7 typer av säljleads och hur man avslutar dem

In an ideal world, it would require no effort to generate sales for your company. The second people heard about you, they’d immediately want to buy.

Unfortunately, that’s not how it works in the real world. Nurturing sales leads toward becoming customers is a process.

As people move through the sales funnel toward conversion, they become leads—that is, they express some kind of interest in your business. But not all sales leads are alike. Some leads have only just heard of you, while others—further down in the funnel—are nearly ready to buy.

Those different types of sales connections require different types of marketing efforts, which is why it can be helpful to understand the types of leads and sales closing techniques out there. 

Innehållsförteckning

• What are sales leads?
• 7 key types of sales leads
• 7 ways to generate more sales leads
  
• Frequently asked questions about leads in sales 
• Earn more sales leads with Nutshell

What are sales leads?

Sales leads can be defined as people or companies who meet your company’s definition of an ideal customer to some degree and have expressed interest in your product or service. Of course, some sales leads may have expressed more interest than others, which will determine how your sales team interacts with them. 

There are many ways a lead can show interest in your company, including:

• Clicking on a paid ad
• Filling out a form on your website
• Signing up for emails
• Contacting your sales or customer service team

Converting leads to sales is critical for growing your business. And because sales leads have different levels of knowledge about and interest in your product, it’s important to categorize them properly so you can determine the best way to nurture the relationship.

Why you should know the types of sales leads

Understanding the type of sales lead you could encounter in your business offers several advantages that will enhance your sales and marketing strategy and improve your conversion rates. 

Here are a few advantages:

• Targeted marketing efforts:  Not all leads should be approached the same way. Tailoring your messaging and campaigns to address each lead type’s unique needs and pain points, increases the likelihood of success and engagement.
• Improved lead qualification process: By categorizing your leads, you can better assess their potential value and focus your efforts on those with the highest return on investment. 
• Efficient sales process: Time is money for your sales team. Streamlining your sales process by focusing on specific lead types, allows your team to work more efficiently and spend less time on unqualified leads.
• Better performance tracking: Evaluating the performance of different lead types helps you refine your sales strategy and identify gaps in your process.
• Strategic insights: Grouping leads by type reveals trends and patterns in their behavior, enabling you to make more informed decisions about product offerings and overall strategy.

7 key types of sales leads

There are a few different ways to categorize leads in sales. However, seven sales lead types stand out from the crowd, and we’ve listed them below. Read on for an explanation of the seven types of sales connections and some tips for nurturing—and converting—each.

Lead Type	Funnel stage	Definition of sales leads	Real-life examples of leads
Cold leads	Top-of-funnel	Leads that fit your customer profile but haven’t yet interacted with your company	ABC Corp, a real-estate industry prospect, hasn’t engaged with our brand before
Warm leads	Middle-of-funnel	Leads that haven’t shown explicit interest in buying from you but know who you are and what you offer	XYZ Inc. follows our updates and newsletters, indicating interest in our solutions
Hot leads	Bottom-of-funnel	Leads that show overt interest in your products or services	A&B Co. is currently engaged with our sales team about purchasing our product
Information qualified leads (IQLs)	Top-of-funnel	Leads that are looking to find an answer to a question or a solution to a problem and can be reached with informational content	Jen found our blog while searching for team productivity tips
Marketing qualified leads (MQLs)	Middle-of-funnel	Leads that are familiar with your brand and engage with your marketing content	Jack frequently engages with our marketing emails and downloads our guides
Product qualified leads (PQLs)	Middle-of-the-funnel	Leads that have already received some value from your product, such as through a free trial or freemium version of your product	Emma actively uses our app’s free version, exploring its different features
Sales qualified leads (SQLs)	Bottom-of-funnel	Leads that have actively expressed interest in your products or services	Kelly requested a demo after expressing interest in purchasing our premium service

1. Cold leads

Cold leads are types of sales leads that fit your customer profile but haven’t yet had any interaction with your company. In short, this is the most difficult sales lead type to convert because they don’t yet have an active interest in your business.

As you might expect, this term is related to the idea of “cold-calling”—in both cases, you’re trying to convert someone who’s never engaged with your business before. That’s no easy task, and you should prepare yourself for the likelihood that many cold leads won’t convert.

How to convert cold leads

Having said that, there are still ways to convert leads to sales and close a deal when you route cold leads to sales reps. The best sales closing technique is to nurture them further down the marketing funnel with top-of-funnel content like blog posts and social media content. However, you can also attempt to cold-call them or email them. 

A highly effective way to generate cold leads that match your target audience is by using a prospecting tool. Nutshell IQ allows you to search a vast database of over 200 million prospects, unlock website visitors who are already interested in your offerings, and identify key stakeholders so you can get in touch. By empowering you to define your ideal customer profile, Nutshell IQ finds the best matches for you, streamlining the process and saving you time by handling the filtering process for you and your sales team.

2. Warm leads

Warm leads are a bit further down the funnel than cold leads. These sales leads still haven’t shown any distinct interest in buying from you, but they definitely know who you are and what you offer.

These leads might visit your website on occasion, follow you on social media, subscribe to your emails, or keep up with your blog. They have an interest in you, albeit one that hasn’t yet developed into a desire to purchase.

How to convert warm leads

The best way to market to these sales leads is to take advantage of the content they engage with by including calls to action (CTAs). Whenever they read a blog post or open an email, they should see a CTA somewhere that encourages them to convert.

You can also take a more direct approach by reaching out to these leads with a phone call or a personalized email, perhaps offering to have a meeting with them about your products or services. Many warm leads will be interested enough to hear you out.

3. Hot leads

The word “hot” can be either good or bad depending on the context, but in this case, it’s definitely the good kind. Think “fajitas sizzling on the platter as the server brings them out of the kitchen” kind of hot.

Hot leads can be defined as sales leads who show overt interest in your products or services. They haven’t committed to a purchase yet, but they’ve definitely indicated that they’re considering it. These hot sales leads might be in active talks with your team, or they might be taking advantage of any free trials you offer.

How to convert hot leads

This is where your marketing can really push for a conversion. You don’t have to be subtle here—you can openly encourage hot leads to buy from you, highlighting all the advantages of your product or service while noting the qualities that help your business stand out from the competition.

When handling hot sales leads, you need to recognize and act on clear buying signals from the lead. To close the sale effectively, consider using sales closing techniques like offering discounts or limited-time deals to instill a sense of urgency.

4. Information qualified leads (IQLs)

The previous three sales lead types focused on how “warmed up” sales leads are, or how close they are to making a purchase. These last three, however, focus more on the type of content that leads are looking for, and therefore the type of marketing you should target toward them.

Information qualified leads (IQLs) are top-of-funnel leads who are simply trying to find an answer to a question or a solution to a problem. For example, an IQL might look up something like “what do manufacturers do” or “how to form a quarterly budget.”

How to convert IQLs

To target these sales leads, your best bet is to pump out informational content like blog posts and videos. Don’t try to deliver a direct sales pitch to these users—simply give them the answers they need while showing off your expertise as you do so.

They’ll be able to see through the answers you provide that you’re knowledgeable about your craft, making them likely to remember you when they need your services later on.

5. Marketing qualified leads (MQLs)

Marketing qualified leads (MQLs) appear further down the sales funnel from IQLs. This type of sales lead is comparable to warm leads. MQLs are familiar with your brand, and many of them engage with you in some way, like keeping up with your blog. It’s possible that you already have their email address from a previous newsletter signup, event registration, or content download.

How to convert MQLs

The best way to market to MQLs is to implement marketing messages into your informational content. Start putting out materials that blend informational and salesy content—maybe you publish a page that begins by explaining a particular industry term and then discusses how that term applies to your company.

You can also encourage MQLs to sign up for your email lists or even try out product demos to get more familiar with your company and what you offer.

6. Product qualified leads (PQLs)

Product qualified leads (PQLs) are sales leads that have already received some value from your product, whether through a free trial or freemium version of your product. PQLs may be further down the sales funnel than MQLs, but they might not have received certain marketing materials yet if they signed up for a free trial from your website and have had little interaction with your business.

How to convert PQLs

If your business offers free trials or freemium product tiers, knowing how to convert PQLs is especially important because they’ve already interacted with your product in some way. Your sales team should have a process for:

• Analyzing these leads’ usage of your product
• Reaching out to PQLs to determine any questions they have about the product
• Trying to upsell them on a higher product tier

7. Sales qualified leads (SQLs)

Sales-qualified leads (SQLs) appear near the bottom of the sales funnel. These leads have actively expressed some kind of interest in your products or services, and they’re people your company has decided are worth directly marketing to.

How to convert SQLs

At this stage, you can start using direct sales pitches. You want these leads to know that you’re interested in working with them, but you want to do it in a way that makes them interested in working with you, too. To that end, try calling them directly or setting up meetings with them.

7 ways to generate more sales leads

Now you know about the seven main types of sales leads and how you might nurture them once they’re in your pipeline. But how do you generate more leads in the first place?  

Just like with nurturing and converting different types of leads, there are also many strategies for generating them. Here are a few essential approaches for marketing teams who want to generate more leads in each of the main categories.

1. Master search engine optimization (SEO) 

When it comes to digital marketing, SEO is a highly effective lead generation strategy. SEO involves optimizing your website and creating content that gets your business greater visibility in search engines so that people who are interested in your products see your site and turn from cold leads into hot leads.

An SEO lead generation strategy involves defining your target audience, creating valuable content, optimizing your site for search, and then gathering data about your leads so you can follow up with them.

2. Run email marketing campaigns 

Email marketing is a great way to nurture new contacts, warm up your leads, and turn customers into repeat customers. And one of the best things about email marketing is that you can use it for leads at any stage of the funnel, from running nurturing campaigns to new client onboarding and even win-back campaigns. 

 While there are many best practices for using email marketing in lead generation, some of the top tips include: 

• Segmenting your audience 
• Personalizing your messages 
• Leveraging automation 
• Optimizing with A/B testing 

3. Hone your marketing channels 

No matter how many marketing resources your company has at its disposal, spreading your efforts across too many channels is likely to lead to poorer performance in your most important channels. If you’re in B2B, for example, spending a lot on Instagram ads is most likely a waste of resources. 

By tracking your most effective marketing channels, you can identify your top-performing marketing channels to improve your strategies. You’re better able to understand how your efforts translate into won leads, which audiences are your most valuable, and discover ways to optimize your marketing campaigns.   

4. Optimize your website for conversion

Your company’s website is one of your most valuable platforms for lead generation. It’s critical to continually optimize your site’s usability, layout, messaging, and media to encourage the highest number of conversions, whether that’s contacting your sales team or starting a free trial.

Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is the process of optimizing your website to earn more leads. CRO involves website traffic and copy analysis along with continual testing to determine which strategies work best for your audience. 

5. Ask customers for referrals 

 Referrals are a great way to generate more leads, as happy customers are usually happy to spread the word about your business. Simply asking clients for referrals takes very little time and may help you make leads off of the leads you’ve already made. 

Referrals can be an especially effective lead generation strategy if you offer incentives like a discount on your services for your customers and any new customers they refer.

6. Become a trustworthy resource

Becoming a trusted source of information within your industry is an excellent way to build your company’s reputation and earn the trust of potential leads. Many leads do hours of research before even getting in touch with a salesperson, so having a solid history of sharing helpful information can make them more likely to see you as the solution to their problems.    

Consider a few ways you can build your company’s trustworthiness in your industry:

• Host educational webinars 
• Create valuable blog and video content 
• Share helpful information in your newsletters
• Create original research
• Focus on supporting existing customers 
• Speak at trade shows and conferences 

Frequently asked questions about leads in sales 

Take a look at these FAQs about sales leads for the answers you’re looking for:

How do you categorize sales leads?

Leads can be categorized in several different ways, including:

• Their interest level in a product or sales strategy (ex. cold vs. warm vs. hot leads)
• Their history of interactions with your business 
• The type of content they’re interested in (ex. MQLs vs. SQLs)

How do you organize a sales lead list?

The best way of organizing your leads depends on how you and your team prefer to work — and the tools at your disposal. If you’re using a CRM with pipeline management features, you can look at all your sales leads and their pipeline stage in a board, list, chart, or map view. If you’re working from a spreadsheet, you might have more limited viewing options.

Which lead type should I focus on?

There isn’t just one type of lead your company should spend time and effort to convert — all of the sales leads listed above have their place in the sales funnel. While it’s more valuable to spend the bulk of your energy on hot leads rather than cold leads, for example, you also have to figure out how to make leads hot — and that takes a multi-faceted sales strategy. 

Earn more sales leads with Nutshell

As you can see, there are different ways to market to different types of leads. The thing is, it can be tricky to figure out which leads are which, and where your prospects are in the sales funnel. Thankfully, you don’t have to figure it out all by yourself.

Nutshell makes it much easier to add leads to your funnel and drive them toward conversion. You can easily categorize leads by their funnel placement and even view custom reports on the effectiveness of your marketing efforts.

Nutshell also includes powerful marketing features like email marketing, landing page creation, forms, lead attribution, and a meeting scheduler tool to empower your team to generate more—and better—leads for your business.

Want to try out Nutshell for yourself? Get started with our free 14-day trial today!

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