Marketing is essential to sales, but with great power comes great responsibility. Passing leads over to sales too soon could lead to potential opportunities becoming uninterested or discouraged. Don’t fret, we have the solutions.

Firstly, be aware of the difference between helpful and harassing.

While the right type of individual from the right type of company may have downloaded a whitepaper from your website, don’t immediately pass them to sales. Calling up and harassing them at this stage will scare them off! Wait until they show more signs of buying behaviour. Then sales can call them up and ask if they needed any more information in the relevant areas. See, helpful. If you are struggling to keep track of each individual leads buying behaviour, use a lead scoring system to show you how nurtured your leads are.

Secondly, be wary of “tyre kickers”.

Just because they’ve been on your website and downloaded the right information, doesn’t mean they are hot leads or are right for your business. You can avoid these kind of timewasting leads by strengthening your pre-qualifying process. Ask yourself these essential questions when analysing a website visitor.

Are they a genuine opportunity?
Are they the right type of company for your business?
How much interaction have they had with your website?
Do they need more email contact to seem interested?

Examine whether they fit into your target demographic. Are they from an appropriate company? Are they in a position to buy from your business? I.e. if you only deal with B2B, are they a B2B match? You also have to take into consideration that visitors may be from an array of people, including students doing research or even your competitors keeping an eye on your activity!

A more effective way to avoid these leads is to use lead generation. This software means that the visitors on your website can be tracked and their details transferred to you. With the ability to segment out your customers, competitors, and suppliers, you can certainly differentiate between hot leads and a poor ones.

Thirdly, and most importantly, educate yourself about lead nurturing.

Providing your website leads with the right information at the right time means that you can warm up leads, ensuring sales never complain about the quality of leads you give them again. Using tracking technology, see what your website leads are interested in. Then send them targeted content in your campaign relevant to their interests. You can even automate your lead nurturing process with the right email marketing tool. The campaign cycle can be as long or as short as you want it to be. As long as you know that when you are passing prospects over to sales they are hot leads ready to be converted!