Your company’s revenue is ultimately decided by the number of leads generated–and converted to sales. Traditionally when leads are generated they are then passed along to the sales team where calls are made, emails are sent, etc. However, many of those leads simply aren’t ready to buy yet. Enter Lead scoring.
What is Lead Scoring?
Lead scoring is when you apply a numerical value to your users based on factors such as:
- Demographic attributes such as income range
- Position at their company
- Type of email address–branded email or free (Gmail, Yahoo!, etc)
- Marketing emails opened
- Website activity such as page visits, forms filled out, resources downloaded, etc
Lead scoring allows you to better qualify leads by assigning points to actions they take which suggest they’re more interested in your product. This allows your sales team to focus on the leads that are most ready-to-buy, and gives your less warm leads more time to come around.
Example: If they visit a product page on your website, you can give them 10 points. If they fill out a contact form, give them another 10 points. If they sign up for your webinar, give them 30! If you’re a B2B company and they use a corporate email, give them 50 points. Then when they meet your threshold (say 80 points) you can reach out to close the sale.
Combining Lead Scoring with Automation
As we also are an automation platform, lead scoring fits right into your automation flow. This allows your marketing efforts to scale efficiently, creating a better experience for everyone. You can send promotional emails with discounts automatically when a user reaches a certain threshold, or upsell them a related product based on their previous purchasing history.
By using lead scoring in your automation you create a series of calls to action that reach your users as they’re ready to take action. Rather than trying to fit a triangle into a square hole, you’re actually giving people the offers they want based on their activity. All while freeing up your sales people’s time up to focus on the leads that are actually ready to take action.
More Productive & Less Wasted Opportunities
According to a Gartner study, 70% of leads lost happen because of shoddy follow-ups. This happens in part because often all leads are treated the same as sales reps lack the tools to distinguish between highly qualified and barely lukewarm leads. By using a lead scoring system you can eliminate the wheel-spinning that arises from unstructured chaos between your sales and marketing teams.
There’s also a side-effect of implementing lead scoring; better cooperation between your marketing team & sales team. The two will need to work together to define what constitutes a lead for your company, and to define what a sales-ready lead looks like. The teamwork established in this process will have pervasive positive effects in your company.
Increased Revenue
Ultimately efficiency gained from lead scoring will increase the revenue you see, and it’s no surprise. Every lead has an associated value, and by effectively identifying the hot leads and focusing on them, you won’t waste time on leads who aren’t ready to buy.
If someone’s not ready to buy and has a low score, you can encourage them by offering some value in the way of content, a free download of sorts, a webinar–to court them along and facilitate interest in your company. Rather than alienating prospective customers who aren’t ready to buy, you’re able to offer relevant content to all varieties of leads.
You’ll be able to better identify which marketing efforts are driving your hottest leads, your marketing and sales teams will better understand each other, and time will be managed much better. Revenue will increase from these things, given than your sales & marketing team create criteria for lead scoring that works for your company.
Get Started Today
Lead scoring can seem complicated, but it doesn’t have to be. It starts with deciding what a lead is, and scoring different actions your prospects take that suggest they’re interested. Decide what qualities your best customers all have in common and factor that in while implementing lead scoring. If you don’t have an automation platform that supports lead scoring already, consider giving us a go. Our platform, Wingsend, provides a multitude of marketing tools that will save you thousands of dollars each year!