Verifying your sales leads is an important step in selling a business-to-business (B2B) product or service. In a perfect world, all of your leads would be 100% accurate without any discrepancies. Unfortunately, this isn't always the case. It's not uncommon for companies to receive erroneous lead riddled with the wrong information. And if the prospect's information isn't right, you won't be able to use the lead effectively in your marketing and sales strategy. So, how do you verify B2B leads to ensure they are correct?
One solution is to implement an automatic corrections on lead generation forms. This doesn't work for all fields, but it can certainly prove useful for street addresses -- and addresses are often entered incorrectly. Basically, automatic corrections works by showing the user suggestions for his or her address. If they enter their business's addresses incorrectly, the form will suggest variations that are stored in the database.
Another lead verification idea is to cross-reference prospects' Internet Protocol (IP) address with their specified address. If a prospect specifies his or her address is in New York but they are using a California-based IP address, it could indicate erroneous information. Granted, there are times when a prospect's IP address will not match their listed address. So, this method should only be used in conjunction with other methods to help verify your B2B leads.
For email leads, consider using a double opt-in form. With a double opt-in form, the prospect must enter his or her email address, after which they'll receive an email asking them to verify their subscription. Because it requires two steps -- initially signing up and then verifying the subscription -- double opt-in forms are highly effective at verifying email leads.
Of course, there are also third-party tools and software that you can use to verify your B2B leads. These tools will automate many steps in the lead verification process, allowing you to focus your time and energy elsewhere. Furthermore, some lead verification software and solutions can even rate the quality of your leads, which is another reason to consider using them. Using them, you can identify which leads are most likely to convert into paying customers and which leads are not.
Following the strategies listed here will help you verify your company's B2B leads. Once verified, you can then hand them over to your sales team to get the ball rolling.