What is Lead Scoring?

What is lead scoring?

In marketing and sales conversations, lead scoring is a hot topic these days. I want to review what lead scoring is, what it is not, and some helpful tips to keep in mind as you apply lead scoring to your business.

At its core, lead scoring is the practice of assigning relative value to a sales lead. The higher the score, the more likely that lead will ________ (match the target customer profile, become a opportunity, buy a product, etc). This is subjective, but the end goal is to create a scoring system that prioritizes leads based on the criteria that is important to the company.

I’ve talked with companies that have such strict criteria for leads, that they need to have a human score leads after doing research on each. While this will work if the average sales prices are high enough, I would highly recommend automating the process if possible for efficiency and scale. There are a variety of software solutions that can help automate the lead scoring process (Optify’s Digital Marketing Software is one of them).

Here is a brief overview of the main factors that can contribute to an automated lead score:

Company Information (aka: firmographic data, explicit information)
This information is usually supplied by some sort of business database. Included is information on the company name, industry segment, size (employee or revenue), location of headquarters, etc.

Personal Information
This includes details on contact information, title, or personal location. Personal location can differ from company location, so keep your sales geography rules in mind. Does your team divide on company location or where the prospect physically sits?

Behavioral Information (aka implicit information)
Arguably the most valuable information is how the lead is interacting with a website or campaign. Forms completed, total visits, average pageviews, webpages viewed and emails opened are some examples in this category.

What Lead Scoring is Not

Lead scoring is not the answer to all of your sales and/or marketing problems! It is not a holy grail that will magically align everything you do in demand generation or inbound marketing.

It will also never be an exact science. Developing valuable, actionable lead scores will take several tests and refinements.

Even if you feel like you have solid lead scores develop, do not rest. You still need to fill the lead funnel with quality leads that will score high. Analyze data from sources and campaigns to find out the ROI and double down on your best inbound marketing efforts

Tips for Lead Scoring Success

Keep it simple, stupid
One of my father’s favorite phrases when I was growing up. Combining 15 different factors with slightly different values will end up doing more harm than good. How does a sales rep know if a 41 is actually better than a 37?

Make the data readily available
Work with your sales team on the options to consume the data. Would they prefer to see full details in the CRM or in the lead scoring platform? Do they value push notifications like a daily email or alert system?

Good luck! Make 2013 the year that lead scoring helps you light up your sales team.