How to Measure Lead Quality: A Formula for Success
Getting quantities of leads is great, but how can you ensure that the amount you’re getting are the quality you need? That’s where a lead quality formula helps. Learn more.
You’ve started to get leads in, but you’re unable to determine if they’re good quality or not until further down the pipeline. How do you ensure quality over quantity every time?
It’s in these scenarios where a lead quality formula can help. Lead quality formulas mean that you can quickly and qualitatively determine how good a lead is, giving you time to prioritize other actions.
What is lead quality?
Lead quality is the measure of how ‘good’ a lead is, whether for revenue potential or closing potential. A lead with a high revenue potential will be a big income earner, and a lead with a high closing potential will be an easy and quick win.
How can you measure lead quality?
You can measure lead quality on a scoring scale, taking into account the lead source, the response of the lead, the qualifying question’s answers, and how much information the lead has left to be contacted with.
Steps to measuring lead quality
When it comes to practically measuring lead quality, you can tailor your own system it.
1. Measurement criteria
Before you even begin to think about measuring leads, you need to think about what you want to measure.
This will greatly depend on the type of business you are, and the sort of leads you receive. For example, if you are an office printer supplier, your lead quality criteria will be more focused on ease of delivery, location, order size, and potential for retention. Whereas an online SaaS (Subscription as a Service) business will be looking at the scalability of the company, MRR (Monthly Recurring Revenue) of the company, as well as the volume of data processed.
Account-based Marketing (ABM) is the approach we take at inside. It helps us to engage the right leads, at the right level within a target company, at a speed that competitors can’t match. Here are some example ABM criteria you can use to get started:
Here’s how these could look in practice for a technology company that is aiming to create a lead quality formula that helps their sales team as they sell smart automation systems for buildings.
ABM criteria in practice
Here’s how you can use the ABM criteria on an initial scoping call with a prospective client:
|
Criteria |
Questions to support criteria identification |
|---|---|
| Content |
“You mentioned that you had seen our blog on smart speakers, is this something you’re interested in learning more about? “Have you looked into the internet requirements for a smart office system? We created a whitepaper to help you understand what you would need for your requirements, shall I send it over?” |
| Pain points |
“What’s currently holding you back from installing a smart home system?” “We understand that use of the system can be a fear, but we provide free training for all employees; would this be something you’d be interested in?” |
| Competitors |
“Are there any other systems you’re looking at?” “Do you currently have a smart automation system in place, or is this something new for you?” |
| Advocates |
“We heard that John Smith knew your team, we’ve worked with him a lot, did you know we helped him with a smart automation system?” “John Smith, your technical director, has worked with us before, and asked me to get in contact.” |
2. Scoring
Once you have your set criteria, you can begin to score the answers to your suggested questions. These scored responses will enable you to set a priority list in place and determine how you should contact and approach each client. Scoring is commonly done on a one-through-five system, as this is easily scalable, yet not too complex.
Using our above example of a smart automation systems company, here’s how you could score each response criterion.
|
Criteria |
Questions to support criteria identification |
Scoring criteria |
|---|---|---|
| Content |
“You mentioned that you had seen our blog on smart speakers, is this something you’re interested in learning more about? “Have you looked into the internet requirements for a smart office system? We created a whitepaper to help you understand what you would need for your requirements, shall I send it over?” |
5 – Engage regularly with our content and are interested in what we have to say 4 – Engage on occasion but aren’t regular 3 – Have read one or two pieces of content but only use one channel to engage 2 – Have seen a post but don’t engage 1 – Never engage |
| Pain points |
“What’s currently holding you back from installing a smart home system?” “We understand that use of the system can be a fear, but we provide free training for all employees; would this be something you’d be interested in?” |
5 – Pain points are an exact match 4 – Several pain points match 3 – One major pain point, or three lower-priority pain points match 2 – A few lower-level pain points match 1 – No pain points match |
| Competitors |
“Are there any other systems you’re looking at?” “Do you currently have a smart automation system in place, or is this something new for you?” |
5 – Not speaking to any other competitors 4 – Has potentially considered other competitors but is certain in you 3 – Are speaking to one other competitor 2 – Speaking to numerous competitors 1 – You are their lowest priority |
| Advocates |
“We heard that John Smith knew your team, we’ve worked with him a lot, did you know we helped him with a smart automation system?” “John Smith, your technical director, has worked with us before, and asked me to get in contact.” |
5 – Friends with the advocate, value the advocate 4 – The advocate is known to them 3 – The advocate is no longer in the company/distant acquaintance 2 – Vaguely recollect who the advocate is 1 – No idea who the advocate is |
Once you have these key scores drawn up per lead, you can begin to create an overall score. With a maximum of 20 points available for someone who exactly meets your target person and one point for someone who is only potentially interested and not looking to commit soon, the scale could look like this:
20-15: high priority contact, hot lead
14-10: warm lead, and medium priority
9-5: cold lead; low priority
4-0: disqualified lead, hold for future contact
3. Make the sale
Once you have applied the criteria and qualified each lead with a scoring system, you can apply priority to each lead that comes in, and quickly identify the likelihood to close, making it easy to manage.
Want more high-quality leads?
Speak to the experts here at inside global. With over a decade of B2B sales development experience, we help drive more opportunities for your business with our B2B lead generation services.
