When is a Lead a Lead? The Difference between Interest and Intent: from Sales Force Effectiveness Blog by Greg Alexander

When is a Lead a Lead? The Difference between Interest and Intent:
You are reading this post.  Are you a lead?
No.
If we called you right now to book an appointment to discuss our sales consulting services, would you accept?
No.
Why not?
You are interested in our sales consulting firm’s content (thank you).  However, you are not intending to buy from us today.
Have you ever:

• Registered for a Webinar?
• Read an eBook?
• Downloaded a white paper?

After doing each, are you a lead?
No.
Why not?
You are interested in the educational material in the webinar/eBook/white paper.  You are not intending to buy.
The ten “follow up” calls/emails by the sales rep made your week, didn’t they?
When is a lead a lead?
A lead is a lead when a prospect moves from interest to intent.  Interest is simply defined as someone who is casually interested in reading about your point of view on a subject.  Intent is simply defined as someone who is actively trying to solve an urgent problem by researching possible solutions.
Here are some quick signs that a prospect is only interested:

• A single person inside the account is consuming the content.
• There is no engagement with the content, such as a comment on a blog post or a question on a webinar.
• The “path to purchase” is not being followed by the prospect.  This refers to the content consumption pattern followed by previous prospects who became customers.

Here are some quick signs that a prospect is intending to buy:

• Multiple people inside the account are consuming the content, including those with executive titles, with lots of frequency.
• The source responsible for directing the prospect to your content is a source which has directed prospects to your content previously who eventually became customers.
• The behavior of the prospect is very similar to the behavior of your best customers. 

Key Take Aways:
Do:
1-      Publish educational content often.
2-      Analyze which traffic sources produce prospects who are intending to buy.
3-      Reverse engineer the “path to purchase” of your current customers.
Don’t:
1-      Publish self-promotional content of great value to you but of little value to your readers.
2-      Be a pest by calling prospects that fill out a form who are just casually interested.
3-      Try to go from a first date to getting married unnaturally.
An Offer for You:
I am holding an open Q&A teleconference to discuss “when a lead is a lead” on April 24^th at 2:00 P.M. CST.  There is no cost, no registration process, and no form to fill out.  Just dial  (559)726-1300, pin 189777# and jump into the dialogue.  Bring your questions and I will try to help you. If I cannot, maybe one of your peers on the line can.
Speak to you then.
Comments welcome below.
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