Lead definitions and qualification criteria

If you are looking to get the best return on your acquisition spend, it is critical that the leads you generate are handled appropriately at each stage of the pipeline, according to their areas of interest, their needs and pain points, and their buying stage. Unless you qualify your leads thoroughly you risk wasting your marketing spend, sending the wrong message to the wrong people at the wrong time, and exhausting your sales team as they chase prospects that are nowhere near ready to buy.

Establishing rules around how your leads are managed can be difficult; lead definitions and quality criteria vary dramatically for each business and the many acronyms that exist to give clarity to the process can be quite confusing. To help you navigate this terminology and create a systematic process to move your prospects effectively through the pipeline, we’ve put together a short guide.