Using Market Research To Create Marketing And Sales-Qualified Leads

Your business is up and running, and you already have an effective website that's generating market-research leads. But how exactly do you classify these leads? Are they marketing leads or sales leads?

First, you need to understand the difference between marketing leads and sales-qualified leads. By being clear on this point, you can then take full advantage of your marketing funnel.

So, let's get to it. Here's a quick overview of your marketing funnel for marketing leads and sales-qualified leads.

Marketing Leads

These types of leads take place when a customer visits your website or your actual store. It's through these two routes that you'll be able to capture information about the consumer, and be able to use the collected data to appeal to her specific wants and needs. If you handle your marketing leads in the right way, you'll be very likely to turn this consumer into not only a customer, but a customer who keeps coming back.

To capture information, you'll want to ask for the consumer's name, email address, and the reason that the person is browsing your products and services. Even though this information will be passed down to your sales team, the lead itself is considered a marketing lead because the sales team has not yet came in contact with the consumer.

It's imperative that you carefully analyze the information gathered through marketing leads. By doing this, you can come to a conclusion as to whether or not a specific consumer actually fits your buying demographic. If he or she does not, then you can avoid wasting time and money on trying to get the consumer to buy something from you, when in all actuality, she is most likely not to.

Sales Lead

At the top of the funnel, you will find marketing leads. If these leads make it to the bottom of the funnel, then this means that your sales team believes a consumer is ready to make a purchase.

Sales-qualified leads only take place once a member of the sales team has made contact with the prospective customer. From emails to telephone calls, there are many ways to graduate a marketing lead to a sales-qualified lead. It's most important, though, to remember to assess carefully the marketing leads, to make sure that they will be profitable in terms of funneling them down to become a sales lead.

The Takeaway

No matter the type of leads that you have in your marketing funnel, you must assess the quality of each. In fact, having one-hundred marketing leads that are of low-quality will likely lead to only one to two percent of those converting into sales leads. This means that only about one to two of those leads will turn into actual transactions.

On the other hand, if you have 20 high-quality marketing leads, you can bet on 50 percent or more of them making their way to the bottom of your marketing funnel and leading to a transaction. That's 10 or more sales off of just 20 leads.

What’s your take? Weigh in with a comment below, and connect with Joshua Harrell (Google+) | @JoshuaHarrell (Twitter).