What Is a Lead? Common Types of Leads in Marketing

In business, companies always aim to grow and expand their market to find more customers. Every activity or strategy they roll out helps them attract leads, meaning every kind of potential customer. Let's look at what a lead is? and how it appears in marketing.

What is a lead?

What is a lead? In simple terms, a lead is any person or organization ready to use services or buy goods from other businesses; in other words, a customer. We can convert leads into actual customers. Through contact with the business, such as providing personal information, signing up for notifications or showing interest in the business, the company reaches out to leads directly. It does not have to wait for a third party to hand over customer information for its marketing strategies Marketing. For example, you run an online survey asking users for their opinion on the quality of your computers. Respondents fill in their name, phone number and email address. From that you have the information you need to contact customers and advise them. This helps customers form a better impression of the business when it contacts them about buying its products, because there is no pressure. When customers receive a call from the business, they know it is because they were interested in that survey. Through the survey questions, the business also gets a clear view of the products customers want, and does not have to spend much time to market research. The business narrows its market scope and gets better results for each market segment. So in a business's marketing strategy the goal is always to turn marketing leads into customers. Not every lead becomes a potential customer, but converting leads is done by segmenting them into the groups that fit the target market. ->See more: What Is CDP? Why CDP Matters for Businesses

The 3 types of leads in marketing

What is a lead? How many types of leads are there in marketing? There are currently three types of leads in marketing. Below I will go through each of them:

IQL – leads with complete information

What is an IQL lead? An Information Qualified Lead is a customer who has all the information the business is looking for. Customers in this group are usually leads still learning about the business, with not much data yet about the place where they buy. For this group, the business should focus on using the customer information it has collected. Then it should help by clarifying what customers need to know about its products and services, and resolve the lead's questions to guide them toward becoming a potential customer.

MQL – leads qualified for purchase advice

What is an MQL lead? These are leads that have moved one step further in their relationship with the seller, moving up in the buyer's journey. A Marketing Qualified Lead understands and regularly shows interest in the products and services the business provides. This is the stage where the business identifies its potential customers and long-term prospects. From there the business sets its goals, identifies quality customers and resolves the issues those customers care about. With MQLs, the business and the customer interact regularly, tracked through the lead score. Through surveys sent by email to individual users, sellers can tell which stage a lead is in and how far it has progressed in the journey.

SQL – leads qualified for sales

What is an SQL lead? A Sales Qualified Lead is at the final stage of the sales cycle: these are people ready to buy the business's products and use its services. To reach this final step, the business must run different marketing strategies to reach and persuade leads to become potential customers. After leads show interest in the product through advertising and product consultation, we then let them try the product. A trial gives customers a more objective view of the product they are interested in, and with further advice from the business, the SQL moves on to become a buying customer. At this stage the rate of converting leads into actual customers is very high, so sales staff need to pay close attention to get the expected result. In the end, the business can find a reliable and promising source of customers for the future. ->See more: What Is CPE? How to Measure and Optimize the CPE Marketing Metric

Criteria for judging lead quality

What criteria judge lead quality? What lets a business decide who qualifies as a lead? Narrowing down the target group is very important. It helps the business define exactly who it is aiming at and set clearer goals.

Assessing the lead's attitude

Let's go through a few criteria that show how interested a lead is in the business, so you can evaluate and choose quality leads.

Forms

When a lead tends to complete every field in survey forms, feedback forms or job applications, it means they are interested in that job. This shows the lead's interest in the work and their wish to become a lead of the business.

Coupon

Usually few people care about your Coupon but if the coupon has value and potential, marketing leads will pay attention to you. In exchange for the coupon, they provide information such as their name and email address to the business. Although few people respond this way, it gives the business exactly the people who want to take part.

Content

Working out how interested customers are in the business is very hard, because the business cannot be sure those actions are aimed at it. So to understand the relationship between the business and a lead better, the business needs to collect more information and build a connection. It should agree on and evaluate viewpoints objectively to learn the lead's level of interest. Once that is known, the business writes articles to reach and attract the customer's attention. Depending on the type of business and how it is carried out, each business will have a different marketing strategy to attract customers. There is no limit to how much information counts as enough; it depends on how the business wants to use it.

Scores

What is a lead score? Lead scoring is a way of evaluating leads by quantifying, in points, the customer's interest in the business. Based on questions and different point values, a marketing lead shows how interested they are in the business. The criteria must be applied throughout the marketing process, and team members follow them, deciding based on their own viewpoints. When everyone scores together, you get the most complete picture of the potential customers you can aim for. For example, customers who interact often and show interest in your products and services can be rated as potential customers. The information they provide through suitable polls and surveys matches the leads the business is aiming for, and you can turn those leads into real customers more easily. Results show that the higher a lead's scoring, the higher the rate of becoming a sales-ready potential customer. So the business should set clear marketing goals to get more SQLs. ->See more: What is inbound marketing? What you need to know about inbound marketing Through the article Mona Media shared, we hope you now understand more about what a lead is. Now go and put together the best marketing strategy to attract potential customers to your business.