Using Progressive Profiling To Improve Your Lead Intel

Did you know that the more information you request from a lead in one given form, the lower your chances of converting that lead to a sale? Simply put, asking for too much information at one time turns off prospective customers. That is one reason why progressive profiling needs to be in your marketing strategy.

How Do You Profile Progressively?

When you capture pertinent information from a prospect, that person turns into a lead. It can be as simple as getting their name and email address before you let them download a report from a landing page. But leads are not converted to paying customers just by getting a name and an email address. You need more information before your sales team can get to work. This is where progressive profiling comes in.

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Each time the lead wants to download information, you get a bit more data. It starts with the name and email address. Next, it might be demographic data about their company, like its location and number of employees. You can also grab the lead’s role in the company.

On the third download, you know this lead is evaluating your products or services as part of a decision-making process. This is when you ask for a phone number or the time frame to purchase. This continued quest for more details from a lead is progressive profiling.

What Makes This Type of Profiling So Powerful?

• It increases conversion rates. People do not like filling out long forms just to download a simple whitepaper or report. On the other hand, they don’t mind giving a name and email address for that type of download.
• It prevents repetition. You already have some information about a prospect. There is no need to ask for the same information again.
• It offers you the ability to capture more valuable information over time. You can ask progressively more detailed questions as the lead comes closer to the sales decision time.

How Do You Automate This Process?

Now, you might be thinking that you would need to build multiple web forms based on complex logic to capture all this information. And you would be correct, if you are not using a marketing automation platform like Hubspot.

The beauty of Hubspot is that you can leverage dynamic web forms and already captured data to get the information you need, without building multiple web forms. When the lead returns for another download, Hubspot can detect what information is already provided, then create a dynamic web form asking for the next level of detail. That information is stored in Hubspot, ready for the next download or for the sales team.

Another benefit of Hubspot is the ability to customize the data captured based on the buyer persona for each lead. This allows you to capture pertinent information based on the lead’s interest in a particular product or service. This allows progressively more detailed market segmentation and sales follow-up.

Are you ready to leverage progressive profiling in your company?