Still, confused about where your contact lies in the HubSpot Lifecycle Stage and Lead Status? Don't worry, you are not alone! The knowledge of lifecycle stage and lead status helps to manage the sales funnel and improve sales results . Any error or mistake in the two can lead to a conflict in funnel reporting and personalised marketing strategies . This blog is here to simplify the concept of lifecycle stage and lead status by covering their meaning, different types, and how the two can be used strategically for better conversions. So, let’s dive in:
What are Lifecycle stages?
A lifecycle stage represents a contact’s journey in the sales funnel. This track of the customer’s interactions with the brand allows better collaboration between the sales and the marketing team. It also saves the efforts of the team on the contacts who don't want to be marketed to or contacted to. Such contacts are then removed safely from the engagement efforts and marked accordingly in the CRM. The HubSpot lifecycle stages help with:
- Segmentation of the contacts allows tailored messaging (e.g., leads get educational content; opportunities get case studies).
- Alignment of the Marketing and Sales team, Marketing hands off MQLs to sales when criteria are met.
- Tracking the Sales funnel by tracing the conversion rates between different lifecycle stages
Different Lifecycle Stages
Before we dive deeper, let’s understand the different lifecycle stages and their criteria for categorisation:
- Subscriber: a new contact subscribed to a blog or newsletter on the brand’s website
- Lead: a contact that has converted on more than just the basic subscription sign-up (e.g. contact form, ebook download, etc.)
- Marketing Qualified Lead: HubSpot Score reaches a certain number indicating qualification
- Sales Qualified Lead: Upon interaction with a sales team member, the contact was determined to be a good fit
- Opportunity: the contact is now associated with a deal
- Customer: the contact has now closed the deal
- Evangelist: a customer that serves as a reference or promoter of the brand
- Other: None of the above fits, or we’ve spoken with them and decided they’re unqualified
What is Lead Status?
Lead status is simply the detailed tracking of a contact in a particular lifecycle stage. It is also referred to as the sub-stage of the SQL lifecycle stage, indicating the contact’s journey in the sales process. It is important to note that the lead status can vary (e.g., a lead might move from "Connected" to "Bad Timing" if they’re not ready to buy). Lead statuses help with:
- Sales Prioritisation of “Open” or “Connected” leads.
- Recycling the “Unqualified” or “Bad timing” leads to marketing for renewed nurturing efforts.
- Transparency in the sales funnel to recognise bottlenecks.
Different Types of Lead Status
Let’s now look at the different types of lead status. They are self-explanatory and indicate the contact’s journey in the SQL stage.
- New
- Open
- In Progress
- Open Deal
- Unqualified
- Attempted to Contact
- Connected
- Bad Timing
Lifecycle Stage VS Lead Status
Although both Lifecycle stage and lead stage both indicate a contact’s journey through the sales funnel. The major factors that differentiate both from each other are:
- Lifecycle stage starts with the contact’s first interaction with the brand’s website e.g. subscribing to a newsletter whereas the lead status starts once a contact qualifies to the SQL stage from the MQL stage.
- The lifecycle stages can not go backward i.e. a contact once qualified for a certain stage can not be demoted, whereas if a contact is set as “Unqualified’ or “Bad timing”, the contact is cycled back to the marketing team for nurturing.
6 Real-World Use Cases of HubSpot Lifecycle Stage vs Lead Status
Let’s now take a look at the implementation of lifecycle stage and lead status through six real-world use cases:
Identifying Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs):
- Lifecycle Stage: In HubSpot initially when a contact engages with a marketing content like downloading an ebook, he is promoted to the “Lead” lifecycle stage from its previous stage i.e. “Subscriber”. If they further engage with the website by viewing multiple website pages or opening multiple emails, they are further promoted to the “MQL” lifecycle stage. Lead Status: Upon attaining the “MQL status in the lifecycle stage, this MQL’s lead status is now recognised as “New”, or “Open”, this means they are ready for sales engagement at this point.
Tracking Sales Outreach:
- Lifecycle Stage: Upon interaction with a sales representative, the Lifecycle stage of an MQL changes to "SQL (Sales Qualified Lead)" stage. Lead Status: Based on the SQL’s interaction with the sales team, its Lead Status can now be updated to track/ indicate its progress. It may be set to “Attempting to Contact", "Connected", "Qualified", or "Disqualified".
- Lifecycle Stage: In the next Lifecycle stage of the contact, i.e. "Opportunity" stage, they have a high potential to close. The next update is the “Customer” lifecycle stage. Lead Status: In the “Opportunity” lifecycle stage, the Lead Status can help track if a deal is "In Progress," "Won," or "Lost," further refining the pipeline view.
Automating Workflows:
- Managing Pipeline:
- Lifecycle Stage: Workflows can automatically update Lifecycle Stages based on specific actions (like downloading a second piece of content). This ensures that the contacts are categorised accurately. Lead Status: While Lead Status is often managed manually, workflows can be set up to update Lead Status based on certain activities, like when a lead interacts with a specific email sequence.
Segmenting Contacts:
- Lifecycle Stage: Lifecycle Stages help the marketing team to categorise the contacts and set up targeted marketing campaigns. Lead Status: Each lifecycle stage (starting with MQL) has a corresponding Lead Status which allows better segmentation for the sales team. This segmentation of the user in their particular lead status and lifecycle stage can be used to target specific contacts in the "MQL" Lifecycle Stage with a lead status of "Qualified".Identifying
Lost Opportunities:
- Lifecycle Stage: In case a deal is lost this time, the contact might still have better prospects of conversion at some other time. The lifecycle stage of such contacts might remain at "Opportunity". Lead Status: For the sales team, this opportunity can be updated to the Lead Status of "Closed - Lost", giving insight for the next follow up by the sales team.
Takeaway
Understanding the lifecycle stage and lead status is an important aspect of the HubSpot platform. It helps to maximise the understanding of the contact and plan the next move tailored specifically to the client. This helps sales and marketing teams collaborate better for better conversions.
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