LeadMagnetGeniusFor higher-ticket businesses or those with smaller lead volume, personal follow-up is key. After opt-in: - Initial Personal Email: Try sending a plain-text style email from a real person (founder, salesperson) to say hi and ask a question. e.g., “Hey, saw you grabbed our guide. What project are you working on? Let me know if you have any questions.” Many won’t reply, but those who do are essentially raising their hand as more engaged. And it starts a conversation where you can further qualify by their answers. If they reply “I’m actually looking for a solution to [problem]”, you can continue dialog, maybe hop on a call. - Qualification Call or Email Questions: If your field usually involves a discovery call to qualify, you might explicitly invite leads who meet certain criteria to schedule a free consult. Perhaps only visible to leads who engaged or via direct invite. On that call, you ask questions to qualify (budget, authority, need, timeline – classic BANT). But you’d ideally only do these calls with those pre-qualified by behavior or initial survey, to use time efficiently. For example, you might mass invite all leads who clicked a pricing link to a call – they showed buying signals so probably worth the time. - Use Automation to Assist but Keep Human Touch: You can automate the identification (like score goes above threshold triggers a task for sales rep or an email with rep’s calendar link). The conversation though should be human. Leads can tell if they get a canned marketing email vs a personal note. Early in the relationship, a more personal approach can set you apart and glean a lot of insight. Even a quick LinkedIn or social media check on a hot lead could provide context for a better approach (like see their role and company, etc.).
As a note, Salesforce’s Pardot had a concept where scoring (behavior) and grading (profile match) combine: e.g., you might have a lead with high interest but poor fit (like a student who’s super engaged but can’t afford your B2B software) – scoring catches interest, grading catches fit. Both are needed to truly qualify as SQL (Sales Qualified Lead). In our context, you might manually approximate grading by looking at their info if provided (like in B2B, see if they have the right job title or company type) before spending sales effort.