No problem; we can wait. The key is to keep leads engaged by feeding them content designed to get them moving again and aligned with their level of qualification. We’ve identified three important stages of lead qualification.

1. Information Qualified Leads. These leads have shown an interest in your helpful information. They’ve downloaded a piece of premium content, subscribed to your blog, requested more information, or all of the above. We treat these leads with care. They want to learn, not be sold to. That means no “salesy” information until they’re ready. The best way we know of keeping these leads engaged with your content is to keep it educational, valuable, and relevant.
2. Marketing Qualified Leads. Marketing qualified leads have shown an interest in your brand. How do we know? Because they’ve downloaded a piece of content that is specific to your brand, like a product sell sheet, a brochure, a company overview, a video demo, or case studies. These leads are ready for more product-specific information and can handle more “salesy” content.
3. Sales Qualified Leads. These leads have asked to be contacted by sales. They have voluntarily taken action on a sales offer like a free consultation, a demo, a quote, or a set of valuable recommendations. Time to get to work!

When Leads Get Stuck

It’s inevitable in content marketing that a high percentage of leads will get “stuck” at any given stage of the sales process. These are leads who made it to one level of qualification but, for whatever reason, haven’t moved on to the next.

Information qualified leads get stuck because they still have some questions that you haven’t answered. Marketing qualified leads have unanswered questions, too, but of a more branded variety. They most likely have some pushbacks or objections about your specific branded solution that have not yet been addressed.

In either case, it’s content to the rescue again. To get stuck leads unstuck, we build lead nurturing email “workflows” (you might know them as “drip campaigns”) designed to answer common prospect question about your business’s positioning (at the top of the funnel) or to respond to common pushbacks (at the middle).

Blog Articles for Information Qualified Leads

Our email workflows at the top of the funnel clue information qualified prospects into blog articles that should answer whatever lingering questions they may have. You can use other types of content, but we prefer blog articles. They’re the easiest to create and they usually receive high click-through rates in nurturing emails.

Nurturing content for marketing qualified leads

Once a marketing qualified lead consumed brand specific information—a middle-of-the-funnel offer—we promote bottom-of-the-funnel offers that will result in a call with sales. When marketing qualified leads don’t bite with this offer, it’s usually because they have some of the pushbacks common late in the traditional sales process:

• Your product or services cost too much.
• I’m not convinced you’ll get results.
• We think we can do this on our own.

When prospects have these pushbacks, it’s time to bring out the big guns (promoted via email, naturally): testimonials, case studies, and other product-specific information designed to respond to those common pushbacks and demonstrate why your company’s products or services are just what the prospects need to solve their problems.

Do You Nurture Sales Qualified Leads?

Nope. Once a lead becomes sales qualified, no more lead nurturing is required. Your sales representatives will take it from here, validating that the lead is sales ready and delivering what was promised in your bottom-of-the-funnel offer.

Want to learn more about lead nurturing with content and marketing automation? Download our lead nurturing package for marketer