Classification of B2B leads: Hot Leads and Cold Leads

Businesses have experienced many changes. From brick and mortar stores to online platforms, B2B and B2C businesses have come a long way. Earlier, it was all about making profits but things have changed now. Carrying out business not only means to make profits but also to make a loyal customer base. This helps in carrying out businesses for a long period of time. The backend part of business requires classification of leads. 

Proper classification of leads help in maximizing the benefits that are offered by leads. It's great to have a list of prospects already ready. Yet it is better to classify the prospects in the initial stages itself. This helps in properly defining the tasks along with making sure that the time and resources are not being disbursed irrationally. 

Also, classification of leads helps to examine the “quality” of leads that come from definite channels. This helps in understanding whether they will transform into customers or not. The differences between functionalities of leads help in proper classification of leads. 

It must be noted that the classification of leads results in cold leads and hot leads. The cold leads are the prospects who do not know about your business. Neither they ask you (or your sales team) to contact them nor they are going to make any purchase in the near future. 

Classification of leads is majorly done to get the hot leads. Hot leads are that leads, generated from classification of leads, that know about your business and offerings. These leads show interest in your business and are more likely to make a purchase.    

Classification of Leads

Cold Leads 

These audiences do not know about the business offerings nor they want to know about what the brand is all about. These leads never register on the websites nor come to the websites for reading blogs. 

The cold leads do not have anything common with your business. It is also difficult for your sales’ team to identify the methods to get their details. 

The cold leads are that classification of leads that want to take advantage of the promotional activities carried out by brands. Otherwise, they do not have any motive to buy. They just keep surfing through the web and share their details only if they find any product or service is profitable for them. 

This form of leads are not even relatable to the business. Thus, it is better to stay focussed and explore new prospects. The cold leaders can also be considered as those leads about which you are not sure about the end results. Therefore, it is advised to reduce the associated risk by having low commitments with these cold leads. Also, the sales’ team must spend less time and capital for interacting with them. 

Hot Leads

These leads are the ones that you are actually looking out for. These hot leads are very much interested in your products and services. This classification of leads- hot leds, helps in growing the business, both in terms of revenue and customer base. These hot leads can be further classified into Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs) and Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs). These sub segments help in understanding the sales’ funnel. The MQLs are those individuals that are already on the verge of becoming a customer. On the other hand, the SQLs are those forms of leads that are ready to become a part of the buying cycle.

Hot Leads Vs Cold Leads

Hot leads spend more time surfing through your website. They also show interest in reading your blogs’ page. This is adiamtridally opposite in the case of cold leads. They neither come to the website nor spend much time skimming through the content.

Cold leads are those prospects that will unsubscribe to your services once they receive what they wanted. On the other hand, the hot leads regularly interact with your business and share their feedback about your products and services. 

Hot leads will take your calls and will also respond to your emails detailing about their needs, wants and desires. This is not the case with cold leads.

Hot Leads - A clear winner

Hot leads emerge as a clear winner. This is due to the reason that they are always open to communicate. Thus, all efforts must be into converting them into customers. Furthermore, it is crucial to understand that every lead is important and must not be forgotten. The task of classification of leads is just to segment the time properly.