What are pre-qualified leads? + How to pre-qualify leads for conversions

Are you tired of wasting time and resources on leads who never convert into customers? If so, you're not alone. In fact, studies have shown that fifty percent of business prospects are typically not a good fit for the product or service.

Many businesses struggle to attract high-quality leads who are truly interested in their offerings. That's where pre-qualified leads come in.

In this post, we'll explore what a pre-qualified lead is, how to determine whether they are qualified or not, and how account intelligence tools like we offer at Clearbit can help you find and capture those leads to boost your conversions.

What is a pre-qualified lead?

A pre-qualified lead is a potential customer or client who fits your ideal customer profile (ICP) and has been evaluated to determine if they meet certain requirements. This includes criteria such as having a need for your product or service, having the budget to purchase it, and having the authority to make purchasing decisions.

Pre-qualified leads have already been screened to some extent and have proven to be a good fit for your product or service. This means that they are more likely to respond positively to your marketing and sales efforts, and are more likely to make a purchase.

What are the benefits of pre-qualifying leads?

Lead generation isn’t an easy undertaking. In fact, sixty-one percent of marketers claim lead generation is the most challenging aspect of their job.

Pre-qualifying leads is an essential part of any successful lead generation strategy because it helps streamline the process. Check out these benefits of implementing a pre-qualifying strategy into your sales process.

Focus sales priorities

Not every lead who comes to your business is qualified. In fact, studies have found that only about five percent of leads acquired through a company’s marketing efforts are high-quality.  

Pre-qualifying leads allow businesses to focus their sales priorities on the most promising prospects who are most likely to convert into paying customers.

When leads are pre-qualified, they have already been evaluated to determine if they meet certain criteria, such as having a need for your product or having the budget to purchase it.

This allows your sales team to prioritize nurturing the leads who are worth pursuing rather than wasting time and effort on leads who may not be interested or ready to buy at that time.

Save time and resources

Since pre-qualifying leads provides your sales team with the information they need upfront, they won’t need to start from scratch because they already know enough about the potential customer or client.

Your sales team can then adapt their sales pitch and utilize a customized strategy to convert leads using the data they've gathered about their customers' purchasing patterns, company requirements, pain points, etc., saving them valuable time in the process.

Help boost conversion rates

You can also increase your conversion rates—and do so more quickly—by having your sales team concentrate on pre-qualified leads.

This is because the leads they are generating and nurturing are ones who are actually a good fit for your product or service. Teams can thus close deals more quickly and increase their overall sales.

How to pre-qualify a sales lead

Pre-qualifying a lead involves identifying and evaluating potential companies to determine if they would be a good fit for your offerings. Check out these ways you can pre-qualify your sales leads.

Ensure a lead fits your ICP

First and foremost, you have to establish your ideal customer profile to be able to identify companies that would be a good fit for your product or service.

Effective ICPs contain data and attributes that reveal the fundamental characteristics of a potential buyer, such as:

• Industry
• Location
• Company size
• Business model (B2B, B2C, etc.)
• Demographics
• Technologies used
• Annual revenue
  

You can determine which factors are most relevant to your ideal customer and use them to create a profile. If a potential lead fits into your ICP, then you could consider them pre-qualified.

Determine if a lead has a high lead score

Lead scoring is essentially a process of rating your leads to determine which leads are the most valuable to pursue. The lead scoring process starts by determining a fit score, or the set of relevant data and attributes from your ICP.

From there, an intent score can indicate a lead’s likelihood of purchasing your offering—which can be gathered by examining intent data and other behaviors that indicate their interest.

If a prospect has a high lead score, then you could consider them a pre-qualified lead.

To learn more, check out these simple tips for better lead scoring.

Ways to find pre-qualified leads

Now that you know what a pre-qualified lead is and how to determine whether they are pre-qualified or not, you may be wondering how you can find these leads.

There are several ways to find leads and determine whether they are a good fit for your product or service. Here are a few effective methods to try out.

Use lead capture forms

A lead capture form can help you gather information from leads upfront, such as their budget, job title, company name, and timeline. Some examples of lead capture forms include:

• Contact forms
• Newsletter sign-up forms
• Free trial forms
• Book download forms
• Event registration forms
  

By requiring leads to fill out their information before they can contact you or receive something, you can pre-qualify them based on your specific criteria.

If the information they provide fits into your ICP or earns them a high lead score  you can consider this lead pre-qualified and reach out to them with targeted marketing and sales efforts to nudge them toward becoming a customer.

Analyze website behavior

By analyzing a lead's behavior on your website, you can determine their level of interest and engagement with your content, which can help you gauge their potential as a customer.

You can look into visitors who exhibit high-intent behavior, such as visiting multiple pages, looking at your pricing page, and engaging with your content. These visitors are more likely to be interested in your products or services and are therefore more likely to be pre-qualified leads.

To hone in on those quality leads visiting your site, you can use tools like Clearbit Reveal, which will alert you when ideal customers are on your site, and take the best action to convert them.

Use targeted ads

Targeted ads on search engines like Google can be an effective way to reach pre-qualified leads who are actively searching for products or services similar to yours. However, it’s most effective if you personalize them.

To increase campaign engagement and drive better results, you’ll want to personalize your ads to align with each buyer's unique journey.

Tools like Clearbit Advertising can do just that by helping your ad content reach the right audience.

Utilize data-enrichment tools

A lead that's missing information doesn't do you any favors. You’ll need critical information such as a company's firmographic and technographic data to be able to determine if they fit your ICP.

The most efficient way to find this information is by investing in a data enrichment tool that can fill in the gaps many prospects leave out.

For example, we offer over 100 attributes to enrich your contacts with at Clearbit. You can utilize this information to evaluate your lead and determine whether they’re considered pre-qualified or not.

Clearbit can help you automate lead pre-qualification

By focusing on your pre-qualified leads, you’ll be able to narrow down the priorities of your sales team, save valuable time and resources, and ultimately increase your conversion rate.

At Clearbit, we build products focused on helping you identify and capture pre-qualified leads and keep them moving down the sales funnel.