10 Buying Signals to Identify Prospects Who Are Sales-Ready

Published by Nilangan Ray on June 15, 2024

Updated on 15th June, 2024

It is not hard to determine purchase intent in the world of digital sales. With proper tracking of behavioral patterns, you can find out which prospects are gesturing buying signals at any scale, whether you have 10 leads or 10,000 leads. In sales, timing is a crucial factor. Going in too soon or too late can significantly change the outcome. By identifying buying signals, sales can prioritize leads who are ready to buy and also perfectly time the sales process.

Defining Buying Signals

Buying signals are behavioral patterns that leads show while evaluating your products and services. With digital purchases and SAAS, these patterns can be easily identified by tracking website, emails and in-app interactions. The signals can also be traced by monitoring sales engagement. Is a lead very active with sales? Is he/she asking relevant questions?

Let’s take a look at these 10 defining signals that will help you find sales-ready leads:

1. Enquiry about pricing

If a prospect checks your pricing page or makes an enquiry and then continues to evaluate your product, it gives out a strong buying signal. It means that the prospect is receptive of your pricing and is likely to buy if they find your product fitting their requirements.

2. Booking a demo or signing up with free trial

Another signal is scheduling a demo or signing up for a free trial. While this is not a direct purchase intent, it rather implies that the lead is micro-committing to your product and is considering it. Think of it like the difference between seeing an interesting product on Amazon and adding to a wishlist. The addition to wishlist action can be considered as a more serious interest as compared to just taking a look.

3. Engagement with pre-sales emails

It is a good idea to keep track of how leads are engaging with your onboarding and pre-sales emails. Reading your emails and even responding to them or clicking links from them can be considered as good engagement and will work as a strong signal. Combine this metric with other data points to determine intent and follow through accordingly.

In the day and age of mass emails to the point where people now are desensitized to emails, good email engagement can be considered as a strong signal.

4. Account activation and completing the setup

For SAAS companies especially, this is a strong data point for product qualifying leads. A prospect who has completed all necessary onboarding steps and has set up his account properly is showing strong intent.

To start, identify key onboarding steps and set up a process to track when leads complete these steps. For an email marketing software for example, setting up your email with the software and creating a test campaign is a good indicator for initial interest.

5. Engagement frequency with the product

By far the strongest indicator of intent is product engagement. A prospect who has visited your website multiple times throughout days is far more likely to buy than someone who just visited your website one or two times. If you have a SAAS product, a lead using your product frequently is a very strong signal. Again, this is part of the product qualifying process.

6. Asking questions about migrating to your product

Serious buyers who are using competitor products would often ask you how you compare with competitors and how they can smoothly shift to using your product. If a lead has seen your pricing, tried your product and is now asking you about migration, he/she is a strong buying candidate.

7. Asking questions about policies, contract, and post-sales

Serious buyers, especially high-ticket customers who are interested in your product will often ask you hard questions about your policies, contract terms, etc. Questions can be:

• I have a question regarding something mentioned in your terms of services
• How do you handle customer data? Do you provide a non-disclosure agreement?
• How do you handle data security?
• Are there any additional charges?
• Do you provide a dedicated account manager?
• What if I have to upgrade at a later time?
• How do you handle cancelations?

If high-ticket leads are asking questions like these and have also tried out your product, chances are that they are in the consideration process and need these questions answered before they purchase.

8. Crossing free usage limits

Most SAAS companies offer some form of a free trial or a free account that have restrictions. Users who are crossing the free limits, are probably getting good value from the product and should benefit from an upgrade.

It is a good idea to create an automated process to identify these leads and promote account upgrades to them.

9. Interest in a particular use case/product/solution

People who are trying to solve specific problems are likely to buy when their problems are solved at the prices they are able to pay. If a lead is engaging with content related to a particular feature, product or use case, it implies strong intent. The data not only helps you track buying signals but also helps you target your nurturing content and give sales a headstart by providing them the data.

10. Consumption of high-value content

Engaging with some content types send out clear buying signals. These are:

• Support content
• Webinar
• Case studies
• Guides
• Implementation tutorials

Only those who are seriously considering your product will engage deeply with your high-value resources. Using website tracking and page view duration data, these buyers can be identified.

Look out for these 10 buying signals to prioritize high probability deals and sell efficiently.

11. Negative: Actions or words that show disinterest

Not all signals are positive, and it’s crucial to recognize behaviors that indicate a lack of buying intent. Unclear answers, lack of prompt communication, or avoiding further steps can be strong indicators of disinterest. For example, if a lead consistently gives vague responses to your questions, it might suggest they are not serious about moving forward. Similarly, if they take a long time to respond to emails or avoid scheduling follow-up meetings, these are red flags. By identifying these negative signals early, you can adjust your approach or allocate your resources more effectively, focusing on leads with higher potential.

12. Involvement of other decision-makers

A significant buying signal is the involvement of multiple decision-makers from an account. When more people from the same organization start participating in meetings, asking questions, and showing interest in your product, it indicates a higher level of consideration. This typically means the lead is moving forward in their decision-making process and wants to ensure all relevant stakeholders are on board. For example, if a technical lead joins a demo call to evaluate the technical fit of your product, it shows serious intent. Recognizing this signal allows you to tailor your sales approach to address the concerns and interests of all decision-makers, increasing your chances of closing the deal.

Image Source: Entrepreneur Handbook

13. Dissatisfaction with competitors or current suppliers

When a lead expresses dissatisfaction with their current supplier or competitor’s product, it’s a strong indicator they are looking for an alternative solution. This can be a powerful buying signal, as the lead is likely experiencing pain points that your product can solve. For instance, if they mention issues with customer service, lack of features, or high costs with their current provider, it indicates they are actively seeking a better option. By understanding their dissatisfaction, you can highlight how your product addresses these specific issues, making a compelling case for them to switch to your solution. This targeted approach can significantly enhance your chances of converting such leads into customers.

Data Points That You Need to Track to Identify Buying Signals

To effectively identify buying signals, tracking the right data points is crucial. By using both first-party and third-party data, you can gain comprehensive insights into lead behavior and intent.

Here are key data points you need to track:

First-party Intent Data

First-party intent data is collected directly from your own channels, such as your website, forms, email campaigns, and social media interactions. This data provides direct insight into how leads are engaging with your content and products.

• Website Behavior: Track page visits, time spent on pages, and click paths to understand what interests your leads the most.
• Form Submissions: Monitor forms completed for demos, downloads, or contact requests.
• Email Engagement: Evaluate open rates, click-through rates, and responses to your email campaigns.
• Social Media Interactions: Analyze likes, shares, comments, and direct messages on your social media platforms.

You can use products like Salespanel or Hubspot Marketing Hub to implement first party tracking.

Third-party Data

Third-party data provides additional context about your prospects, helping you understand their broader market behavior and interests.

• Market Interest: Determine if visitors are in the market for a product like yours by analyzing their behavior on the web.
• Industry Trends: Use third-party data to stay updated on industry trends and how they might influence buyer behavior.

You can use third-party intent data tools to get this information. Keep in mind, these tools are not 100% accurate and there isn’t much you can do to verify accuracy and credibility of third-party data.

Customer Fit Data

Customer fit data helps you determine if leads match your ideal buyer persona. This involves analyzing demographic, firmographic, and technographic information to assess compatibility with your target market.

• Demographics: Job profile, age, location, and other personal attributes.
• Firmographics: Collect data on company size, industry, revenue, and other organizational characteristics.
• Technographics: Understand the technologies and tools used by the account. Are they similar to what your customers also use?

Account Health

Account health data provides insights into the overall status and dynamics of a potential customer’s organization.

• Team Changes: Track new recruits or decision makers who have joined the lead’s team.
• Fundraising Activities: Monitor if the company has recently raised funds.
• Business Growth: Identify signs of business growth, such as new office locations or expansions.

By tracking these data points, you can effectively identify and act on buying signals, prioritizing leads with the highest potential for conversion. This strategic approach ensures that your sales efforts are focused, efficient, and more likely to result in successful deals.

Implementing strategy with Salespanel at any scale

We discussed all the buying signals available but the question that arises is: how can you detect these signals and filter out high intent leads on a scale? If you have 100 leads a month or 1000 leads a month or more, you certainly cannot keep an eye on everyone all the time. This is where a lead tracking and qualification software comes into place.

The way Salespanel works is that it automatically captures leads from all of your channels like forms, live chat, email campaigns, etc. and tracks them in real-time. Now, you can set up a lead qualification process that looks for desired behavioral patterns and brings out high intent leads. The most efficient feature to use here would be lead scoring. With lead scoring, you can set up rules for every buying signal that is suitable for you. In that way, instead of relying on one buying signal, you can use a set of signals to strengthen your process and avoid false positives. Salespanel also alerts your sales team in real-time, sends them all relevant lead data and creates deals on your CRM to help close these deals.

To let Salespanel take care of all of your lead identification, tracking and qualification needs, start your free trial today.