Lead Scoring Best Practices that Improve Sales Efficiency

Every business has expedited the search for leads at a rapid pace. Still, the process involves some unwanted struggles that need attention. Diligent attention, refine and enhance the lead search process. Reaching out to a vast audience also increases the number of leads which won’t convert, and exterminating those leads are essential before valuable resources (time and energy) are spent on them. Resources like these should be reserved for the ones who will make a purchase.

It is easy to filter unqualified leads, as they do not mask themselves. Leads that won’t make covert-waves evident red flags, whereas leads with higher chances to convert exhibit enough positive traits. Positive traits refer to vital information like demographics, verified contact information and verified email address.  Following the lead scoring best practices assigns these traits numerical points and helps to segregate priority leads. Hence, when lead scoring practices are implemented for B2B businesses, it passes on improved quality of leads to the sales reps—further enhancing the number of sales closing ratio and organizations revenue.

Organizations implementing lead-scoring best practices have seen a 77% increase in ROI. Take your time to see such a massive rise in the ROI. With no further delay, go through the article or skip ahead to learn about a specific topic on lead scoring.

“Marketing without data is like driving with your eyes closed.”

– Dan Zarrella

The approach of ranking leads based on data points that analyzes their chances of a buyer to make a purchase is referred as lead scoring. By assigning a numerical value to each lead, businesses can ascertain its priority and initiate nurturing and engagement for better results. Eventually increasing the conversion rate.

Lead scoring is vital for sales efficiency; one way to approach lead scores is by using CRM (customer relationship management) with inbuilt scoring tools. Otherwise, integrating a lead-scoring tool with the CRM is paramount if the organization does not work on CRM with an inbuilt system to rank the leads in the order of priority.

• Traditional Lead Scoring
• Automated Lead Scoring.

Traditional Lead Scoring:

Manually developing scoring points is called traditional lead scoring. Two kinds of data are analysed to follow the conventional lead scoring; the first kind of information is the one the prospect directly provides you, like job, company email, company size, and budget. The other type of information the sales and marketing research team provides includes open email rate, page views, gated content download, and many more.

All these above factors helps in scoring the leads. For example, one can assign score “1” for a click on the landing page, for downloading assign score value of “5”. But, doing it manually becomes a laborious process for person who has to deal with vast number of leads. A simple alternative for the mountain of a task is using Automated Lead Scoring.

Automated Lead Scoring:

Automation software simplifies and enhances the quality work. Finding reliable data from the right source of information is all one needs to reap the highest potential out of any marketing strategy.

Automated lead scoring can provide scores by analyzing the backend data and assigning points to the prospect’s actions. Actions here refer to act-like, such as visiting the page, requesting a demo, or pricing page. By automating lead tracking and scoring models, companies can send better marketing-qualified leads to sales and turn sales-qualified leads into lucrative business opportunities.

5 Lead Scoring Best Practices That Improve Sales Efficiency!!

68% of B2B marketers believe lead scoring is the top revenue contributor. Every organization has specific ways of assigning scores, as automating the process may not highlight the brand’s niche. Below are some of the extensively used Lead Scoring Best Practices. 

Defining a personal buyer persona helps the organization flag leads that align with the Brand’s mind-set, goals and objectives.

Functional lead scoring system in place enhances a B2B venture’s marketing and sales strategy for targeting the audience. Scores assigned by demographic data lead the path to finding a marketing-qualified lead (MQL). Factors that define the buyer persona and scores that can be put against it are discussed around predictive lead scoring. Factors one must take into account to get in touch with the most suitable buyer persona are as follows:

Position: It is crucial to figure out the domain of expertise of your lead. Whether or not your lead holds decision-making authority determines the spontaneity of the lead traveling through the lead funnel.

Work Details: Ascertain your lead’s company details and conduct in-depth research about the company’s functionality for more knowledge.

Budget: There is always a budget, and there is nothing wrong in asking your client to be transparent about the budget. Based on the client’s budget, enterprises can determine the pricing of their offering and comprehend if the lead can afford customization of services for their business.

Downloads: Check what the lead has downloaded from the landing page, use this information to your vantage point to understand where is the current place of the lead in the sales funnel.

Views: Check how long the lead stayed on the page, how many pages the lead visited.

Email: Investigate the area of interest by looking into the data of what and how many emails they have opened. Along with learning about the clicks on the newsletter to have extensive knowledge, 87% of B2B marketers use emails as a distribution channel.

Ad clicks: Analyse the ad click to understand from which campaign the lead has populated itself in the sales funnel. Researching ad clicks will help you understand the kind of advertisement that is worth running.

Landing Page: The digital footprint of your lead has the hints for starting an influential conversation. Check your leads action on the landing page, whether or not they signed up, requested for a demo etc.

After a significant period, the sales team can identify trends that bring substantial positive results. Such trends that the sales team identifies can be further used to design pipelines. While interacting with the clients sales team can identify the pain points and provide a solution. Sales reps are at a direct point of contact with clients and can establish a better association with them.

The marketing team works side by side with the sales by providing insights information that addresses the client’s needs. The marketing team can give info about demographic to bring in more traffic. With these parameters, they can develop an evaluation process for the leads.

Integrating marketing automation and CRM tools to discover qualified marketing leads, and then the automated system assigns these leads to specific reps. So that sales discussion can begin and result in a conversation at the end of the pipeline.

Increase the conversation rate by 25% with the right MQL. Positive pointers identify the MQL (Marketing Qualified Lead), but assessing negative attributes is equally essential. A lead scoring attribute should take into consideration multiple factors, both positive and negative factors. Taking into consideration of the negative scores helps in refining the search for the MQL.

Below are some essential negative attributes one must consider to find the best hot leads.

• Email bounce rate.
• Unsubscribed for email communication.
• Profile doesn’t match the target audience.
• Filling job application, indicating the lead won’t turn into a customer.

The scoring model is created to bring results. In case the marketing team has to constantly add campaigns with different scoring rules, the sales team faces a hard time trying to create opportunities from qualified leads. The marketing and sales team needs to work more closely and evaluate the existing model’s performance, develop new strategies, and implement them to optimize the scoring model, for better results. Constantly taking mindful action will bring in the desired result benefiting all the parties involved in the process.

Quantifying every aspect of lead scoring can reduce  acquisition and marketing costs by 40%. If the lead’s engagement with the brand reduces over time, it indicates the fact of not being interested in the product and services of the brand. A good thumb rule is subtracting the points as the engagement reduces over time.

For example:

• Reduce 10 points after 30 days of no engagement.
• Reduce 20 points after 60 days of no engagement.

Wrapping Up

Finding the best leads may seem intimidating, but it doesn’t always have to be that way. Living in the golden age of data is relatively easy, helping businesses establish connections with prospects across the globe and promising high ROI, supporting sales worldwide, and working with the finest leads.

Still, many businesses need to integrate lead-scoring practices and, sadly, spend loads of money converting pointless leads. You, of course, want to be different and better from those businesses. Determine who your target market is and who your ideal customer is. Follow it up by developing a scoring system to measure the commitment level of your prospects.