Hot leads do what they say on the tin, right? They are sales-ready leads that will effortlessly sign on the dotted line and I can sit back and put my feet up.
Wrong. Well sort of, while they are essentially sales-ready you have to have your strategy down. Luckily, there are a few steps you need to take to ensure you are feeding your sales team the right hot leads.
1 Identify
This is the classic story of sales and marketing teams ceasing fire and uniting on their shared goal. They need to define their ideal customer they know they can do business with.
You can do this by defining your killer values, top targets and personas. It’s vital at the beginning of your funnel to ensure you’re targeting leads who will invest in your services.
Further down the funnel comes identifying who is showing intent to buy within these pots. Identifying hot leads is the core ingredient to the recipe of success. But all teams need to be on board.
2 Segment
A hot lead is a hot lead, right? I’ll call them right now and by the end of the day, they’ll have signed on the dotted line. Not quite. You need to segment your hot leads based on different criteria.
Think realistically: do you have the resource to effectively segment your leads? Or is it more workable to segment based on location, industry, size etc., or purely marketing source?
Once this is in place, the sales team will stop bickering over whose lead is whose and who got there first.
3 Contact
When the time is right, get in touch. There’s a very small window for this, so be prepared. A hot lead is very engaged with you but it’s not a guarantee that they are ready to invest right now.
You need to be patient, but be ready. Call them and have a genuine conversation; learn about their needs, give them best practice advice, and pass on further down the funnel.
And there you have your recipe for steaming hot sales leads served on a plate. Bon Appetit. Take a look at our cookbook to find out how you can mix it all together.