Lead scoring can seem daunting at first but will become invaluable in your quest to generate sales qualified lead. We all know that lead aren’t created equal and that most web visitors downloading case studies and whitepaper are not ready to buy. So how do gage when someone is qualified for sales? This is where lead scoring come in.
Lead scoring as its name implies allows you to associate a score to each individual leads based on different criterias. Criterias can be both demographic (state, country, title…) Or behavioral ( # of site visits, type of downloaded content…). The score can be based on any range (0-100 or 0-1000…) The important thing is that the range stays the same and that your point attribution is aligned with your range.
Here are 7 steps to creating your lead scoring system
- Define what a sales qualified lead is for your business. Create this definition with sales. Your ideal sales lead can be one or more type if you have multiple markets or buyer types. Your definition should identify key demographics or behaviors that qualify your lead. Here is an example. CEO for a business with 1M+ in revenue that has attended at least one webinar.
- Determine your scoring range. Will your score from 0 to 100? or 0 to 500?
- Once you have your perfect lead definition identify how many points you will attribute to each action/attribute. For example when title is CEO you will give 20 points on 100. When someones attend a webinar you will give 10 poins etc… When building your scoring start simple. You can always refine later. Your scoring model will evolve over time so start simple and refine as you go. Give points only to lead attributes or actions that help you qualify your lead.
- Identify the threshold (score level) at which you want your leads transfered to sales. For example, “All leads over 65/100 should be moved to sales”. Most marketing automation vendors can sync your leads to a CRM based on score.
- Implement your scoring inside your marketing automation software.
- Review and evaluate leads being passed to sales with sales. Make the needed adjustments on your scoring and then repeat review each week or month.
- Enjoy the benefits of lead scoring.
As you can see lead scoring itself is not complicated. Getting your recipe straight will however take more time and effort. Lead scoring will not be perfect when you start but stick with it, review it and refine it and you will see the benefits of lead scoring.
