
For example, too much information can derail the purchase, overwhelming the decision-makers. This overload could result in poorer decisions or purchases by increasing deliberation, complicating the processes further.
In B2B, every decision-making process involves six to 10 decision-makers. These hold their own sets of information and contextual cues for the different solutions available in the market.
While the modern buyer is self-driven, they still require brand support. Instead, this disjointed and fragmented buying environment demands a shift to a more relationship-focused alignment between prospective buyers, sales, and marketing.
Organizations need to keep up with the times. Adopt parallel and channel-agnostic roadmaps and execute buyer enablement strategies.
Asking the right BANT questions: BANT frameworks and beyond.
Strategies are based on asking the right questions. Any successful business leader understands that inquiry in the right direction opens channels for a positive outcome.
But, framing the correct questions can be challenging, as is the norm for strategy. There are a lot of considerations a business and its teams must understand to enquire in the right direction. For SaaS companies that mainly work on a B2B model, asking the right question means the difference between success and failure.
After all, lead generation is anticipating problems (questions) of potential buyers and presenting solutions for them. And a major roadblock for most teams is prospects that go nowhere.
Why does this occur?
There is a good chance that the leads your teams are chasing might be losing points in the qualifying round.
The Role of Qualification in the Sales Funnel
Here, the value of asking the right questions is apparent. From marketing to sales teams, your campaigns should be designed to qualify your leads and push them through the sales funnel.
Frameworks such as BANT, MEDDIC, and ANUM help sales teams qualify their prospects. And it is necessary to implement them to help sales teams close more deals.
But there is a caveat: sales prospects also go beyond these basic frameworks to tailor their pitch for the prospect.
And that begins by listening.
Qualifying Frameworks Overview
BANT and other frameworks that help sales teams close more deals.
Qualifiers are vital for a lead generation strategy to work. A rich sales pipeline is based on the quality of leads generated.
But all leads are not the same. While some leads may be window shopping, others might not be relevant at all. MQLs can be generated in quantity, but if they are not up to the mark on quality, they will hamper future sales and profits. For any organization, that is a blow.
Marketing and sales are the gatekeepers of an organization’s success. These two teams are in charge of the qualifying questions.
As we know, there are a few methodologies that organizations should use to qualify the prospect.
Understanding the Key Sales Qualification Frameworks
First, let us touch on the basics. These frameworks are: –
What is BANT?
BANT is the most famous framework. It is a simple yet powerful concept developed by the sales team at IBM in the 50s. Sales teams can quickly identify if their lead meets the criteria. And it is easy to remember. For those who do not know, BANT stands for: –
B- Budget
A- Authority
N-Need
T-Time
It helps an SDR understand if: –
an organization can afford its product
the person they are speaking to has the authority needed to buy
the organization has a need
and if the requirement matches both organizations’ timeframes.
It is an exceptional and old qualifier, still used today and accepted by large organizations as a gold standard. All other qualifying frameworks are variations of BANT.
What is MEDDIC?
MEDDIC is a newer framework that adds more dimensions based on the BANT framework. It helps sales teams open up more possibilities for inquiry.
It stands for: –
M- Metrics.
E- Economic Buyer.
D-Decision Criteria
D- Decision Process
I- Identifying Pain
C- Champion
The MEDDIC framework goes a step beyond understanding the buyer with more depth. Essentially, it helps your SDR identify: –
The KPIs the buyer wants to meet and if your product can align with that vision.
Is the prospect you are talking to an economic buyer (or decision-maker)?
What are the make-or-break decision criteria for the buyer?
The decision process of the buyer and the people involved in the buying
A champion within the organization. Someone to vouch for you inside the target account.
MEDDIC offers a view into a different structure of asking questions. SDRs and Chief Sales Officers have realized the value of asking varied questions.
As the buying process becomes more complex, the need for such frameworks has become necessary.
What is NOTE?
Another effective yet simple framework is the NOTE. Coined by Sean Burke, this method takes on an empathetic role in selling.
It stands for: –
N – Need
O- Opportunity
T- Team
E- Effect
The NOTE framework helps SDRs by identifying-
If the buyer need our services at this point?
What are the potential opportunities and growth levers that your product will offer?
Who or which teams will be affected by the integration of the product?
What are the effects (economic) of this strategic partnership?
The NOTE framework presents a shift in the dynamic between SaaS organizations. Towards a more customer-centric approach. The market has been shifting towards the customer’s side for a while now.
And it will continue to do so as buyers self-direct themselves through the buying journey. Complexities are a norm in the SaaS market. The saturated snapshot of the current landscape has made the buyer cautious.
They cannot help but be overwhelmed by the choice. Frameworks are integral for SDR success. But what happens when the number of qualified leads drops, and sales teams find that MQLs will not go anywhere?
It is time for marketing to step up.
Marketing’s role in sales
High-quality content is said to be the biggest draw-in for a potential buyer. Yet, according to HubSpot’s 2024 sales report, SDRs have reported low-quality leads as their biggest problem.
MQLs are not up to the mark. Or the nurtured leads were not properly qualified before being handed into sales.
Marketing teams must improve their attribution if they see success. It means going beyond the basics and understanding the intent behind prospects’ behavior.
While CDPs and marketing automation tools have become beneficial in doing so. There are three things marketing teams must do:
Orchestrate buyer experiences to attract a relevant audience
Identify the behavior of most likely candidates by analyzing past behavior
Defining a lead with sales.
Sales and marketing alignment has been a buzzword for a long time. The two teams cannot work in silos anymore. It is expected of sales teams to listen to the buyer, and that has given them an edge over marketing.
Marketing teams must listen, too. And not just for sales but also for the buyer. When decision-makers interact on socials and on content, what do they look for?
For marketing teams, the best qualifier is their gated content and the rich history of data use. Data will reveal whether a buyer will qualify. Lead scoring can go a long way in helping marketing and sales align their goals together.
The main question here is: What matters?
Asking the right questions is crucial.
What are the right questions? Once marketing and sales teams have aligned and understood the buyer, they will have questions beyond the obvious.
The questions only come by enquiring into the industry they are selling to and learning everything possible about their ICPs.
One of the most important questions we have identified is: In their opinion, has their organization reached its potential?
It opens up all possibilities because every organization has room for further growth and improvement. And it lets you know where the organization is headed in terms of leadership and vision.
A potent indicator of growth.
With the right questions, SDRs can craft a personalized pitch for the right buyer and save time from the irrelevant ones.
On the other hand, marketing teams can craft market-resonating messages by asking the right questions and understanding the audience they are providing content.
Sales and Marketing is about listening.
BANT, MEDDIC, and NOTE are all designed to listen. The buyer has their needs and wants a remedy or risk-mitigating solution that will empower them to avoid risk in the market.
This need for growth can be fueled by marketing and sales teams listening to their ICPs and providing the right questions for them. By asking the right questions, marketing and sales teams will create intrigue in the buyers’ minds and help them break free of analysis paralysis.
By using the frameworks, sales, and marketing open up possibilities that go beyond the obvious.
Inbound Lead Generation: Break Through the Noise, Win Buyers Who Matter
Many marketing teams have an outdated vision of inbound lead generation. In this version- the buyer is attracted through SEO, social media, blogs, and the traditional methods that keep the glue of B2B marketing together.
But with the self-directed buyer and AI tools on the rise, this glue has peeled off. There is no semblance of the old inbound lead gen left anymore.
Embers, yes. But the rest has vanished away. Yet, many organizations create content that speaks nothing and has no voice.
Even great companies do this- to rank, they create blogs that are full of content that has no real value, and they know it. All of the value they are creating lies in the product they are selling. All they want is for their buyers to buy their product.
And the propagation of misinformation continues to exist because the companies that rank for these terms have gained authority through their products. But companies who are starting out need to be careful.
These content pieces will introduce you to basic concepts but will not give you the answer.
But there is a clear answer: Inbound lead generation is about attention and standing out.
The question is: Are you creative enough to take that risk?
What is Inbound Lead Generation?
Inbound lead generation is nothing but attracting a group of individuals that are interested in your product or services. This can be done through traditional means like putting out content and hoping search engines rank you for them or putting out ads.
Essentially, you reach potential buyers (a.k.a. your intended audience) and hope they like what they see and keep coming back for more. Then you use this audience to convert them beyond the TOFU stage and into consideration and eventually the buying stage.
However, the modern buyer does not follow the logic dictated above. They have changed slowly over the years and now completely. The buyer is self-directed and needs high-quality marketing assets that provide real value to them.
And creating content that says something is a high-risk high-return strategy.
Inbound Lead Generation and the Modern B2B Buyer’s Journey
However, there is a reason risk-taking is seen with caution. Many organizations have to think beyond marketing campaigns. They must think about their reputation.
What if this message is ill-received?
What if we get canceled?
And worse, what if there’s no buzz?
These are all logical and vital questions to ask before running campaigns. Brand reputation is what sets most competitors apart.
But there is a loop here. To stand apart from your competition and gain a brand reputation, organizations have to learn to take creative risks. But why is that?
Why are risks such a deciding factor? It’s because of the buyer.
Before everyone went digitally native, the buyer had no choice but to turn to Google for information. And SEO wasn’t as stringent as today— but that is also because Google has been intentionally killing organic reach to make companies spend on advertisements.
Now, buyers have changed their attitudes. After the virus, everyone has become cautious of their spending. And importantly, they have become wary of whom to trust.
Unfulfilled promises and buyer regret have jaded the modern buyer. Now, they trust themselves to make the right decision.
B2B buyers are done with 80% of their buying journey.
Buyers have a preferred vendor ready
They know their requirements.
It’s clear that buyers have bias. There are many reasons for having these biases— maybe they have formed deep relationships with their partners or know that they will get the job done. However, these biases are difficult to navigate.
Not impossible, but there are many obstacles standing in your path.
Leveraging Inbound Lead Generation Through the B2B Buying Committee
The average B2B buying committee is made up of 11-13 members. Each member has a bias, and they bring that to the discussion.
However, the reasons behind these biases may not matter. The main point is there is one. And there are three things that are happening: –
The bias is helping you
The bias is not helping you
You’re not part of the buying list.
The third option should be your least preferred one.
But then you ask, how do we market our products and services if we’re not even going to make that list?
That’s the question.
And the harsh truth is, if you don’t trust your product to be different or the service to provide something unique— even if it’s price or quality or process— no amount of marketing will fix that.
However, the assumption here is that your product/service solves a problem, no matter what that is.
In this case, you leverage the buyer committee, which is made up of diverse individuals. And as these people are leaders, they will have an opinion.
You must sway these opinions in your favor.
Inbound lead generation today is about swaying this opinion. Becoming part of this bias.
That brings us back to risk-taking.
Power of Value in Driving Effective Inbound Lead Generation
Ciente has created a value framework. Through observing high-quality posts, our traffic, and countless social media posts, we’ve realized that content that speaks to its intended audience follows this framework.
However, many organizations and individuals teeter on the line of safety. Never really say anything of substance and value.
For example, let’s look at this blog.
Who is this written for?
It’s for SEO purposes, yes. But beyond that, what purpose does this serve? The definitions offer no new insights and provide no value.
This is the AI score of the entire blog. And this is one of many. Tens of thousands of these blogs have the same structure and say the same things.
And the buyers have caught on to this.
Whether it’s an agency or a product company, B2B buyers are looking for depth and quality— not quantity. Their industries are full of risks, and they want mitigators, not imitators, to help them bridge the gap.
How can an organization help others if they don’t create original ideas?
Value is in perspective.
What if an organization promised you a product that can give you research on your ideal buyer?
They tell you: –
They are AI-powered
They do all the research and give you insights.
Floored by the app, you buy it and realize that the insights are not real-time and the AI is just a ChatGPT clone.
You complain and ask for a refund. But the organization tells you they did not promise real-time data. Just insights and the research.
If the data is outdated, it’s not their fault. You got what you paid for—research, insights, and an AI.
And this has happened to many organizations and buyers. Faced with unmet promises, they have had to evaluate the value of the organizations they are buying from.
They now look very closely at what you say. And what value you bring.
And a good metric of value is the perspective you offer.
Why did you create the tool?
What does it do for its users?
How does it do it?
What has been the effect of the tool after people have used it?
Such introspection helps you create messages that move the audience to action. It also provides clarity and authenticity— something buyers will be craving a lot more of.
There is a reason organization like G2 and TrustRadius have become successful. They peel the layers of authenticity and help buyers make sense of their buy.
However, the perspective has a catch: your product and services must embody it.
Alex James, one of LinkedIn’s upcoming B2B stars, believes that your perspective is your product, quite literally.
Without this perspective, without this unique take, your service will be white noise. But it need not be grand— differentiate on price, on process, or on delivery— but differentiate and provide what your buyer is looking for.
Value is in building trust.
This is the crux of this entire blog. The Tl;dr.
Trust in your brand is what modern marketing teams should be fostering. You must have heard about a common pain point that affects the B2B industry— there is no single definition of a lead.
While there can be no specific definition, marketing teams should broadly define the lead as an entity that shows interest and has begun trusting your brand.
Even if they don’t buy from you immediately, this trust will be that mindshare. If you’re selling a manufacturing plant, your ideal buyer should think, “Hey, I know XYZ, I like what they’re doing. Let’s contact them.”
And make no mistake, attracting the buyer so that they call you is what you want.
Value is in diversification.
A significant shift in marketing is the transformation of content and online platforms into assets.
These assets are: –
Owned media (Your website, email list, apps, software, etc.)
Paid media (Ads, sponsorships, influencers, etc.)
Earned media (Word of mouth, press mentions, UGC, et al.)
Borrowed Media (Social media, YouTube, platforms like Medium and the like)
While having owned media that has authority is the dream, lead generation campaigns must give value by creating content with all these four assets in mind.
Repurpose great content to deliver value across each channel. It creates authorities of different types and attracts a diverse pool of leads that can help you.
But there is one hiccup that marketing teams fall under.
Creating low-quality content. For a lot of teams, repurposing content means low effort.
While creating an inbound lead gen strategy, teams must repurpose content for various media.
However, while creating a multi-channel strategy, the delivery for each channel is different. Maybe your blog breaks down the principles of design: –
For LinkedIn, it could be a carousel with eye-catching graphics.
For your newsletter, these could be actionable items.
Imagine such a strategy and the leads it would deliver you. Remember, lead gen focuses on giving actual value to your prospects.
But why, you ask?
Because lead gen is increasingly about mindshare, diversification, and providing business value when and where your prospects need it.
Value creates mindshare
Mindshare is crucial for businesses to survive. Peep Laja, the CEO of Wynter, published research on LinkedIn. It is an interesting piece. Wynter surveyed 300 C-suite buyers and found out:
Top of mind determines if the buyer will consider the vendor.
75% of buyers turn to peers when creating the shortlist.
Famous brands are automatically qualified for consideration.
There are a lot of valuable insights in the post, but for this section’s sake, these three will do.
They tell the story of mindshare not just between your ideal buyer but also the industry they are in. And valuable pieces bring in this mindshare.
Of course, you will need channels to deliver your content. But they should be eye-grabbing. That can be through some radical new message or speaking of your perspective clearly.
This process has to be done again and again. Your perspective needs to be synonymous with what you’re trying to sell.
Multi-Channel Strategy for Modern Inbound Lead Generation
When we speak of diversification, it is essentially the multi-channel strategy to build assets.
For lead generation, the traditional methods, while helping you stay discoverable, do not help much in brand building and trust. By this point, it should be apparent to you— that trust and relationship-building drive real growth.
But how do you use these four types of media to get mindshare?
Owned media (Your website, email list, apps, software, etc.)
Paid media (Ads, sponsorships, influencers, etc.)
Earned media (Word of mouth, press mentions, UGC, et al.)
Borrowed Media (Social media, YouTube, platforms like Medium and the like)
Of course, investing in SEO and SEM should still be a priority. According to industry buzz, marketing teams will now need to create copies optimized for LLMs like ChatGPT and Perplexity.
But, they still don’t have the lion’s share for service-based searches— Google retains that.
So what is the multi-channel strategy here?
It’s creating content around your buyers’ needs and problems.
Repurposing it and making yourself synonymous with the solution.
Using paid media to increase brand-audience surface area.
Earning testimonials and word of mouth
Using different channels to spread your solution.
This has to be a continuous and patient process. And young brands need to realize the power of effective adverts very early — it helps them.
But for inbound lead generation to work and for the multi-channel approach to be successful, your brand has to be your service and product— it cannot be different from your process. Every piece of content must solve a problem your buyer has or might have in a way that you would solve.
As Elsa Dithmer of Auvik says, “High-value content—whether in the form of thought leadership, case studies, or interactive tools—should provide actionable insights that empower buyers. When content is well-optimized, highly relevant, and consistently delivers value, it establishes authority, nurtures prospects, and ultimately accelerates [sales] pipeline velocity.”
Inbound lead generation example
One really amazing example that we found was SAP. Everyone knows SAP as the creators of the ERP suite.
In 2020, when fear had reached its fever pitch, SAP, inspired by an exchange between two 7-year-old children, decided to inspire hope. They created a podcast series following a 12-year-old girl and her eccentric aunt. They complimented this with stop motion videos, blogs and traditional assets— all carefully mapped to specific industry pain points.
According to Ginger Shimp, Global Content Strategist, Sr. Marketing Director, SAP, this resulted in:
48% higher engagement than all other SAP social campaigns in 2020
22,000+ podcast listeners (industry benchmark for top 2% is 18,000)
10,000+ views for industry-specific YouTube videos within 30 days
Significant pipeline generation (EUR924.4M) and projected revenue (EUR266.15M)
Global expansion to LATAM, India, China, and Australia/NZ markets
Partner co-investment from major firms including Capgemini
Inbound Lead Gen will help you make the shortlist.
And everything you do culminates here. For a while now, B2B marketers have lagged behind. But now, they can’t afford to.
Buyers have a list of vendors and, on average, choose from 3. But many teams are busy bottlenecking themselves- marketing to every buyer available in the hopes that they buy.
That is not your function- marketing is not sales.
Marketing is directing the buyer and priming them for sales.
Your job is to increase the surface area of your product/services and your brand. To build trust with your buyers.
Give them what they want, and the buyer will come to you. But make sure to increase that surface area time and again. Market to everyone in your ICP, even if they are not buying. Because they will buy tomorrow and you need to be there to be remembered and to be called.
Change the way you do lead generation, and only then will you make the shortlist.
Intent in Business Storytelling: Fostering Action with Intent
Data persuades, but strategic storytelling influences behavior. Explore the magnitude of impact it can have on business communications.
Data persuades, but strategic storytelling influences stakeholder behavior. To what extent does influence communication?
The business landscape involves quite an intriguing sequence of actions. But they don’t merely materialize into a consistent revenue stream on their own. From decision-making to closing a sale and subsequent follow-ups – these actions follow a defined structure.
What gives them this definition? Intent and vision. Action is a catalyst, transforming intent and vision into desired outcomes – from boosting revenue to elevating brand awareness.
In the business world, if the ideas and thoughts weren’t acted upon, brands such as Apple and Amazon wouldn’t exist. It illustrates how deciding to undertake a task and seeing it through to completion are two very different functions.
A business vision requires the right hint of intent in storytelling to foster real impact and success.
This reaction works both ways.
One cannot achieve a desired outcome simply by holding the intent to do so. As mentioned before – intent to complete an action and actually completing that action are contrary concepts. Intent in business storytelling has to be driven by an action, such as developing the project from an intangible to a tangible entity.
For example, a stakeholder has a specific direction for a business – it’ll cut down on manual human-led tasks and be significantly driven by AI. This is a mere vision that they hold.
What are the specific steps required to transform this vision into reality?
Outline clear objectives
Conduct a feasibility study to integrate AI into the ideal segments
Build an AI-dedicated team of experts
Design, develop, and test different AI solutions according to business requirements
Invest in the required infrastructure
Deploy the developed AI solutions and track their performance
And keep up-to-date with the latest AI trends
Unless a roadmap is built and successfully executed, it’s quite puzzling to state whether the business will be backed by artificial intelligence. Obstacles such as a misplaced resource allocation or a lack of time could negatively hinder the curated vision.
This is where business storytelling proves to be crucial.
Not only does business storytelling drive smooth stakeholder relationships, but it also highlights the potential barriers and different variables. By understanding the direction a project might take beforehand, it becomes easier to elevate its success probability.
Storytelling helps produce a clear framework for outlining the vision, mapping the intent, and executing it through impactful actions.
This peculiarity is ingrained in the narrow crevices of businesses.
From boosting profit and solidifying business development to providing a competitive edge and maintaining organization-wide momentum – storytelling persists everywhere.
Achieving a distinctive outcome in businesses is complicated. Unknown and unforeseen market elements often derail specific projects, resulting in financial losses, reputational damage, and blemished client relationships.
But business storytelling can help negate these to a significant extent. It engages and mobilizes all individuals towards the same objective by inspiring and motivating.
Business storytelling is not about adding a twist or garnish to an already solid strategy. But its prowess should be implanted within to transform storytelling intent in business into actions.
Here, intent in business storytelling works as fuel to ensure the storyline remains on its rightful path.
But before a project’s implementation or development, there are factors to consider. This includes raising capital, acquiring investors, ensuring alignment between diverse stakeholders, and instilling a positive media reception, among others.
Why should your project vision be approved as compared to others? How do you convince a plethora of different individuals to be involved?
You’ve to formulate a compelling story that spotlights how the strategy will be beneficial and create immense value.
But is business storytelling as easy as we think? Just by following Freytag’s Pyramid, could a story be deemed impactful? No.
Even though storytelling also across businesses is all about flow and tone, it requires a meticulous approach to create lasting impressions. A carefully laid out strategy for business storytelling gives it a clear framework, i.e., what it may be attempting to accomplish.
So, businesses must initially create a strategy approach for gripping and effectual storytelling.
The primary thing to remember is that not every story is the same. Each blog, podcast, and graphic is different. Brands catering to similar audiences and offering similar products don’t even hold the same story.
Each narrative depends on the details. Hence, curating a business or project story is equally meticulous and vital as creating a brand.
But the truth is no one straight-up wants facts. They need triggers, vulnerability, and consistency. How can business storytelling ensure it’s scratching the right surface?
1. First, it’s about the audience, not the story per se.
In businesses, a strategic approach to business storytelling begins with identifying the effect you want your story to have on your audience. It focuses on who they are – investors, stakeholders, or prospective customers.
The story has to include an angle that relays the benefits to the audience. What is in it for them? The climax embedded in the content has to convince them.
This is known as the audience-first approach:
Will the circumstances the audience is placed in will allow them to resonate with the context of the story?
What specific action do you want them to undertake after hearing the story?
Amplifying which emotion will propel them to take a specific action?
What is the main message you wish for them to understand?
Is the curated story enough to propagate these feelings and thoughts and eventually inspire the actions you want them to undertake?
A story centered on the teller takes away the limelight from the audience’s pain points and experiences. Stories are meant for them. And it’s the audience who’s supposed to relate and resonate with the rooted messaging.
2. To develop the right story and message, define the content beforehand.
The difference between corporate jargon and business storytelling is the dash of humanness. Stories generally involve characters who evoke particular emotions.
It’s not about listing down the events but voicing what happened, to whom, and its consequences. This comprises emotions they felt, their experiences and thoughts, and what was heard and spoken. Every factor has to be relatable.
Storytelling means grabbing attention, and without the relatability factor, your audience wouldn’t understand the crux.
While communicating with external investors, you highlight Michael Jordan as the most definite example that success and greatness aren’t just handed over. Every setback that he faced has fueled his determination to become better. His never-give-up attitude and work ethic have not only inspired the sports landscape but echoed through the business and investment world too.
Jordan’s story highlights perseverance, action, and upholding a vision.
One can imagine the investors and external stakeholders resonating with this story of resilience. The protagonist here went through ample transformations – the road to success was murky and unstable. But the underlying message is that the road ahead is brighter even if it takes a while to reach there.
This story delivers the need for change and transformation by creating an emotional impact.
While not every business requires a transformation, certain shifts are a requisite for sustainable success. It’s more about adapting to revenue curves and focusing on continuity.
3. Embed captivating hooks and engage certain creative liberties in the story.
Getting the audience to think in a particular direction is the goal of good business storytelling, but manipulating them isn’t.
The story has a purpose, right? So, it has to be genuine and honest in its objectives. Every facet of the characters and plot should lead in a specific direction rather than reflect dishonest cues.
One way of doing this is by adding inner dialogues and personal anecdotes. It helps make the stories more reflective and also connects them with what your audience might be wondering.
For example, while developing content, marketing teams should crucially consider the ebbs and flows of their content. It should tug at the reader’s heartstrings while entailing value for them.
Creative liberties add an engaging hook for these readers and listeners. From quotes and different content formats to infographics, differentiating elements help speak the latest industry trends and highlight the necessary information.
4. But consistency is the key here.
Fragmented and disconnected stories (narratives) can adversely affect client relationships and brand reputation. Hence, the story has to be consistent across all the channels and platforms.
Any gaps in the elements could disenchant the audience, lessening the impact. Hence, lime lighting the details that might elevate the cognitive or emotional impact in your audience’s eyes could facilitate success and a positive brand image.
Especially for marketing, consistency in business storytelling means consistent branding – colors, logos, values, and taglines. Consistency will foster brand recognition and awareness over a long period, building trust and credibility in your messages and keeping your brand atop the buyer’s mind.
This is also possible by asking and allowing your audience to ask rhetorical questions, building back-and-forth communication. By facilitating audience members to become a part of the storyline, you’re building a common ground for pain points and experiences alike.
Business storytelling is all about accentuating a business’s values and mission.
“People are attracted to stories,” Quesenberry tells me, “because we’re social creatures and we relate to other people,” pens down the Executive Coach, Harrison Monarth, in this HBR article.
Storytelling isn’t new to the business landscape. It’s always been a resourceful tool to inspire action.
What happens when specific motivations and thoughts holding intent aren’t followed by an action? On the other hand, what if the action doesn’t entail any direction or lacks impact? It lacks intent.
This is why intent in business storytelling is leveraged vastly across businesses – from brand building to project management. It fills in the cracks and crevices businesses wish to eradicate and fosters impressionable dialogue between two parties.
Amidst the technological disruption and market noise, business storytelling foregrounds the uniqueness of a business.
Lead Qualification for Better Business Outcomes: A Guide
Organizations end up navigating a pool of irrelevant prospects, making marketers feel lost. In this chaos, lead qualification is your compass.
While 61% of B2B marketers send all the leads to sales teams, only 27% are of high quality. The rest have to be discarded because they are not ready to buy or are irrelevant.
However, there is one way to improve the numbers- implement lead qualification.
Qualifying allows you to figure out whether a lead is the right prospect. Failing to qualify a lead can cause you to invest resources in the wrong direction, or not get the intended ROI. Marketing and sales teams must qualify leads to understand how well a prospect fits the brand, and how likely the leads are to make a purchase decision.
And it is a multi-stage process. Let’s explore this in detail.
Qualified leads vs. Unqualified leads
Brands must differentiate between leads that qualify as good or high-quality and those that miss the points. Let’s take a quick look at the two types-
Unqualified leads
Those whose needs do not align with your brand
Leads whose demands you cannot serve due to lack of or limited resources
Prospects whose budget doesn’t match your price models
If you want to save time and money, start qualifying those leads!
It makes sure you don’t end up pitching solutions to prospects who do not express interest or who are not ready. By qualifying your leads upfront, you can save your company’s time and money in the long run.
Unless you have unlimited resources, you should qualify leads before acting upon them. When you qualify leads, you learn
Whether a prospect is the right fit for the industrial domain
If they have a need your product or solution can solve
Whether they have the authority to make purchasing decisions on their own
It is best to access these details before reaching the prospect directly
Other advantages of lead qualification include
Higher close rates
Qualifying leads early on lets you focus on the sales-ready leads, which increases deal closing rates.
Better use of marketing resources
You can launch relevant content only for prospects who can relate to them and find them beneficial.
Improved data quality
You can also ensure that the data you have is accurate and up-to-date. This is important because poor-quality data can create a series of problems.
Although this isn’t an exhaustive list, lead qualification is important because it benefits the bottom line of business.
Qualify Leads with Lead Scoring
It’s one of the most commonly used methods for lead qualification. Lead scoring quantifies the qualification process by assigning value to each prospect. And this happens in the early phases of a pipeline before too much time has been invested in the prospect.
Lead scoring functions on a simple theory. If all new prospects are assigned an objective point value, it becomes easier for sales teams to determine where their time can be invested wisely.
Your brand can create its lead-scoring system to match its unique needs. But no matter what the plan is, you’ll need to gather data before you qualify leads.
Here are some of the things that you should be looking for.
How the Lead Qualification Process Works
Lead qualification helps determine the chance of a prospect converting into a paying account. It’s usually an ongoing process that lasts through each stage of the sales journey. So long as the lead shows interest in a future sale, they will keep moving through all phases of the sales funnel.
The first step of lead qualification starts in the marketing stage. Now, whether that happens through inbound or outbound lead generation is something you will need to decide. In this stage, your marketing team captures contact details through site visits, email subscriptions, or social media engagement. These interactions serve as a turning point for you to decide whether any lead fits the ICP. It’s a stepping stone to qualify leads and move on to the next step. The sales rep can reveal the prospects’ needs and budget constraints.
The data assimilated during this phase enlightens about a prospect’s viability.
In case it turns out to be a dead-end interaction, try to leave it on a positive, helpful note. You never know, this can result in future business from this lead, or they may refer more qualified leads to your brand.
How To Qualify a Sales Lead
Some leads may seem easier to qualify than others.
To eliminate challenges, you need to have a data-driven, result-oriented lead qualification framework.
We have compiled a list of some common lead qualification strategies that can help you convert more cold leads into qualified leads.
BANT
BANT- Budget, Authority, Need, Timeline, helps you cover some typical characteristics from a customer’s perspective. Let’s walk through these:
Budget – Does your solution fit the prospect’s purchasing budget?
Authority – Is the prospect authorized to make decisions?
Needs – Does the prospect need your product or service? Or are they just exploring and weighing options?
Timeline – Is the timing best for the prospect to make a purchase decision? Are they ready for it?
If you want a simple way to begin lead qualification, BANT is your best bet. It centers around 4 important principles that qualify leads. This checklist helps you filter out irrelevant leads or leads less likely to convert, in no time.
Customer needs and resource constraints are some of the main factors determining the quality of prospects. Brands must verify if every prospect fits all the criteria before investing time and sales efforts.
CHAMP
CHAMP- Challenges, Authority, Money, Prioritization is an alternative framework to BANT. Using CHAMP allows you to prioritize a lead’s pain points. You can then focus on delivering the ideal solution that addresses the challenge. Solving the pain point with personalized solutions helps improve customer relationships and build brand trust. As a result, they move through the sales cycle faster.
The CHAMP framework is suited for situations where some leads are unclear about your brand’s offerings. Understanding prospects’ challenges will help you connect with the audience and improve your chances of lead conversions.
MEDDIC
Now the MEDDIC framework could seem quite complex, but it is effective. This lead qualification approach focuses on these criteria:
Metrics – Are there any quantifiable results like more ROI, that prospects can expect to derive from your brand?
Economic buyer – Who is the buying decision-maker? Who is authorized to make a purchase?
Decision criteria – What is the checklist that the prospect typically follows for decision-making?
Decision process – What approach do potential leads follow while assessing a brand’s offerings?
Pain point identification – What challenges are the prospects facing?
Champion – Among the potential customers, is there anyone who is already satisfied with the services and can serve as a champion for it? In other words, talk about it or provide a referral.
To successfully apply a MEDDIC framework, gather detailed information about potential customers. This strategy is a good fit especially if you are doing business with a low volume of high-ticket sales.
SPIN
This is an effective method to qualify leads, with a focus on these areas:
Situation – With the SPIN approach, you can understand the lead’s context. Check whether their current goals and capabilities align with your brand’s offerings.
Problem – SPIN helps you identify the pain point of the target audience.
Implication – Weighs options and explores the consequences of these problems. Will the solution have the impact the audience seeks?
Need-Payoff – Demonstrate ways in which the solution will benefit the prospects
Integrating this lead qualification framework allows brands to engage strategically with leads and create relevant solutions. It draws upon valuable insights that allow scope for a curated method, improving lead conversions and customer satisfaction.
SCOTSMAN
SCOTSMAN is a popular sales methodology to qualify new leads. Created by Advance, which allows a detailed analysis of prospects before they move too far in the funnel. The acronym stands for solution, competition, originality, time, size, money, authority, and need.
Let’s walk through each of these.
S: Solution
The solution you are trying to deliver for a specific pain point of a lead
C: Competition
A lead that is speaking to you is also researching other options. Knowing your competitor gives you the advantage of highlighting the strengths that make your brand unique and the best choice for the lead.
O: Originality
Once you know who you are competing against, focus on outshining the competition by drawing upon your unique ability to solve the challenge.
T: Time
Like any method, getting the timing right could be a huge game-changer when closing a deal. This aspect of the SCOTSMAN will explain if the lead is interested in a solution.
S: Size
The size of the opportunity would explain whether or not the lead is a good fit. For instance, if your solution is designed for a small team but the lead is an enterprise company, you must look for leads that align with your brand.
M: Money
You would be surprised to know that budget is the make-or-break aspect of the deal. Figure out if the lead has enough financial resources to take things forward.
A: Authority
Is the person you are communicating with, in a position of authority to have a final say in the purchase? Or is there more than one team member required to sign off on a deal? These details are best sorted out earlier.
N: Need
The final aspect of the SCOTSMAN sales methodology checklist is needed. You want to make sure the prospect understands their needs well, and these align with what your solution can do for them.
At this point, brands must use the right questions to ensure that they can articulate their needs clearly, and prove that your solution is ideal for their pain point.
FAINT
Stands for Funds, Authority, Interest, Need, and Timing.
This lead qualification technique functions on the funds available, decision-making authority, and the interest of the audience in your solution, apart from the need and time frame. In this methodology, leads will only need your solution if they know the value it adds to their growth. With FAINT, you can experiment with ways to generate interest or need for the product/service among the prospects. This qualification stage allows you to create opportunities to place your product as a must-have rather than a nice-to-have: a feature that makes FAINT stand out.
So, where does lead qualification fit in?
Ideally, lead qualification should happen before moving leads into the sales cycle. This is right between the periods where they were considering cold traffic and converting into paying accounts. It emphasizes the need to develop a clear roadmap for your brand’s sales funnel. Without having a clear picture of the purchase patterns of customers, it could be tough to fit the qualification process into the customer journey.
Lead Qualification Criteria
Let us understand the pointers that help qualify a lead, based on their readiness and willingness to purchase.
The ultimate goal is to distinguish between leads with the most potential to convert into paying accounts and those with the least.
The business objectives help define the lead qualification criteria. However, you can qualify them by understanding their goals, pain points, buying authority, and budget.
In a perfect world, the marketing qualified leads (MQLs) and sales qualified leads(SQLs) would coincide. However, if the sales team rejects too many leads, the marketing qualification criteria will need tweaking.
Qualifying a Lead with Marketing Automation
Marketing automation is revolutionizing industries, ‘stepping up’ processes, and helping brands bring their ‘A-game’. It does so with software that automates many aspects of marketing and lead gen, making it easier to manage them and improve productivity. The best part is you can integrate software solutions to automate all marketing activities— from the initial opt-in to follow-up sequences and behavioral emails. Automation can streamline the overall customer acquisition process.
In other words, each time a prospect wants to receive email updates. For instance, your system will automatically generate email responses designed to qualify their interest in your solution.
Let’s consider another example. If a prospect submits a sign-up form, the marketing automation software will automatically add them to a contact list. Then, it sends curated content that moves them towards making larger purchases. Alternatively, you can change the command and set it up for a different objective.
How To Improve Your Inbound Lead Qualification- 3 steps
To keep up with the changing B2B dynamics, the techniques and processes for qualifying leads also evolve. Employing these steps will help you achieve better results in lead qualification:
Have a qualification expert
The process is both critical and complex. Businesses have started investing in designated software and a team member to gatekeep new inbound sales leads. You can assign an expert the nitty-gritty of the process, which would ensure consistent and high-quality leads.
Pay attention to emails
Although different channels are available to foster engagement with customers and build brand reputation, emails remain a significant communication route. An email list holds great value, so when customers invest efforts to interact with emails and express interest in your brand, they could qualify as leads.
Keep at it persistently
Persistence plays a huge role in improving the lead generation strategy performance. The best way to determine whether a lead is qualified is to discuss their pain points and the solution they seek. The mode of communication doesn’t matter. But persistence does, without being sales-y of course!
Work on scheduling a sales meeting or contact them to understand if they are interested. The best way to find out if your lead is qualified is through a real conversation with them about their needs. Your goal is to put behind the maybes and focus on the yes’s.
There are a ton of different ways to qualify a lead. But this checklist might simplify the process.
Figure out their interest in your product or service
Some customers who do not initially show interest might grow it. But, this could involve more research about your brand. So, if a lead is not showing much interest, the best thing to do is target them with content that demonstrates brand value.
What about the resources?
If a lead does not have adequate resources to make a purchase, it’s best to move on to the next lead.
Are they ready to make a purchase soon?
It’s important to factor in time when qualifying leads. The bottom line is that someone could be interested in your offering and have the resources, but if the timing is not right, it’s best not to pursue them.
Is the lead you are speaking with authorized to make a buying decision?
This step will only apply to B2B deals, where the lead you’re targeting may or may not have the final say over the company’s purchasing decisions for their department.
And in case the lead is not part of the decision-making committee, focus on their company. Find out who are the persons within the business with the power to make the sale. You can either go about it with research or directly ask the lead you targeted.
How do you use the Checklist?
Use the checklist to gather essential data that helps you score them effectively. And how you implement this would depend entirely on the answers. For instance, if you get a ‘yes’ for the entire checklist, place the lead at the top of the scoring system. If some are ‘yes’ and some are ‘no’, keep the lead in the middle of the ranking system. It helps you figure out upfront how promising different leads in the funnel are.
AI forecasting for lead qualification
Brands can leverage AI to qualify leads and derive inputs. AI and machine learning models help you filter out leads that have the highest likelihood of converting into paying accounts. AI achieves this by analyzing historical data to discover patterns and behaviors that show increased conversion probability, which helps brands invest their sales resources.
These are some key features of AI-integrated forecasting-
Predictive Analytics:
AI evaluates extensive customer interaction data alongside behavioral patterns to determine which leads will likely convert. The algorithms process variables such as past interactions, website visits, email engagement, and demographic data to generate lead conversion scores.
Behavioral Insights:
AI tools allow you to monitor and assess a prospect’s digital footprint. This makes it easy for sales teams to concentrate on high-value leads when AI systems detect repeated product page visits or specific content interactions as strong buying signals.
Lead Scoring Optimization:
The traditional lead scoring method depends on manually entered data and fixed scoring metrics. Machine learning systems maintain lead scoring models through continuous refinement and updates that help improve accuracy with the accumulation of new data over time. Employing an AI system improves your brand’s capability to qualify leads. And this happens by integrating information from external sources including social media and industry trends.
Sales Forecasting:
Businesses can enhance sales forecasting accuracy by integrating AI capabilities into their CRM systems. Your sales teams could benefit from AI models that analyze historical sales cycles to forecast lead conversions and optimize resource distribution.
Automated Follow-ups:
AI-enabled systems use lead behavior to automate the scheduling and sending of personalized follow-up communications. AI triggers automated emails or reminders to leads who show product interest but have not completed purchases to encourage them to convert.
Lead qualification- more than a strategy
It can elevate lead conversions for B2B brands looking to maximize their efforts and drive better results. Lead qualification lets you focus on the leads with maximum potential, saving costs and valuable time. Plus, it benefits brands by wise allocation of resources. The outcome- overall better chances of closing deals.
Effective lead qualification helps businesses focus their resources on high-quality prospects- improving sales efficiency, shortening the sales cycle, and increasing conversion rates.
Each framework enlisted in this blog has its strengths and weaknesses. However, the best approach for your brand will depend on the nature of your product/service, the complexity of the sales process, and the specific needs of your target audience. Modifying these methods per your brand and audience could improve your lead qualification efforts even more.
Irrespective of the framework you decide to implement, the main point is understanding your prospects deeply and aligning your efforts with their needs, budget, and decision-making processes.
