Our experience tells us that too often the lack of a good definition of the life cycle is linked to serious business problems such as having high customer acquisition costs or a conversion rate to customers well below the average of your market. In short, a serious loss of competitiveness that in some cases can ruin the company.
Inbound Marketing is a methodology that focuses on customers and how and when to reach them. Sometimes doubts arise about what type of person we address, definitions, concepts ... In this we explain each of the names that people receive before they know a company or organization until they become customers. Keep reading and take notes!
STRANGE
The stranger is that Buyer Person who we still do not have any information about him. It is a person who does not know our brand or services and we should worry about using resources to attract it and turn it into a visitor.
For it the best tools are in a good Inbound strategy that allows to attract this stranger in the first stage of his trip (Awarness). For this it is essential to have a correct choice of content stack that will allow us to appear in advantageous positions in any organic search, publish such a stack in blogs, social publishing, reference websites and / or friends ... At this stage our intention is to attract and turn it into a visitor.
VISITOR
It is the first contact with the user. There is not a second chance for a first impression. This is a person who has a contact with us on the web or the blog, for example, but of which we have very little information and has not provided any information in an active way. However, thanks to technology we can know your IP, the city from which you connect, the number of times you have come or even the name of your company if it turns out that your network name is your company's.
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The blog must have a careful appearance, adequate information and according to what the person is looking for, in the format that they are looking for (audio, video, text ...). The web has to be clear and simple, adapted to all platforms (PC, tablet, mobile), intuitive, with a fast loading ...
If the information and resources shared with the visitor meet their needs and expectations, we already have a lot of livestock, surely will click on any of the CTA's that we have and end up converting via a form or a landing page, which are the most common ways to get it.
LEAD
But what is a lead? The lead can have several definitions, and depending on who you talk to, it will give you one definition or another. From A Small Job, our definition is that of "A contact that we have in our database, but of which we do not yet have enough information to know if it is a potential client". The literal translation is "candidate".
Many times we have found that the definition of lead is the most complex part when it comes to align marketing and sales. Marketing understands that it is the definition that we have told you about and sales thinks that it is a potential client that wants to buy your product or service.
MQL (Marketing Qualified Lead)
A Marketing Qualified Lead is a potential customer, that is, the person who can potentially buy your product or service and fulfills a series of premises for it.
How do we find out what an MQL is?
Well the only way we have is asked. Ask him those questions that allow us to discover if he is a potential client, such as:
Obviously, this list can be as long as one wants, however, the longer it takes us longer to qualify our leads, so a recommendation we always make is to try to synthesize the number of questions to the minimum possible. That is, if we can qualify a lead with 3 questions, it will be better than doing it with 4 questions.
Once we have managed to determine this kind of thing, we are willing to consider this lead as Marketing Qualified Lead, so we will share it with our sales team to consider if it is an SQL.
SQL (Sales Qualified Lead)
Marketing and Sales have to be in constant contact and communication, despite the fact that sometimes there is a love-hate relationship. This is what we call SMarketing (Sales + Marketing). For us it is a very important point because it helps to differentiate an MQL from an SQL.
The SQL differs from the MQL in that it has been approved by the sales team. It has been properly nourished (if necessary), it is aligned with the Buyer Persona ... Sometimes, you can switch from Lead to SQL directly, without being MQL. This happens because the funnel has left information that has been shown to be SQL. These demonstrations can be:
On other occasions, it must first be MQL, be nurtured, learn more about the lead and, if considered appropriate, convert it into SQL.
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OPPORTUNITY
We have a lead that has already matured, ideal to speak directly with him. But, although it is already "hot" we should know when to contact him. An opportunity arises when the lead is aligned with our buyer person, has been properly nurtured (if necessary) and contacted in the appropriate Buyer Journey part. We have to think about the right time to call him and really know his needs. At this time we will contact the opportunity and we will make an exploratory call. The reason? We want to know if we can really help our SQL.
Sometimes we may want to close customers, but there is one thing that we must take into account, the best advertising makes a happy customer, with what we really must be sure that we can help you as you deserve. In this call we will discover your goals, goals, challenges, points of friction ... to have a global vision of their needs.
An opportunity can also be a lead with which he was in contact in the past and, after a while, he retakes contact with him. In this case, the advantage lies in the fact that we already have information about it and we know a lot of information at first hand that it is not necessary to obtain again, it will only be updated.
CLIENT
This is the stage of everyone's favorite life cycle: a real customer, who pays for the products and / or services.
Everything has gone as expected. After several meetings, the contract has been formalized, it has been made effective and work begins for the new client. But not everything is to work, launch content, guide, design the blog ... The relationship with the client is very important, it must be fluid and based on transparency and communication. For this there are various tools such as Teamwork, Basecamp, Trello ... However, we should not just stay there, but we have to go a step further. Satisfaction surveys, exclusive content, analytics and periodic RRSS controls help our client to become a promoter.
PROMOTER
Any company, of whatever sector, should try to make all its clients promoters. And, if you wanted to, it should be a simple task. The promoter is the honor plate of any job, it is the icing on the cake, the feeling of a job well done that becomes a reality. How can you get a client to become a promoter? Personalized attention, punctuality, self-demand and continuous training are actions that help all clients to be promoters of the services of our companies. What is achieved in return? Satisfied clients (in ASmallJob is our maxim), long-term partners, recommendations to "strangers" and, in many cases, collaborations that give rise to very positive symbiosis between organizations.