Qualification
Part of Inbound B2B lead generation
Defining a qualified enquiry before building campaigns
Set a shared qualified-enquiry rule before launch, including service fit, request detail, ownership and how to handle unclear submissions.
Before launching a campaign, define a qualified sales enquiry as a request your team can reasonably assess and act on. Agree on the criteria with sales, identify the information needed to apply them, and decide what happens when a request falls short. A submission target alone cannot tell the receiving team whom to contact.
Write a decision rule
Start with the work your business can take on: which problems, services and locations are in scope, what the person is asking for, and what information would make a first response possible. Keep organisational fit and stated need separate. A suitable organisation may ask for something you do not provide; a clear request may come from an organisation outside your service area.
A sample rule is: “An identifiable request about one of our supported services, from an organisation we can serve, with enough detail to choose an owner and a sensible next step.” Adapt each part to the business. A job title, company size or downloaded file should not stand in for a project need unless it genuinely helps the team decide.
Decide what to do with incomplete requests
Use outcomes that reviewers can apply consistently:
| Outcome | Decision | Response |
|---|---|---|
| Ready for follow-up | Within scope, with enough context to start a useful conversation | Assign an owner with the original request |
| Needs clarification | Potentially within scope, with an important fact missing | Ask a focused question before assigning a sales stage |
| Outside scope | A clear request the business cannot serve | Give an accurate decline or appropriate route |
| Not a sales enquiry | A support request, content request, duplicate or unusable submission | Handle through the appropriate process |
Give reviewers examples of difficult cases. An early-stage buyer can still make a qualified enquiry if your service includes helping them scope the problem. A request for a proposal is outside scope when the business cannot do the work.
Work backwards to the campaign brief
For each offer, ask what kind of response it invites. “Download a guide” and “Discuss a planned migration” create different expectations. Decide whether both belong in the same reporting total. If a form is meant to capture sales enquiries, request enough information to route and answer them, while leaving room for the buyer’s own description.
Avoid requesting a long project history merely in case it becomes useful. For organisations covered by the Australian Privacy Principles, solicited personal information must be reasonably necessary for their functions or activities. Check the form against your actual obligations, and request further detail when needed.
Put the rule, examples and owner in the campaign brief. Agree when the receiving team will assess submissions, and how it will record acceptance, clarification or decline. If the rule changes during a campaign, date the change so later comparisons do not treat different standards as the same one.
Check the rule against real requests
After launch, have marketing and sales review actual requests together. Where they disagree, identify the ambiguous part of the rule. Revise it or the offer, then apply the new rule consistently. Qualification is a shared operational decision; a form or analytics platform cannot make it from a submission count alone.
