Today, we are talking about a very important facet of inbound marketing and that is lead scoring. Are you aware that lead scoring boosts the chances of closing a deal by 20%. Additionally, it has the potential of saving your business roughly around 20 hours every week – a whopping 1,040 hours every year. The question marketing leaders need to answer is whether their lead-scoring technique is relevant in today’s fast-paced and dynamic business landscape. The essence of lead scoring remains the same. That said, B2B companies should align their lead-scoring techniques and strategies with the ever-evolving landscape and proactively introduce subtle changes to stay ahead of the curve.
Prepare to discover the secrets behind the significance of lead scoring, explore key metrics, and learn how lead scoring can fill your sales funnel with high-quality leads. If you’re uncertain about lead scoring, this is a good place to start. This blog will serve as your guiding light through every twist and turn of lead scoring, leaving you empowered with knowledge and armed with strategies to skyrocket your success
Let us first establish a clear understanding of lead scoring.
What is (effective) Lead Scoring?
Although we are assuming you are familiar with lead scoring, it is important to understand what we mean by “effective lead scoring”.
While the fundamental concept remains the same, effective lead scoring introduces nuanced yet important differences that ultimately enable your sales teams to focus their efforts on not just prospects, but relevant prospects with a higher conversion potential.
In simple words, effective lead scoring builds on the foundation laid by lead scoring by incorporating several other elements including personalized lead scoring techniques, the use of additional data points to assign lead scores, the deployment of marketing automation and more.
Now that we have tapped into effective lead scoring, let’s inspect the key metrics that differentiate good lead-scoring models from the best lead-scoring models.
Key Metrics of Lead Scoring
1. Source tracking
How did your prospective client find you? What was the starting point of their interaction with your company? What you are looking for here is the motivation or the desire that drives prospects or leads to your funnel. As a B2B marketer, you should always follow the golden rule – Lead generation often starts by identifying where your prospects live on the web.
When you understand how your leads start their journey, it becomes easier to understand their genuine needs. Your lead scoring model should identify different lead channels and further bifurcate these lead channels based on the number of leads generated from each channel.
Here is an example –
Michele subscribes to your newsletter after interacting with your social media post. On the other hand, Rebecca uses relevant search terms to find your company and downloads a brochure or a product catalogue. Who do you think deserves a better lead score?
The answer is simple. While Michele demonstrates high engagement by interacting with your company’s social media posts, Rebecca was more proactive with her approach, which is why she deserves a better lead score. This is exactly what your sales analysts should be looking for while assigning lead scores.
2. Behavioural study
No, we do not mean you have to stalk your prospects to convert them into paying customers. That said, you need to dive deeper into understanding their past behaviour on your website to optimize and bank on that information to predict their behaviour in the future. This approach provides clarity regarding the path your leads tread before they convert into a customer.
This brings us to the importance of assigning values for every action a prospect takes while interacting with your website and other aspects of your sales funnel. Your lead generation team should assign values for each action mentioned below.
- Clicking on the About Us page
- Reading a blog article and sharing the link
- Downloading a whitepaper
- Subscribing to your newsletter
- Interacting with a chatbot
- Clicking on social media icons on your website directs them to your social media channels
- Requesting a demo
- Enquiring about your pricing
When you combine the values of all actions taken by your lead, your lead generation tool will provide you with insights into which lead has spent how much time on your website to research your company and so on.
3. Firmographics
Another traditional approach many B2B companies take to assign lead scores is by bifurcating leads depending on firmographics including job title, location, industry, company size, and so on. Of course, even though individuals may share one of these characteristics, they may differ in other areas. This is where demographic information will steer you toward the most effective and relevant messaging direction.
Here is an example that will simplify this concept.
For example, your B2B company provides IT solutions and primarily caters to large-sized companies with over 1,000 employees. You would not want your sales team to invest efforts to do business with smaller companies. That said, do not drop their firmographic score to 0 simply because they do not fit into your ideal customer profile.
You can also implement a two-step approach using firmographics. For example, you can assign one lead score based on firmographic match and the second score based on engagement and intent.
4. Engagement
While there are several overlapping features between various lead scoring metrics including source tracking, behavioural study, and engagement, there are subtle differences.
Here, you need to learn how to distinguish between action and engagement. Yes, every engagement indeed requires some action, but you need to go a step further to understand whether the engagement was of any interest to you. It is essential to know how much time your leads are spending on your website or examining your company across the web. Leads who read your newsletters regularly, and visit your website or social media pages regularly are more likely to convert.
Key Metrics of Effective Lead Scoring
After slicing and dicing the key metrics of B2B lead scoring, let us understand the metrics for effective lead scoring. How is this different from lead scoring? Let’s find out.
1. Going beyond conventional firmographic and demographic data
We discussed how B2B companies can leverage firmographic and demographic data to assign lead scores. In today’s overly competitive business landscape, companies need to go beyond the conventional realms of lead scoring and think out of the box.
Effective lead-scoring models combine firmographic and demographic data with numerous other data points. These data points include engagement level, overall website activity, lead attributes, and more. Effective lead scoring offers a holistic view of every lead.
2. Customized and real-time lead-scoring models
Even though effective lead scoring typically relies on established scoring criteria, it provides room for customization. You can adapt the lead scoring model to match your company’s objectives, target market, and industry. This adaptability makes sure that the scoring system accurately reflects the distinctive qualities of your prospects optimizing your sales efforts.
Effective lead scoring is a dynamic process that requires constant adjustment. It entails routinely evaluating and improving your scoring standards and models in light of customer feedback, performance information, and market trends. You may respond to shifting patterns and raise the level of precision of lead prioritisation by routinely assessing and tweaking your lead scoring strategy.
3. Lead scores with marketing automation
As technology continues to penetrate deeper into our lives, it is only wise to leverage it to elevate your business. While marketing automation systems have been around for quite some time, there has been significant development and waves of evolution on this front. These systems provide a host of features that streamline lead scoring and also allow seamless integration of your customized lead scoring models.
Gone are the days when lead scoring was a mundane, cumbersome, and tedious process. The arrival of cutting-edge marketing automation systems has changed the game altogether. You can now generate lead scores depending on your predefined triggers and rules and also access real-time updates. The combination of lead scoring with marketing automation paves the way for efficient lead nurturing as you seamlessly route them through your sales funnel.
Wrapping it Up
Most B2B marketers and sales executives understand the various aspects of lead generation. However, lead scoring is often overlooked or not valued enough. Lead scoring is not only about assigning values to your prospects based on certain parameters. It is a combination of qualitative factors, historical data, continuous iteration, marketing automation, and more.
Ultimately, lead scoring should empower your sales team to close deals more efficiently and effectively, by providing them with prioritized leads that have a higher likelihood of conversion.
Lead scoring can become tricky if not done right and could hinder your organization’s efficiency. Get in touch with our team of experienced B2B consultants and allow them to handle the complexities of your lead scoring model.