Lead scoring is becoming more and more important. Consumers have more choices, are being pursued by multiple companies, and have the power to drive the relationship. Lead scoring helps you qualify leads based on both behavioral and demographic data. It shows you who’s hot and who’s not resulting in enhanced productivity and more closed deals.

If you haven’t started playing with lead scoring just yet, let this be a guide to help you successfully implement lead scoring into your current process. With lead scoring, you will immediately start seeing results and your sales team will be equipped with better data to help them sell.

Benefits of lead scoring:

Qualifies leads
Takes the guess work out of sales
Encourages focus on hot leads
Assists with effective automation strategies
Helps sales productivity

Define your ideal customer(s)

In order for you to rank your customers based on demographic data, you need to have an idea of what your perfect customer looks like. Are they a decision maker living in Southern California with a Title of VP or Director or are they in IT working in a company of over 25 people? Every company has a target market they sell to, and if you want to apply effective lead scoring, you are going to have to know who this market consists of.

Are they a decision maker?

Do they have a specific title (i.e. Director, VP, C-Suite)

Do they live in a specific location?

Is their company the right size? (Revenue, employees, etc.)

What is their budget?

When are they looking to purchase?

Is this company in a specific industry?

You need to think about the answers to all of these questions on a scale from not so much to ULTIMATE customer. The scale you choose, whether it’s 1-10 or 1-100 is up to you, but be as detailed as you can when answering and setting lead scores for each buyer persona.

Differentiate between Interest and Intent

This is HUGE factor when it comes to successful lead scoring. Interest and intent are not the same and represent the difference between buyers and window shoppers. If you fail to differentiate between the two, your sales funnel becomes inflated and inaccurate. Saying you have 100 leads when only 25 of them have actually contacted a salesperson and gone through a demo is misguided information. It also won’t help your lead to customer ratio. So, instead of grouping everyone into one category, lead scoring helps you differentiate between the two.

You can score your contacts, leads, and customers on any number of actions.

Website pages visited

Emails opened

Links clicked

Webinars/events attended

Social engagement

Meetings/emails/interactions

Incorporate Negative lead scores

Just because a lead was hot a few weeks ago doesn't mean they are still just as interested in your product or service. This is where negative lead scoring comes into play. Over time a lead (if inactive) loses its value as a prospect. You should also account for contacts who are simply perusing your website for career opportunities or other non-sales activities, as these should not skew your funnel.

Negative lead scoring helps you weed out those who are not potential prospects or have gone ‘cold’ over a period of time. What a contact did a month ago, does not necessarily translate to present day; therefore their lead score should deflate rather than stay the same. Think about this as you setup your lead scoring.

Tip: Activate follow up workflows if a lead has gone ‘cold’ (when their score has reached a particular low). This is great way to reengage old leads and hopefully re-enter them into your funnel.

Automate lead nurturing with lead scoring

Automation is great. It helps us save time, streamline processes, as well as drive more leads down the funnel. However, to get automation right, you need to carefully plan your approach. Lead scoring can, and should, play an active role in your lead nurturing and automation strategy. Use lead scoring and point thresholds to trigger workflows, drip campaigns, and more.

For example, if a lead hits a certain point threshold in one day, trigger a follow up workflow or other lead nurturing activity (such as a drip campaign) to help drive your lead down the sales funnel.

Lead scoring lets you strike while the iron is hot.

Now that you know the basics of an effective lead scoring strategy, it’s time to sit down and think about how you plan to employ this strategy. First, you need a CRM. Second, associate actions with scores. For example, how many activity points does a lead get if they open your drip campaign emails? Remember, not every email should be weighted the same. Some are much more geared toward sales/lead nurturing than others. Keep this in mind for all of your activities and how you choose to score them.

Lead Scoring Cheat Sheet

Demographic Scoring

Fields Relevant to WHO

Title
Company
Company Size
Revenue
Location
Industry

Activity Lead Scoring

Fields Relevant to WHAT

Opened email
Clicked on CTA
Downloaded eBook
Attended webinar
Had a live demo
Filled out a form (Sales form/How to Purchase form = more points)

Other criteria to score

When they took each action
Where they came from (lead source)
How many interactions they’ve had with your company
Pages visited on your website (comparison page, pricing page vs. career opportunities page)
Survey responses
How many times they forwarded your email

For more information about lead scoring, please see the following resources.

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How Lead Scoring Helps Drive Conversions (and how to set it up)

Lead Scoring Cheat Sheet

How Lead Scoring Helps Drive Conversions
(and how to set it up)