Digital Growth - Feb. 2021
How Does Prospect Lead Scoring Work? A lead scoring model is a specialised and analytical system used to evaluate the quality of your leads. Essentially, points are given to a lead based on a variety of factors including their industry, level of interest in your business and related qualities associated with previous high-value clients and leads. Thanks to Customer Relationship Management systems (CRMs) such as HubSpot, this model is made easy thanks to online data collection, automation and audience segmentation. A lead scoring model or system is designed to help your team quickly and efficiently identify sales qualified leads versus low quality leads that aren’t that interested in what your business offers (also known as low priority leads).
The Benefits of Prospect Lead Scoring for your Business Marketing and Sales Alignment When it comes to selling, it is vital that your sales and marketing team are in alignment because if these teams are cohesive, less leads will fall through the cracks and your sales team will have greater insight into which leads are of a higher quality than others. Prospect lead scoring allows for your sales and marketing teams to align which ensures there are no leaks within your sales funnel. A powerful lead scoring model will have these two departments working together to develop lead scoring criteria which ensures all departments are on the same page when it comes to marketing message and sale message.
Creating a Lead Scoring Threshold A lead scoring threshold refers to the point value, when a prospective client is recognised as sales-ready. Once a leads score has exceeded or reached this amount, they will become what is known as a Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL) and will then be handed from marketing to sales. Your “threshold” needs to be correct as you do not want to waste your sales teams time by qualifying leads prematurely. You also don’t want to raise the threshold too high as you may be sitting on a promising lead for too long and they may contact your competitors before you have the chance to speak to them. So, how is a threshold actually determined? Your team needs to look at the current and previous clients and study historical data that can tell them about what characteristics mark a qualified lead. For example, if leads that request a demo usually become clients, then leads that request this should automatically be marked as an MQL. Once your sales and marketing teams have identified what the threshold is, you will be able to set this up on a CRM such as HubSpot, and you will automatically be notified when a lead becomes an MQL.
Explicit Lead Scoring Explicit lead scoring is when you assign points to a lead based on specific qualities such as demographics and characteristics. For example, explicit lead characteristics include: job title, industry experience, seniority within a business, company size etc. Having this information allows you to evaluate your leads and will help your marketing and sales team understand whether or not they are a good fit and likely to make a purchase. There are a variety of ways to get this information, from social media data to lead generation forms. For example, you can create a landing page that provides downloadable, helpful content such as an e-book or e-guide, and in order for a user to access the content, they need to fill out a form or questionnaire.
Understand Implicit Scoring Explicit lead scoring refers to demographics and characteristics while implicit scoring refers to awarding points to a lead based on their individual behaviour. That is: how they have interacted with your business and how they have engaged with your brand. Implicit Scoring Behaviours Include: •
Website and Webpage Visits
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Email Clicks / Email Opens
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Social Media Engagement / Interaction
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Content Downloads
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Contact Requests
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Webinar or Newsletter Subscriptions
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Demo Requests
We previously discussed the importance of downloadable content for information and data gathering purposes however, this kind of content can also be used for implicit scoring. The act of downloading an e-guide or e-book infers that a prospect is interested in something your business offers, and this can be added to their lead score. By understanding a prospects behaviour, how long they have spent on your website gathering information, and looking into their social media engagement with your business page, you have greater insight into their level of interest, and this kind of information (when gathered correctly) contributes more to a leads overall score than explicit scoring. By using a CRM, you are able to successfully track every interaction a user has with your business and this will help you gather and score implicit data successfully.
Negative Scoring Not all interactions a prospect has with your business will be a step toward a sale and your lead scoring model needs to recognise this fact. By implementing a system of negative scoring, you are able to remove points from a lead score based on characteristics or behaviours that imply a lack of interest in your business or service offerings.
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