Table of Contents
Lead scoring is a technique that uses data to identify the best person for an opportunity. Data allows businesses of all shapes and sizes to use lead scoring in-house, or outsource it to companies like KISSmetrics who have done extensive research on specific industries, such as finance. Lead scoring can increase conversions by up to 50%.
Lead scoring is a tactic used by marketers to increase conversions and revenue. Lead scoring can be done manually or through software. Read more in detail here: lead scoring template.
Lead scoring is developing and executing a rating system so that your sales and marketing efforts may be focused on the prospects who have the highest probability of converting. This enables you to move hot prospects through the sales funnel more rapidly and clinch transactions. Discover the finest software solutions to help you do it efficiently, as well as examples of lead scoring in action, in five simple stages.
1. Create a set of lead scoring criteria.
Lead scoring allows you to improve your sales and marketing operations based on a numerical score that determines how valuable a lead is. Scores may be added to lead records manually or automatically as they are produced and interact with your company.
The criteria for scoring differ from one company to the next. But, in the end, your lead ranking system should assess each prospect’s interest and quality to decide if it’s a hot or cool opportunity.
The first step in identifying the best leads to pursue and nurture is to identify the characteristics that distinguish the best leads. A good lead will have three primary characteristics: they will be a good match for your product or service, they will have shown interest in what your firm has to offer, and they will be able to buy the product or service.
Good Fit
Customer profiles are a frequent approach to determine whether or not someone is a suitable match for your company. These profiles, also known as “ideal buyer types,” indicate the most prevalent or desirable sorts of buyers for your organization based on demographics, habits, and goals. They’re the people you’re trying to reach with marketing or sales efforts, and they’re the ones who determine what you say and how you say it.
Leads that are a good match for your product or service also have an instant need for it. Insurance policyholders, for example, do not often shop around until their policy’s expiry date approaches. As a result, even if they are a good match based on your client profiles, they may not have to renew for many months and hence do not need your services right now.
An example of a business insurance client profile is as follows:
Level of Interest
A lead might show a strong interest in your company in a variety of ways. They might, for example, demonstrate a want to learn more by engaging in campaign engagements such as reading an email, clicking a link, completing a web form, or downloading anything by becoming a marketing-qualified lead (MQL). It may, on the other hand, be someone you met at a networking event who exhibited interest in your goods or services orally.
They have showed even greater interest in lead qualifying activities in your sales funnel by connecting with a sales person or sales resource if they become a sales-qualified lead (SQL). Requesting a demo, requesting pricing or a proposal, signing up for a free trial, or consenting to a sales presentation are all examples of typical behaviors.
Ability to make purchases
The final criteria to evaluate is the prospect’s Ability to make purchases. Often, a potential customer would be a good fit and shows plenty of interest, but cannot finalize the purchase. This typically occurs either due to budgetary constraints or because they don’t have the decision-making power for a particular product or service.
2. Establish a Lead Scoring System
Create a point system based on your criteria once you’ve defined the primary aspects to consider when analyzing a lead. Who the lead is and how they act will always be used to determine lead score. Some of the actions they’ve previously undertaken may have helped them go through the lead generation stage of the sales process, therefore they should be included into their score.
The chart below illustrates how to score leads, as well as how many points may be awarded for specific tasks. Keep in mind that occurrences that make a lead less qualified might be penalized with negative points.
An example based on prospect fit, Level of Interest, and Ability to make purchases.
We suggest that you choose a scoring system that ranges from 1 to 100 so that you can readily comprehend the results. A small company’ lead ranking system, on the other hand, may be significantly more straightforward, ranging from one to ten points. Also, keep in mind that lead scores might fluctuate from day to day as new information becomes available and events occur.
For instance, you could discover that a lead meets part of the criteria for your ideal client profile, earning them 30 points. They engage with your marketing campaign the following day by downloading a white paper, earning them three more points, bringing their total to 33.
After a week, they request pricing (another 4 points) and a demo (another 4 points), bringing their total to 41. Then they find they’re out of budget (deduct 5 points) and are demoted to 37 till fresh information is obtained.
While lead scoring may be done manually, using customer relationship management (CRM) software is significantly more efficient. Most CRMs have both built-in and automated prospect nurturing features to help you save time, discover hot leads more readily, and execute sales pipeline activities to progress them down your funnel.
CRMs help you to keep track of leads, manage their information, and engage with them as they advance through the sales funnel. Because the activity and data are already recorded in the CRM platform, it’s far simpler to automate scoring leads than it is to manually award points because of the lead management tools a CRM provides.
Lead scores are available inside contact records or in a list style in CRM applications like Freshsales and Salesforce. Lead scoring may also be done (manually or automatically) using the capabilities in your CRM or artificial intelligence (AI).
In the profile, there is a score for freshsales leads (Source: Freshworks)
Through artificial intelligence, Salesforce has created a lead score list. (Image courtesy of Salesforce)
3. Create a manual process or configure lead scoring in your CRM.
If you don’t have a CRM, you’ll need to devise a manual or other approach for managing contact information and assigning lead ratings to you and your team. You may be able to handle a rudimentary scoring procedure using spreadsheet software. While spreadsheets may not provide the same level of process automation as CRMs with lead scoring tools, they can nevertheless assist you in calculating and tracking scores and identifying individuals who are most likely to convert.
If your CRM has the ability to score leads built in, the next step is to set up the system to monitor scores and give points for criteria. In most cases, you may do this in the CRM settings where characteristics or criteria are defined, and you’ll use automation to speed up the process wherever feasible.
HubSpot and Zoho CRM, for example, make it simple to distribute points based on activity or lead profile information. If you’re not sure where to begin, they even give default lead ranking ratings for different prospect and customer behaviors.
Configuration of HubSpot Lead Scoring. (Image courtesy of HubSpot)
Setting Lead Scoring Criteria in Zoho CRM. (Photo courtesy of Zoho)
4. Concentrate on high-scoring leads
You may start utilizing your CRM to discover and prioritize the most essential prospects after you’ve enabled its lead scoring tools or developed a method for manually scoring leads. These might be the transactions that are most likely to convert, but they could also be the ones that are more lucrative than others.
Make a filtered lead list for your sales team that includes all prospects that fall inside a certain lead score range, such as the top 25%. Agents should next contact these hot prospects directly through phone or email to follow up. Another time-saving feature of a CRM is the ability to filter lead lists by criteria such as lead score total or range. Freshsales, for example, allows you to do just that.
Filtering Freshsales leads by score (Image courtesy of Freshsales)
Similarly, marketing teams may set up CRM rules to automatically send lead nurturing emails and material to high-scoring prospects, or manually send this content. In addition, if a lead has a low score, you may attempt different email marketing campaigns or special packages to spark their interest and raise their score.
Lead scores may also be used to decide whether leads are assigned to sales people automatically or manually. If a prospect interacts with campaigns and their rating suggests they are ready to buy, your CRM may automatically assign that lead to a particular sales person while also sending an automated email to the prospect inviting them to book a sales presentation.
For example, HubSpot allows you to automate lead routing based on area, lead source, and industry, in addition to lead score. If specific contacts exceed a score level, this platform’s automatic lead management functions include sending prepared emails to them.
Using HubSpot’s workflow email automation, you can send emails to leads depending on their score. (Image courtesy of HubSpot)
Use scheduling software like Calendly to automate the scheduling of sales appointments. In a scheduling gateway, recipients may sign up for phone or video meetings, which are seamlessly synced to all participants’ calendars. It also connects with common CRM systems like Salesforce, HubSpot, and Zoho CRM to provide alerts about new, canceled, or rescheduled events.
Schedule the portal on a regular basis (Source: HubSpot)
5. Analyze & Adjust Your Lead Scoring Strategy
You must examine your outcomes as part of sales management and alter your plans appropriately. As trends develop and insights are gained, you may discover that you need to modify current customer profiles or create new client personas for focused sales and marketing efforts.
For example, if your software company initially targeted big, enterprise-level firms but found a number of small businesses and freelancers showing interest, you might establish a new customer profile to reflect those leads. Furthermore, your system would be altered, awarding more points to firms with fewer workers than before.
Lead scoring, like any other sales or marketing strategy, requires trial and error to determine what works. You’ll discover that some actions are more important than you imagined, such as someone downloading an industry study being more important in closing a transaction than someone requesting a demo. Certain sections of your profiles may also have more weight than others.
For example, you may have chosen a certain sector and work position without regard for the company’s size. After a period, you see that your product or service has value in numerous sectors, with mid-sized businesses having the greatest closing rates.
As that sort of lead is created, that new profile characteristic should be awarded additional points, necessitating a change in the lead ranking mechanism.
Actionable Examples
Check out some examples of how to apply lead scoring based on certain criteria now that we’ve gone through the steps. The examples below demonstrate how to score leads for five distinct sorts of businesses. Based on prospect fit, interest, and purchasing ability, the following points are allocated to a specific lead.
The ABC Law Firm is a law firm that specializes on
- 45 points for a legal company (25 points) plus 1-10 workers (20 points).
- Currently using software, but urgently need to upgrade: a score of 25
- 5 points if the lead contact has some buying power.
- 2 points for software that is close to their budget.
- They requested a demo after receiving a positive email response: 5+8 = 13 points
- 90 points are currently available (Hot lead)
XZY Law Inc. is a law firm based in New York City.
- 35 points for a legal company (25 points) plus 51-100 workers (10 points).
- There is no pressing need to modify the software: minus ten points
- 10 points if the lead contact has exclusive buying power.
- 2 points for software that is close to their budget.
- 1 point for opening a marketing email
- Total: 38 points right now (Cold lead)
The Accounting Firm, Inc. is a company that specializes in accounting.
- 35 points for an accounting business (20 points) plus 11-50 workers (15 points).
- There is no current software and there is no need to change: minus five points
- 10 points if the lead contact has exclusive buying power.
- 10 points for software that is within their budget.
- 15 points (4+5+6) for excellent cold call engagement, strong email answer, and whitepaper download
- 65 points are currently available. (Hot lead)
John’s Law & Accounting Corp.
- A law/accounting business (30 points) plus one to ten workers (20 points) equals 50 points.
- Currently using software, but urgently need to upgrade: a score of 25
- 10 points if the lead contact has exclusive buying power.
- 2 points for software that is close to their budget.
- Proposal requested: 12 points
- Total points currently: 99 (Hot lead)
Human Resources Management at MNO
- 15 points for an HR consultancy business + 10 points for 51-100 workers = 25 points
- There is no pressing need to modify the software: minus ten points
- Purchasing power of the lead contact is nil: 0 points
- 2 points for software that is close to their budget.
- 1 point for opening a marketing email
- 18 points are currently available (Cold lead)
Conclusion
Lead scoring is a useful technique for finding the most qualified prospects to pursue and moving hot leads more quickly through your sales funnel. Use a CRM to automate lead scoring, produce contact lists for hot chances more simply, route hot leads to agents for follow-up, and automate lead nurturing and deal closing actions depending on a prospect’s potential to convert.
“Lead scoring marketo” is a way to increase conversions and revenue. This process focuses on the leads that are most likely to convert into customers, which is done by analyzing their behavior. Reference: lead scoring marketo.
Related Tags
- predictive lead scoring
- lead scoring salesforce
- lead scoring best practices
- hubspot lead scoring
- hubspot predictive lead scoring
