Best practices on lead scoring

Using Lead Scoring to Build a Bridge between Marketing and Sales

Lead Scoring Bridges Sales and MarketingEvery company’s marketing and sales teams should share the same critical objective. Fortunately, lead scoring bridges sales and marketing teams. After all, both teams main purpose is to bring in new business and generate revenue. Despite having the same goal, they use drastically different strategies and methods of achieving it. The marketing department is usually focused on bringing in an abundance of potential leads through either large advertising campaigns or efficient marketing automation software programs. The sales department, on the other hand is striving to secure high-quality leads through real-time customer engagement and personalized communication.

Combine Marketing & Sales for Lead Scoring and Build a Bridge between Marketing and Sales

Lead scoring can take lead generation to the next level by making it a collaborative effort that combines the knowledge and experience of both the marketing and sales departments. Most marketing professionals have spent their time creating numerous broad stroke lead generation techniques that are strategically used to appeal to a multitude of potential customers at once. When they put together a list of possible lead scoring criteria, it is usually based on the characteristics of the leads who respond to their “open-call” for new customers. Some of these leads have a high chance of conversion while others may have no interest in ever making a purchase.

Salespeople converse directly with potential customers, as well as existing customers. They know how to make a connection and which techniques to use to turn an undecided lead into a loyal customer. A company’s sales department can use its front-line experience and expertise to validate marketing’s lead scoring assumptions. They knew what their customers are looking for and how to reach out to them. The sales team can fine-tune the list of criteria created by the marketing department and assign higher ratings for lead behaviour or demographics that demonstrate the actions or attributes of past sales.

Sales & Marketing are Meant to be Together

A combined effort builds a foundation for an effective lead scoring system and keeps both sales and marketing working together on the same team with the same goal. Lead scoring is not the only aspect of generating new business that works better when you tap into both your sales and marketing departments.

Marketers need to understand the strategies and tools the sales team is using, so they can help them accomplish their goals. The sales team has more direct contact with qualified leads and customers, which gives them a better insight into the type of content that marketing should be sending to potential leads. Sales can also advise marketing what triggers to look for in a lead, so they can more easily recognize leads that are ready-for-sales.

The marketing department can provide sales with an abundance of leads, as well as a profile on each lead, to assist with conversion. Marketing can also use lead scoring to eliminate leads that are not likely to ever convert. The more each department understands and assists the other, the better the end results. Start with lead scoring to build a bridge between marketing and sales and a powerful revenue generating force will grow from their union.

The Five Biggest Benefits of Quality Lead Scoring

The Five Biggest Benefits of Quality Lead ScoringLead scoring is a sales and marketing methodology used to rank prospects against a scale that represents high-quality leads. Savvy marketers are quickly discovering the impact quality lead scoring can have on generating leads with a higher potential for conversion, which is critical in today’s competitive global marketplace.

These are the five biggest benefits of quality lead scoring:

Quality Lead Scoring Simplifies the Lead Evaluation Process

Using an automated lead scoring system will make it easier to quickly qualify leads based on pre-determined criteria. Quality lead scoring is based on attributes and behavior of typical customers, so there is solid basis for comparison. By using an automated process to rank each lead, marketing can quickly determine which leads require additional information and which leads are ready to make a purchase.

Lead Scoring Provides a Detailed Profile of Potential Leads

Quality lead scoring defines leads based on both behavioral and demographic characteristics, which offers sales and marketing a clear and detailed picture of a lead’s needs and interests. This information is invaluable when nurturing and guiding a lead through the marketing funnel.

Good Lead Scoring Strengthens the Relationship with a Lead

The better insight into a lead’s needs and interests the better  marketers have the ability to personalize content that is shared with the lead, which creates a more meaningful connection. Providing leads with useful and relevant information prior to making a sale strengthens trust in the brand and creates loyalty.

Lead Scoring Processes Provide insight into the Lead’s Buying Process

Leads that marketing automation generates from a website will be at different stages within their buying process. Some could still be investigating the need for a product or service, while others may be on the verge of making a decision. Lead scoring helps decipher at what point the lead is at in their journey, so the right follow-up is done to convert them into a customer.

Lead Scoring Methods Produce Higher Quality Leads

Leads need to reach a certain ranking which shows they are not only interested in a product or service, but they are currently ready to make their decision, before they are given to the sales department. Due to this systematic screening process, the chances of the sales team converting a lead improves exponentially.

These five factors are the main reasons why so many business leaders are tapping into the world of marketing automation by using the benefits of lead scoring to their advantage. Every company wants the inside scoop on their potential customers and lead scoring does exactly that.

Checkout Lead Liaison if you’re interested in seeing how we use unparalleled lead qualification technology by combining lead scoring, lead grading, recency, buy signals and total activity to better qualify leads.

Four Simple Steps to Improving Lead Scoring

Improving Lead ScoringOne of the biggest advantages that come from using a marketing automation system is the ability to effectively score and prioritize leads based on their likelihood of conversion. It gives marketing and sales powerful insight into a leads behavior, as well as their demographic characteristics, so they can decide the best method for converting that particular lead into a customer.

There are four simple steps to improving lead scoring:

Identifying whether a lead has an interest or a need

There is a distinct difference between an interested lead and a lead that has a need for a product or service. Both are fundamental aspects of lead scoring, however they should be scored differently. A lead that shows sincere interest by frequenting a site often is more likely to convert that someone who only has characteristics that imply they would have a need for a product or service. The individual or business that has a need for that particular purchase may not necessarily have the budget or ability to make the decision anytime in the near future.

In also works the other way. A lead could be interested, but they have no need to purchase the product. Take for example a car enthusiast. They may already own a car that they love, but they enjoy checking out new models online on a regular basis. They could have high scores for frequency, but no real desire to make a purchase. Lead scoring needs to recognize these indicators and weight them accordingly. The best way to improve lead scoring is to measure both the interest and the need demonstrated by potential leads.

Keep your criteria simple and limited to only what matters

If the method that is being used to qualify leads has too many factors, it could be reducing the number of valuable leads that are generated. Focus on characteristics and behaviors that demonstrated the greatest interest and purchasing potential. Eliminate any that are not relevant or counterproductive.

Use lead nurturing to raise the score of potential leads

Lead scoring generates a profile of every lead, which should be used to create personalize content that is directed at what each individual requires. There could be specific content developed for leads that have the highest chance of conversion and separate content for leads that are still in the initial stages of their buying process. Lead nurturing content should be geared to each lead segment to increase its value, and hopefully increase their interest.

Take lead scoring past the sales cycle and into the customer cycle 

The process shouldn’t end the moment a lead becomes a customer. They still need contact and nurturing to keep them informed of everything a business has to offer. You can improve lead scoring by using it to strengthen customer relationships and continuing to nurture even once they have been converted.

Lead scoring is a powerful tool for qualifying leads, but it can be much more than that. By following these four simple steps, it can provide real insight into a lead’s behavior, generate higher quality leads, improve the chances of conversion, and strengthen relationships with leads who have already successfully been converted.

Scoring Leads from Marketing Qualified Lead to Sales Qualified Lead

Scoring Leads from Marketing Qualified Lead to Sales Qualified LeadEffective B2B lead management involves more than simply preventing viable leads from falling off the radar. The effectiveness of a lead management program is really measured by how well it moves suspects from marketing qualified leads (MQL) to sales qualified leads (SQL). The difference between the two statuses can represent tens of thousands of dollars in closed business.

A lead scoring system helps to differentiate between leads that are likely to buy now and those that require more nurturing. However, it is most effective if it is constructed properly.

There is often disagreement between sales and marketing departments about what constitutes a “qualified” lead. This makes some sense because the parameters are different among the two departments. A lead scoring system, used as part of a lead management program, provides an opportunity to put values on parameters used by each department.

The lead scoring model should have a threshold – a minimum score – that indicates that a suspect has met enough criteria, the right criteria, to be worthy of a sales engagement. Lead scoring provides a systematic way to transition leads from marketing to sales in a way that gives the sales team confidence that the lead is viable and prepared for a sales engagement.

The question is: at what point is a marketing-qualified lead ready to be transitioned to a sales qualified lead?

For example, take two suspects that have entered your marketing funnel. One is a VP of operations, the other a line supervisor. The VP has visited your website a few times and spent about 15 minutes on your product pages. The supervisor has visited your site fifteen times, downloaded two white papers and several fact sheets, and attended a recent webinar.

Which lead is considered a better sales qualified lead?

In many industries, a VP is a more sales-ready lead because of the likelihood that he has buying authority. However, there are companies that allow purchases by supervisory staff. The greater level of activity by the line supervisor might indicate better timing, but does she have buying authority? Which parameter means more?

This is where applying weight to scoring parameters is important for lead scoring to be effective. Some activities and/or attributes provide greater impact on sales-readiness than others, but which ones matter more could be night and day from one company to another. Examining which behaviors have led to sales in the past is a good way determine weights for certain qualities and behaviors. For example, if the evidence shows that your product sells well after being noticed by subordinates who influence the C-suite after conducting research through white papers, then recent white paper download activity, when combined with the subordinate’s title, should be weighted more heavily than a C-level executive who visited the website a couple of times.

According to marketing experts, a 10% increase in lead quality translates to a 40% increase in sales productivity. This should motivate executives to align sales and marketing departments through a lead scoring system, like the one in Lead Liaison’s Briefcase™ lead qualification dashboard.

Lead scoring can help most businesses improve sales conversions and shorten sales cycles. But it’s important to remember that the scoring model you use to move leads from marketing qualified lead to sales qualified lead status is dynamic (newly uncovered evidence affects existing scoring metrics) and comprehensive (incorporates parameters from both departments).

How does your company score its leads? Post a comment here or drop us a line.

The Final Steps toward Effective Lead Qualification

The Final Steps toward Effective Lead QualificationFor some companies there may be no shortage of leads. But how does the marketing team pass off the most qualified leads to your sales department? The answer is to take action that ensures your leads are ready to buy. This post is the second of a two-part series addressing effective lead qualification strategies.

Create an optimal lead profile

In our earlier post, The First Steps Toward Effective Lead Qualification, we recommended using a lead scoring system. In order to filter leads effectively, you should create a profile that embodies the characteristics and attributes that make up the type of lead that is most likely to buy from your company.

This profile should include firmographic information, such as revenues, number of employees, and locations that indicate a high likelihood of becoming a customer. Once these attributes have been selected, the next step is to determine what type of behaviors – online and offline – most likely lead to a sale. Behaviors such as website visits, webinar engagements, or phone inquiries should be included and be a part of your overall marketing strategy.

Using this information, your lead management system should prioritize and distribute leads according to how well they fit the optimal lead profile.

Monitor data

Lead qualification is based upon having the best data available. Is the information that is being collected accurate and complete? Today’s CRM tools provide incredible granularity and allow users to enter a plethora of information, but empty fields and inaccurate data can reduce the effectiveness of your sales team.

Both sales and marketing management should work together on a regular basis to ensure that lead qualification agents are providing sales agents with the most complete and accurate lead profiles.

Include personal contact

In most cases, effective lead qualification cannot take place without occasional personal contact. Automated lead management systems are tools of efficiency but are best used in conjunction with phone calls, personal emails, or other agent-driven communications.

Part of your lead nurturing process should include engagements that clarify pain points and cultivate demand. Without personal engagement prior to a sales call, the sales cycle is often longer.

Insert a sales development team

One way to improve the effectiveness of your lead qualification process is to introduce a sales development representative (SDR) prior to a sales agent engagement. An SDR can act as a liaison between marketing and sales by contacting marketing-qualified leads in an effort to determine how sales-ready they may be.

According to one industry expert, his lead conversion rate went from 5% to over 40% with the use of SDRs in his lead qualification program.

Using SDRs can lead to better economics as expensive sales agents are not engaging with prospects until that lead has been converted from a marketing-qualified lead to a sales-qualified lead. Many industry experts quote the following numbers:

  1. A 5% increase in selling time yields a 20% increase in revenue
  2. A 1% increase in pipeline value yields a 24% increase in revenue
  3. A 15% decrease in sales cycle length yields a 30% increase in revenue

These figures support the use of SDRs to further qualify leads that have advanced to the marketing-qualified lead stage in your marketing funnel. It may be an extra step, but this extra step has improved sales conversions for many companies.

Effective sales qualification can improve conversions, reduce irrelevant objections, and boost your revenue cycle. Some steps may even help develop talent to add to your sales team. The key to having the most productive, efficient sales funnel is to take the steps necessary to put the hottest, sales-ready leads in the hands of your experienced sales team quickly but effectively.

The First Steps Toward Effective Lead Qualification

The First Steps toward Effective Lead QualificationLead qualification is a multi-step process that moves suspects through your marketing pipeline and determines if they become a quality lead. It all starts with a lead inquiry. In this post we’ll discuss the first steps toward effective lead qualification.

Lead Inquiry

The first step in lead qualification is generating a lead inquiry, which is an interest signal from a suspect. The suspect may be genuinely interested in your solution or his reaction to a marketing message could be just curiosity. It may be tough to differentiate the two based upon one contact; however, there are techniques, such as opt-in forms, that can indicate a higher level of interest.

Outbound or inbound marketing can be used to generate a lead inquiry. Whether the inquiry comes from digital assets or through offline engagements, if you don’t take every lead inquiry seriously you may be leaving money on the table.

In order to make lead qualification effective, you should review your online and offline marketing messages regularly. Are viewers taking action or moving on to the next solution? You rarely get a second chance to make a first impression, so if your response rate is minuscule, take the time to adjust the messages for maximum effectiveness.

Once a lead inquiry is received, it’s time to take the lead qualification process to the next step: lead capture.

Lead Capture

It is important to not let a lead slip away without making a second attempt. Lead generation programs, such as Lead Liaison’s Streamer™, allow companies to capture preliminary information without having to request it from the suspect. This allows you to capture enough information to be able to make a second contact.

Lead capturing can be automated. One of the more effective techniques is the lead capture page or landing page. The key is to provide enough compelling information or a strong marketing message on that page to compel a suspect to opt-in for future engagements.

An auto-responder should be used to connect immediately following a lead inquiry. Time is of the essence in this competitive world, so we recommend automation for every inquiry that is received. An auto-responder service can mean the difference between a lost opportunity and a sale. Basic auto-responder services are available for free, while more robust services can be purchased.

Like your lead inquiry assets, it’s important to review and refine lead capture assets so they accomplish their task on the first contact. Once there is enough information captured from a suspect, the lead should be entered into a lead scoring system.

Lead Scoring

A lead scoring matrix is crucial to qualifying  suspects and prioritizing leads. There is no standard model that will apply to all industries but there are two commonly used criteria sets. The first set includes the physical, demographic, and firmographic data that is often easily captured through opt-in forms or webinar registrations. This information qualifies a lead according to relevance. Does the suspect work at a company that fits your lead profile? Does the company have the capacity to purchase your solution?

The second criteria set includes behavioral traits. This information can be captured through online activities, such as website visits or white paper downloads. By including online and offline marketing engagements, your lead scoring system can help determine which activities may lead to purchase decisions.

These are the preliminary stages of an effective lead qualification process. In our next post, we’ll discuss the advanced steps that move a lead from suspect to sales opportunity. To find out the most effective lead qualification process, contact us today!

B2B Marketers need Marketing Automation and Lead Scoring

B2B Marketers need Marketing Automation and Lead ScoringAs the global marketplace expands due to the power of the internet, B2B Marketers need to rise to the challenge and start thinking in terms of large-scale strategies. B2B marketers need marketing automation and lead scoring. They need to market to businesses that are searching for resources online. This is important since every company with an online presence who is selling the same product or service is now their competitor, regardless of their physical location.

Expanding the reach of their B2B marketing campaigns will most likely produce a wide variety of new leads. Each of these leads has their own unique potential and likelihood for conversion. They come from different locations, different industries and different purchasing background. They all approach researching new products and services in their own way and it quickly becomes too overwhelming to manually qualify and prioritize each lead based on their individual potential.

Lead scoring is an automated process designed to assist marketers in qualifying leads by assigning a quantitative value to website visitors based on the person’s demographic and behavioral profile. The value assigned to each lead is determined based on how closely the lead resembles a typical or ideal customer. For example, if a marketer is specifically interested in attracting automotive manufacturers that would need to buy industrial-grade steel for their production line, these parameters would be designed to place a greater value on whether the prospect matches with the criteria describing a typical manufacturing facility that uses industrial-grade steel.

Lead scoring with marketing automation allows marketers to quickly sort through leads and identify changes in behavioral patterns. This helps B2B marketers identify which are sales-ready leads and which will require more nurturing. By using database segmentation features of most marketing automation software, B2B marketers can touch base with leads they are interested in, by assessing their interests and creating content specific to their needs.

Marketing automation also allows B2B marketers to:

  1. Analyze lead scores in an effort to personalize email campaigns.
  2. Assess the effectiveness of past campaigns.
  3. Create automated responses to a lead’s online activity such as registrations, downloads, and/or newsletters.
  4. Create mailing lists catered to leads with specific scores.
  5. Identify buying stage of prospects and their likelihood of conversion.

By implementing lead scoring criteria with marketing automation software, companies can:

  1. Identify the improvement in the number of quality leads that were generated over a period of time. When lead profile criteria is regularly analyzed and evolved, marketers will be able to better define a sales-ready lead and then plan effectively towards closing the business deal.
  2. Reduce labor expenses associated with manual marketing processes and focus more on the campaign execution process.
  3. Offer marketers more insight into their leads, so they will spend less time guiding and nurturing leads through the marketing funnel.
  4. Unite the sales and marketing departments, so they can work together to generate higher quality leads and identify more sales-ready leads.

Lead scoring using marketing automation is a necessity for B2B marketers who want to expand globally while still being able to gain visibility into their lead’s intent. This priceless intelligence can be leveraged to move leads faster through the marketing funnel and improve their chance of becoming a customer. That is why today’s B2B marketers need marketing automation and lead scoring.

Common Lead Scoring Mistakes – Part 2

Common Lead Scoring Mistakes As we mentioned in an earlier post, Common Lead Scoring Mistakes – Part 1, there is sometimes a lack of sales effectiveness when using a lead scoring system. Often this is a result of poor lead management. In this post, we discuss two issues: the first one concerns what sales agents do with leads that are distributed out of a lead scoring matrix, the other involves assigning scores and distribution thresholds to leads that pass from marketing to sales.

Ignoring Low Scores

Most sales agents only want leads that have a high lead score because those are likely to be the most sales-ready prospects. But not all quality leads are ready to buy, and not all cold leads represent long sales cycles. By ignoring a lead with a score of 50 (out of 100), the sales department may lose a great opportunity without knowing it.

Avoid these lead scoring mistakes by applying logic. For example, the lead with a 50 score might be a line supervisor who is the brother-in-law of the company president. He may be researching products (on his own) like the ones your company offers in order to improve line performance, but has no idea of the company’s purchasing capacity at the moment. The total lead score may be low because of his lack of buying authority and unknown budget.

However, his relationship with the president makes him a potential purchase influencer and a good connection to the buying authority. This lead should not be ignored because of a low composite score. Sales agents should be encouraged to focus on both total lead score and the scores in each parameter that contribute to the overall score in order to avoid missing possible sales opportunities that may be “disguised” as low quality leads.

Scoring Activities and Distributing Leads Improperly

Lead scoring is more of an art than a science. There are nuances in most scoring systems that don’t apply universally across industries or even across product lines. But in order to create the most effective scoring model, the grades or scores that leads receive because of marketing engagements should be appropriate for your company’s sales process. That means scoring marketing responses properly.

For instance, a lead that has recently downloaded a white paper may receive a high score for that activity due to recency, but what if the same lead has downloaded several documents over a six-month period? In this case, the frequency of the specific activity must also be considered in the lead score.

Also, if the scoring threshold for distribution is not properly aligned with the sales department’s experience with customers, it could skew results and lower sales production. For example, if the scoring threshold is too high, the sales department may perceive a stranglehold on the flow of leads. On the other hand, if scoring thresholds are too low, your lead management system may distribute leads to sales agents that are not adequately sales-qualified.

An effective lead scoring system can improve sales effectiveness by more than 50%, but the system must be built correctly and implemented properly. To learn more about lead scoring mistakes and tips to improve lead scoring, follow the Lead Liaison blog every week!

Common Lead Scoring Mistakes – Part 1

Common Lead Scoring Mistakes Lead scoring can be a valuable asset to your sales department. Prioritizing leads so sales agents are focused on opportunities with the highest conversion potential increases sales effectiveness. However, there are some common lead scoring mistakes that companies make when they use their lead scoring system improperly. We want to share several common mistakes that have come to our attention over the years. The first two are 1) relying solely on composite scores to determine quality leads, and 2) using a rigid scoring system.

Relying on the Composite Score Only

Using the only composite scores is a common lead scoring mistake. Sure, the sales department should be focusing on A-list leads but there may be more to a lead’s story than what is reflected in the total score. Sales agents should be asking: what attributes scored high and which ones received a lower score? If your lead scoring model uses a scale of 0-100, for example, and a lead scoring 90 is considered hot, does this mean that all 90-score leads have equal conversion potential? No.

There may be some hot leads that rank high because of their position in the company and there are others that receive a high score because of significant marketing engagement. The key for sales agents is to examine the factors that led to the high score.

For example, consider two leads, each with scores of 80 (out of 100) that establish both as marketing-qualified leads. However, the first lead is an IT Director who has downloaded every white paper you’ve published but has no plans to buy in the next six months and has not indicated a need for your solution, and the second lead is a Purchaser who has indicated an immediate need but has limited marketing engagements. Which lead is a more sales-qualified lead?

Sales agents should look “beneath” the overall score to understand whether a lead should be contacted immediately or can be placed in a bucket to be contacted in one month.

Using a Rigid System

Everything changes. The weather, the economy, hairstyles. While there are certainly some lead scoring parameters that will remain constant in your lead scoring system, such as website visits, many factors that contribute to a lead score will likely change over time. Perhaps it is a change in the buying process for companies in the industry you serve. Or maybe a change occurs as a result of a new major competitor entering the market.

Avoid this common lead scoring mistake and create a lead scoring matrix that is flexible. There may be a need to adjust scoring weights for certain attributes or to add a new parameter. Companies that are successful at lead management use lead scoring systems that allow for adaptation. That is why Lead Liaison provides lead management products that have flexibility, and works closely with clients to ensure their lead scoring models remain effective.

However, flexibility does not simply come from an adaptable lead scoring product. Maintaining a dynamic scoring model requires sales and marketing to meet regularly in order to provide input towards updates that will align the system to current market conditions.

We will discuss more lead scoring myths in our next post. Has your company experienced a lead scoring mistake? Share your experience below!