What is Lead Scoring, and How Does it Work?

Have a lot of leads in the sales funnel?

Are sales reps not able to track them to measure the behavior?

This is where Lead Scoring comes into the picture! When you have lots of leads, you can track the leads and quantify them by assigning them a score.

However, if you randomly put leads into position without any specific parameter, there is a high probability of missing the high potential leads from the funnel. 

Each lead is essential, and it is necessary to track their behavior. To practice this exercise, you need a lead scoring system in your organization.

Today, this blog will cover all you need to learn about lead scoring:

• What is lead scoring?
• How does it work? 

What is Lead Scoring?

Lead scoring is ranking qualified leads based on specific pre-set parameters. Generally, this is done with a numeric value to each lead or by terming them as “hot”, “cold”, or “warm” based on how ready they are to purchase.

A lead is scored based on different attributes. The attributes include a lead’s engagement; the information s/he has submitted to you, looking for price, reviewing your product, reading your blog post, et cetera. 

Note– Lead scoring system only when the setup is proper and is used regularly. Otherwise, it ends up being a waste of time, resources, and effort for the marketing and sales team 

For example, you have two prospects who are engaged with you. One has submitted the query asking about the features of your product and the price of it. Another one has just engaged in reading your blog post and reviewing your product.

The lead score will be good for the lead who demonstrated his interest in product features and price. His query shows that he has a specific goal to buy this product. But the latter one’s interest is generic.

She/He has engaged with your website to have the information about the product. Hence the score for the latter lead will be less.

Based on this score, your sales & marketing teams will have a clear idea of prioritizing the lead nurturing process. For the above scenario, more time & effort should be invested in the former than the latter lead.

What are the Lead Scoring Factors?

There are multiple lead scoring factors to consider while figuring out the exact score for a lead. Here are some:

Demographics

Before selling the product, you should have specific questions in your mind. Which location does your prospect belong to, and within which age group does they fall under? This type of question makes your lead scoring process easy.

For example, your prospect is within the age group you are targeting, but the geographical areas have negative points in your system. That is where assigning points to the prospects come into the picture.

You can assign the negative points for this lead. If a prospect belongs to a place (geographical area) you are targeting, you assign some extra points for them.

Company Information

Company information is crucial for scoring leads if you are from a B2B platform. Before scoring a lead, you need to know the company revenue, employee size, etc. If your prospect falls under the category you are targeting, the score for that lead will be good. The sales and marketing teams can prioritize the lead based on the score.

Buyers’ Behavior

There are so many ways to monitor buyers’ behavior. It is significant to observe each channel to track the buyer’s behavior.

Do you need to see how many times a lead has spent on your website? Whether s/he has entered into the pricing page or how much time he spent on your product page. A lead can be scored for each behavior to find if s/he is a likely customer or not.

You can also watch that lead’s movement on social media. What kind of people are there in their network? What is their activity there? Check if he has connected to any clients like you or visited other websites.

Email engagement is another efficient factor in scoring a lead. You need to check if he has opened your email; if so, how long did he spend reading it- whether he has clicked the link or has posted or sent any query to you.

All the above behaviors will provide you with a clear picture to score each lead.

Arena of Interest

The area of interest of a lead is another factor to consider while doing lead scoring. Close observation of your lead, such as which product they are more interested in, how much time they spend on other products, what type of query they search, etc., will provide a vast opportunity to score each lead perfectly.

Activities

The activities of a lead are another factor to consider during lead scoring. You need to check if your lead is active enough on social media, opening your email, engaging on youtube, etc.

Also, how many emails remained unopened and how many emails your lead saw and did not respond to are very significant in this case.

Observe his sales cycle and determine how long he did not purchase any products, the number of web pages viewed and the number of forms he has filled and the number of downloads, etc. Different activities of a lead exhibit the interest level, and you can score him perfectly.

Setting up Lead Scoring That Benefits Sales and Marketing Team

How Does Lead Scoring B2B Work?

Lead scoring is an integral part of the sales cycle. While scoring a lead, consider each factor mentioned above. There are two primary factors to consider while identifying hot leads. 

1. Check if their requirements match your products. 
2. Check their interest level through the buyer’s behavior (explained above)

For example, your lead is looking for the products which you are offering, his history on subscription is good, he has shown his interest online, he has filled the forms. For each activity, you have been assigned 20, and the total score of the particular lead is 80. Now the system will automatically mark them as a hot lead. 

Similarly, when a lead reaches a level where you have set a benchmark of qualified leads, this is the time to nurture and convert him. 

Sometimes, a negative score also plays a vital role here. It signals you not to contact a lead earlier. Contacting a lead before the required time is a waste of time, and most sales reps save time through the lead scoring process in this case.

As the era of AI and machine learning overpower everything, the manual scoring process has become inefficient, and the automated lead scoring system provides a reasonable conversion rate. 

Actions for Lead Scoring Includes:

Pageviews

Which page do they view?

The careers page lowers their score.

The pricing page increases their score.

Site Search

What are leads searching for?

Searches show their interests and priorities.

Downloads

Specific downloaded items show the position of leads in the buying cycle.

Email Actions

No points for every email opened

Submissions, Click-throughs, and page views give scores

Landing Pages

Which landing page do they visit?

Which product or service is of their interest?

Which part of the funnel does the landing page fall in?

Webinars

What are the leads’ pain points?

Link Clicks

Custom link clicks show where the lead is in the buyer’s cycle

Videos

It gives a good indication of the topic of interest of leads

Shows where the leads are in the sales funnel

Why is Lead Scoring Important?

According to Aberdeen Research, the companies with lead scoring systems close deals 192% higher than the companies that don’t have a scoring system.

Lead scoring has a huge significance in the lead generation process. Every organization has the ultimate goal of converting as many prospects as possible to paid customers. The lead scoring process helps in conversion and helps in other ways. Those are:

• Sales teams save a lot of time by focusing on the right leads.
• Scoring allows sales teams to communicate effectively with the leads.
• It helps determine which leads should be prioritized.
• It helps in personalizing sales pitches.
• Lead scoring increases work efficiency.
• It helps implement a proper lead nurturing strategy.
• It provides a better understanding of the customer.
• Helps align an organization’s sales & marketing teams.

Lead Scoring in B2B

According to an Eloqua study of 10 B2B companies using lead scoring systems, close rates increased by 30%, company revenue increased by 18%, and the revenue per deal increased by 17%.

Most B2B organizations have misalignments between their sales and marketing teams. By involving the lead scoring system, those organizations bring good rapport between both teams. 

Apart from this, the B2B lead scoring factors are a little different from the B2C. Above mentioned factors like demographics, company information, buyers’ behavior, an arena of interest, and activities – should also be considered in a B2B lead scoring system.

What are the Best Practices for the Lead Scoring Model?

Using Negative Scores or Score Degradation

Weed out the leads who merely visit your website and do not take any desired action to fall into the buyer’s cycle. They can be job seekers or someone who is simply researching your brand for their purpose.

Different Scoring Models for Different products or Services

Always put up different scores for your products or services to have a good idea about their interest in the products or services they are interested in.

Establish a Strong Lead Scoring Threshold

Use automation to automatically send the leads to the sales funnel as it reaches a specific score in the system.

Customize Lead Scoring based on High-Value Actions

Be specific while assigning scores to your leads when they take any action on the web pages or other high-value activities.

Use the Right Actions

It is crucial to have the right actions implemented for the visitors to take the desired action and convert it into leads to be ready for the buyers’ cycle.

Conclusion

It doesn’t matter if you are in a B2C or a B2B industry; implementing a proper lead scoring system can benefit you. Scoring leads helps sales & marketing teams in more ways than one. Lead scores should determine the number of resources spent on each lead in each sales cycle stage, from lead prioritization to nurturing.