Lead generation is the fuel for your sales pipeline. It's critical for your growth strategy. But not all leads are created equally, so you need lead qualification to know which leads are worth spending your resources on .

For marketers, generating leads is a top priority. But most B2B companies struggle to generate high-quality leads.

High-quality leads are easier to convert. They've already shown strong interest in your business and are closer to buying your product. So how can you boost lead qualification and get high-quality leads?

Self-qualification forms are one excellent way. It helps potential customers to go through your sales funnel themselves:

What is Lead Qualification?

With lead qualification, you decide whether a potential customer fits well with your business. The process helps you nurture leads with a higher chance of converting them into customers.

Say you get 500 leads - lucky you. Contacting all of them could be a waste of time and resources.

It's better to put them through a lead qualification process.

This helps you identify the leads with a higher chance of conversion. You might whittle down your list to 20 high-quality leads. Maybe 10 become customers, a 50% conversion rate - not bad.

Contacting all 500 leads would result in a much lower conversion rate. So lead qualification is crucial for making sales easier.

The 5 Types of Leads

Typically, leads fall into 5 categories.

1. Unqualified Leads

2. Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs)

3. Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs)

4. Product Qualified Leads (PQLs)

5. Service Qualified Leads

1. Unqualified leads

These leads need more nurturing. They're not ready to feed into the sales pipeline.These leads are "cold" to communications. You need to nurture them to warm them up before you start the selling process.

2. Marketing qualified leads (MQLs)

Your marketing efforts have piqued the interest of these leads. They might have completed a self-qualification form like an online survey or quiz.

These leads are promising because they're interested in your services. They're not 100% ready for a sales call and need some more nurturing.

3. Sales qualified leads (SQLs)

A SQL is ready for direct engagement from your sales team. They've taken specific actions or met certain criteria telling you to pursue the sales process.

4. Product qualified leads (PQLs)

These leads have shown a strong interest in a specific product. For instance, they've subscribed to a free trial for the product.

They're further along in the buyer's journey. You can be confident that PQLs are high-quality leads.

5. Service qualified leads

These leads have interacted with your services. They've informed your service team of their interest in becoming paying customers.

Let's quickly put the qualified lead types side by side:

Self-Qualification Forms: Boost Lead Qualification

Using self-qualification forms is an excellent way to implement lead qualification. Potential customers can qualify themselves with these forms.

They can give you information about their needs, interest, and budget by completing self-qualification forms.

For example, let's say you own a solar installation business. You can put a sustainability calculator on your website.

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Visitors can enter their budget, what they want, current electricity costs, etc. They can calculate the best system for them and request a quote.

Safe to say, this lead is interested in your services because they've self-qualified. You know it's worth the time and resources to nurture them further.

See how JSJ's self qualification process slashed their costs by 97% and saved them time here.

Examples of self-qualification forms

Free trial forms - Many SaaS companies have free trials for potential customers. Convert_ goes one better and offers you a free forever plan for up to 100 monthly visits. Trials allow prospects to try a product before they commit to buying it (some trials are better than others).

Lead magnets - These are free resources like guides, eBooks, and checklists. You offer them in exchange for a potential customer's contact details. They allow you to attract prospects and qualify them as well. For example, check out our Interactive Content checklist that helps you learn how well your website scores on topics like 'Personalization', 'Interactive content', 'Responsive design', 'Feedback mechanisms', 'SEO' and more, and gives you a set of recommendations you improve your website with.

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Contact forms - Most businesses use these as self-qualification forms. They're a simple way for potential customers to reach you. Adding a few qualifying questions to contact forms makes them more effective for self-qualification.

Demo forms - Potential customers can book a demo of your product with these forms. You can ask basic qualifying questions like industry, business size, and desired uses.

Interactive calculator forms - These forms are outstanding for self-qualification. A prospect can complete a return on investment calculator on your website. They get the results in exchange for their contact details. And you get detailed information on their needs, budget, etc. Interactive calculators are the best self-qualification forms on the list. They help you to capture leads and give you the most data you can use to qualify them.

The 5 Main Reasons People Abandon Self-Qualification Forms

Not every user will complete a form, as you can imagine. The average form abandonment rate is about 25%.So a quarter of people (25/100) abandon a form before completion. It's a good idea to keep this in mind when designing your forms.

Here are 5 main reasons people abandon filling out forms.

1.  Too long - People often stop completing a form if it's too long. The more fields you add to a form, the higher the chances of abandonment. Forms with more than 10 fields have incompletion rates of up to 70%.

2.  No reward - Offering a reward can increase completion rates significantly. You don't need to give away free products. The reward could be as simple as the results of an online test.

3.  Not mobile friendly - It's no secret more people use their mobiles for online activity than ever before. Your self-qualification forms need to be mobile-friendly. Otherwise, the chances of abandonment increase significantly.

4.  Unclear - People often abandon forms if they don't understand them. They might not understand what information you want or how to answer some questions. Making the objective clear and using simple language increases the chance of completion.

5.  Not secure - Chances of abandonment increase when people think their information is not secure. Always use secure forms on your website. People value security and will trust your business more.

10 Steps to Designing Effective Self-Qualification Forms

Designing effective self-qualification forms is crucial for lead generation. It ensures you target the right people with your marketing efforts, those genuinely interested in your product.

Here are 10 steps to help you:

Define your objectives - Determine the primary goal of your self-qualification form. Is it to identify hot leads for immediate sales engagement, segment leads for targeted marketing, or gather specific information for personalized follow-ups?

Identify key information - Decide the essential information you need to collect from potential customers to achieve your objectives. Consider questions about their needs, budget, timeline, and any other criteria that help qualify leads.

Keep it concise - Strive for brevity. Long, complex forms increase abandonment rates. Focus on collecting the most vital information. You can always gather additional details in follow-up interactions.

Use clear and simple language - Phrase questions in plain language. Avoid jargon or technical terms that may confuse or intimidate users. Make your forms easy to understand.

Offer clear instructions - Give clear instructions at the beginning of your form. Explain why the user should complete it and describe how their responses will be used. Transparency builds trust.

Design for mobile responsiveness - Ensure your form is mobile-friendly. Most users access websites from mobile devices. So your form should be easy to navigate and complete on smaller screens.

Choose suitable question types - Select appropriate question types for your aims. Common types include multiple-choice, checkboxes, dropdowns, and open-ended text fields. The right question types make forms more user-friendly.

Prioritize questions - Organize questions in a logical order. Start with basic, non-invasive questions to build trust. Save more personal or sensitive questions for later in the form.

Use conditional logic - Use conditional logic to show relevant questions based on previous responses. This personalizes your forms and shows users only relevant questions. It makes your forms "smart."

Test and optimize - Test your form with a small group of users to identify any usability issues, ambiguities, or drop-off points. Use A/B testing to experiment with different form variations and optimize for higher completion rates.

The goal of a self-qualification form is to gather valuable information while providing a positive user experience. You must balance data collection with user-friendliness to design an effective self-qualification form.

7 Strategic Places for Self-Qualification Forms

Place self-qualification forms strategically on your website. It helps to maximize their effectiveness in lead generation and conversion.

Here are 7 strategic places to start:

Landing Pages - Place a self-qualification form prominently on a dedicated landing page related to your core product. This ensures interested visitors can easily find and engage with the form. Our customer Goodhart Coffee get's great results from this:

Product Pages - Include self-qualification forms on individual product pages. Visitors can express their interest or inquire about a specific offering.

Blog Posts - Insert forms within blog posts that discuss topics related to your products. For example, say you're a finance business posting a blog article titled: "How to Financially Plan for the Future." Include a financial calculator form on the page, allowing them to calculate potential future savings.

Pop-Up Forms - These can be effective for capturing visitor attention. Consider using timed pop-ups that appear after a user has spent a certain amount of time on your site. Ensure that the offer is relevant to the page the visitor is on.

Sticky Sidebars - Implement a sticky sidebar that displays the self-qualification form as visitors scroll down the page. This keeps the form accessible without annoying the user.

Floating Banners - Create a floating banner that appears at the top or bottom of the page, inviting visitors to self-qualify. Make sure it doesn't block essential content.

Exit-Intent Pop-Ups - When a user shows signs of leaving your site (such as moving the cursor toward the browser's close button), trigger an exit-intent pop-up with a compelling offer and a self-qualification form.

Relevance plays a big part in strategically placing self-qualification forms. It should relate to what they're searching for, giving value and addressing their needs. This boosts engagement and conversion rates.

Conclusion

Self-qualification forms are a valuable weapon in your lead-generation and lead-qualification arsenal. They allow people to self-identify as potential customers based on their needs, preferences, and buying intentions.It's an efficient way for your business to qualify leads. And self-qualification forms can be the start of a beautiful automated process.

Automation is a huge win for your marketing efforts. Businesses using marketing automation to nurture prospects experience a 451% increase in qualified leads.

Our software is perfect for automating your marketing systems. Streamline your processes, save time, and improve efficiency with Convert_.