The goal of every campaign is conversion (when people do what you want them to do – buy a product, subscribe to a newsletter, fill out a form, etc.). However, conversion is only the last phase; before getting there, you need leads.

How do you get leads, and what kind of leads do you need? Also, not all leads will convert, so how do you focus your energy and resources on leads likely to convert and achieve your goals? Let’s break down the secret code to narrow your leads and close more deals.

Why Leads?

Leads can look very different for different businesses but generally, you have a lead when someone is actively looking at your products or services. Typically, people looking at your products or services means you are close to landing a deal or selling your product but that’s not always true. 

Only 15-20% of leads usually convert in retail, with software coming behind with 5-10% of leads converting. Since every lead is not necessarily a good one, you have to prioritize. This prioritization is what we call lead qualification.

Qualifying Leads

What makes a lead qualified is the intensity of their interest and readiness to convert; sometimes, people are curious about your product, but they don’t want them right now or at all. Lead qualification is how you rate your lead’s readiness and intent and then focus your resources on converting people who are most likely to convert.

Here are the most important questions to ask to categorize your leads:

• Who are your leads?

• What exactly do they want? 

• What may stop them from converting?

• How much will it cost you to convert them?

Understanding these elements helps you know if your products or services are the right fit for your lead and what you can do to motivate them to seal the deal. This approach helps you save time and resources as well as increase your conversion rates.

Keep in mind that this doesn’t mean excluding unqualified leads totally; it simply means you need to nurture them or redirect them to products or services that are better suited for them.

Criteria for Lead Qualification

• Budget: Can your leads afford your product or service? 

• Authority: Is your lead in the position to make the purchase? This is very relevant for B2B leads. For example, if a product manager is browsing your task management software website, that’s a lead with authority.

• Needs & Fit: Does your product/service solve your lead’s pain points?

• Timeline: How quickly is the lead looking to make a purchase? 

• Current Competitors: Who are the lead’s current competitors? 

Using these criteria is the secret to having valuable conversations with your leads. This is not an interrogation; you are building a relationship with your target audience and truly understanding their needs and wants. When you do a good job of this, you will naturally be able to filter out which leads are worthwhile to follow up with and which may not be the right fit (right now).

Why You Need to Upgrade Your Lead Qualification Techniques

The traditional way of qualifying leads yields results but they may be holding you back from achieving your full potential and here’s why:

• Subjectivity: Qualification based entirely on the gut feelings of salespeople leaves qualification open to inconsistency and bias. You cannot leave your lead qualification to chance; different people will prioritize different factors.
• Time-consuming: Conducting qualification manually (phone calls, emails) slows down your sales team. Yes, the human factor in sales is very important which is exactly why you need to automate the grunt tasks and allow your sales team to handle the very crucial human side.
• Inaccurate data: If your lead data has holes or inaccuracies, you will misqualify leads and waste your efforts.
• Inconsistent scoring: If there is no standard way to score a lead, how will you objectively compare leads and prioritize them?

 Using Formplus for More Effective Lead Qualification

Whether you’re a small business or a large sales team, Formplus streamlines lead generation, helping you capture qualified leads and move them efficiently through your sales funnel. 

Here’s how it works:

• Targeted Forms: Craft engaging forms for different campaigns, like webinar registrations or ebook downloads to collect relevant lead data for better qualification e.g. company name, role, company size, etc. You can get started with the sales lead form template.
• Conditional Logic: Instead of making all prospects go through the same process, you can tailor their experiences based on their needs and wants. This helps you gather more useful information to nurture your leads effectively and increase your conversion rate.
• Lead Scoring: Formplus helps you identify the hottest leads automatically and objectively by assigning points to form fields based on their value. You can now use the scores to group your leads into categories such as cold, warm, or hot leads. For example, 0-49 points are for cold leads, 50-70 points represent warm leads, and 70 and above represent hot leads
• Payment Integrations: This helps you strike while the iron is hot. You can ensure your leads convert by accepting payments securely through your forms. For example, if you run a not-for-profit, adding your donation form to your landing page helps you capture your hottest leads before they grow cold, and you would need to spend any extra money on sales efforts.
• Data Export & Integrations: You can also seamlessly export your lead data to your CRM or marketing automation platform for nurturing and conversion.

How Salesforce Can Help

Salesforce is a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform that helps you organize all your interactions with your customers, including sales operations, customer information, and marketing campaigns. You can also use it to automate sales and marketing functions such as email marketing automation, lead capture automation, and lead scoring.

Salesforce gives your team a complete picture of each interaction, allowing you to foster stronger relationships and tailor experiences to keep your customers happy. It allows you to automate workflows and create targeted marketing campaigns to streamline your efforts. You can also use features like case management and live chat to help your team resolve issues quickly, and maintain customer satisfaction.

Salesforce X Formplus  for Lead Qualification

Integrating Formplus and Salesforce creates a powerful lead generation and nurturing engine. It allows you to capture high-quality leads, score them automatically, and nurture them through targeted campaigns, ultimately leading to more qualified leads and increased sales. 

Here is how it works:

• Seamless Lead Capture: Once you integrate Salesforce with Formplus, whenever your prospects submit a form before downloading your ebook, case report, etc., their data is automatically captured and added as a lead or contact in your Salesforce CRM.
• Lead Scoring and Segmentation: Formplus allows you to assign values to different form fields. You can transfer this data to Salesforce and qualify leads based on their score, allowing your sales team to prioritize their efforts and focus on the hottest prospects.
• Automated Workflows: You can set up trigger automated workflows in Salesforce based on form submissions from Formplus. For example, you can automatically send a welcome email to new leads and initiate a nurturing campaign based on their submissions.
• Improved Data Quality: Eliminating manual data entry also ensures consistency and accuracy in your CRM. This leads to better reporting, better decision-making, and a more efficient sales process overall.
• Campaign Tracking: You can also see the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns by integrating Formplus forms with Salesforce. You can see which campaigns are generating the most qualified leads and adjust your strategy accordingly.

Optimizing Lead Qualification With Formplus and Salesforce via Zapier

Zapier connects Formplus to Salesforce, allowing you to set up a Zap to automatically transfer leads. This allows you to filter submissions and customize the process for optimal lead management.

What is Zapier?

Zapier connects different applications and services, allowing them to work together seamlessly without having to code. The major function you need in Zapier is Zaps. Zaps are automated workflows that prompt actions in another after a specific trigger in the first. For example, a Zap could automatically create a new lead in Salesforce when a form is submitted in Formplus. 

With Zapier, you transform your Formplus and Salesforce integration into a lead generation and nurturing powerhouse. Effortless data capture, intelligent lead scoring, and automated workflows all contribute to a more efficient sales process and ultimately, more qualified leads and increased sales.

How to Integrate Salesforce and Formplus with Zapier

Here’s a step-by-step guide to connecting Formplus to Salesforce:

1. Create a form to collect leads

• Go to the Sales Lead Form and click Use Template
• Sign up with Formplus or log in if you already have an account.
• Edit the form questions to fit your lead qualification requirements
• Customize the form design by changing its color, font, background image, etc. (You can skip this process; it’s completely optional)

2. Connect Salesforce

• Go to settings and click integrations. Search for Salesforce
• Click on Connect and log in to your Salesforce account.
• Authorize Zapier to access your Salesforce account

3. Configure the API Integration

After connecting your sales lead form, the next step is to create zaps- actions and triggers to activate your Zapier workflow. Here’s how to set it up:

A. Trigger (Formplus):

• App: Formplus
• Trigger Event: New submission
• Purpose: This triggers the Zap when there’s a new form submission.

B. Action:

• App: Salesforce
• Action Event: Create Lead or Create Task
• Purpose: This action links Formplus submission to create a task in Salesforce such as a targeted email campaign.

Tips for Effective Lead Qualification

Here are some best practices to ensure your lead qualification technique gets you the best results:

• Monitor and Adjust Your Lead Qualification Method: Yes, lead generation and qualification can get very technical but leads are still people. So, continuously adjust your qualification system to match your prospects’ needs at different stages, especially when you cater to diverse buyer personas.
• Score Your Leads Tactfully: Salesforce’s lead scoring helps you prioritize customer outreach and tailor your marketing and sales strategies for maximum impact. For example, you can score leads based on their characteristics and interactions to identify the most promising leads for your business and focus on converting them before they grow cold.

The Bottom Line

Qualifying leads helps you maximize your sales effort by ensuring you prioritize the people who are most likely to convert. Integrating Formplus with Salesforces helps you create a system that captures high-quality leads with Formplus and nurtures them through personalized marketing and sales strategies with Salesforce.

Here’s a sales lead form template to get you started.