What Is Lead Scoring?

As a salesperson, you need to treat every lead equally, without bias. Still, we can see that as a lead progresses through the pipeline, not all leads are the same. Some leads are more likely to close, and others are less likely. Lead scoring can help identify higher-quality leads. By focusing on these leads, sales teams can use their time and resources more effectively and achieve better results.

Why Do You Need Lead Scoring?

In times of economic challenges and strong competition, it is crucial for both small and large organizations to focus their time on leads that are likely to close. That is where Lead Scoring comes in.

Lead Scoring involves identifying leads that are showing buying signals and prioritizing those leads. Lead scoring is a method that assigns a number to each lead based on pre-qualifiers, and the higher the number, the more likely a sale will be made. This process can be done manually with input from team members, fully automated as part of your marketing automation with AI, or a combination of both.

The scores given will depend upon the Call to Action (CTA) of your campaigns, and then these scores will be used to determine if your lead becomes an MQL (Marketing Qualified Lead).

Lead Prioritization is taking the results and data from your lead scoring and choosing which leads your sales team will actively pursue.

There are two primary types of lead scoring

Predictive Lead Scoring

This type of lead scoring uses software and AI to score your leads automatically based on sales and marketing data. It employs algorithms to analyze past and current customer data to predict possible outcomes and remove the possibility of human error in the scoring process. 

Rule-Based Lead Scoring

This type of lead scoring involves setting up rules based on desired or undesired behaviors or characteristics, such as demographic or company information. When a new lead triggers one of these rules, you update the lead score accordingly & understand the lead quality. You can then set up workflows based on lead scores. For example, you may want to create a system where if one of your leads accumulates a total lead score of 50, they are sent to the sales team for a follow-up.

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AI Is Increasingly Used in Lead Scoring

The use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is causing a significant shift in how businesses operate and achieve success. What used to be a manual process, and still is for some Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems, is now mostly automated. This is done through triggers based on patterns, keywords, phrases, and other data stored in the CRM. A lead is automatically directed to the sales team when it is ready to convert. This also helps automate the sale pipeline and sales funnel.

How To Create Your Own Lead Scoring Model

Lead scoring isn’t a science, it’s an art, and individual companies need individual lead-scoring models. You’ll need to come up with your own criteria. However, all lead scoring models have many common elements.

What Criteria Is Used in Lead Scoring?

• Demographics
• Online Behavior
• Previous Customer
• Social Engagement
• Email Engagement
• Demographic Information
• Online Behavior
• Company Information
• Social Engagement
• Email Engagement

B2B Lead-Scoring Criteria

We’re already assuming that you’ve targeted your companies based on ICP (Ideal Company Profiles) , so those companies should be a good fit for the solutions you can provide them. Next, you must set criteria for the person or persons you are in contact with.

For example, is the contact a decision-maker, a gatekeeper, or just an influencer? You can assign a numerical value to each one of those categories, with “decision-maker” being the highest number.

Company size, revenue, years in business, markets, existing software use, and other factors each would have a numerical rating.

Interaction is another factor. Have they responded to your email, reached out to you on social media, and followed your company on LinkedIn? Do they read your blogs and posts?

Additional criteria that will work in either B2B or B2C include:

• Website visits.
• Social media interactions.
• Content interactions.
• Have they purchased before?
• Have they purchased products that need add-ons?

While you should look at how your competitors have made their lead scoring, remember that processes are different even if markets are the same.

Email and social media engagement are great for lead scoring because you can see exactly who has interacted when you use LinkedIn and how many people are looking at and interacting with your posts and articles with other social media sources.

As you roll out your lead scoring, take your time to see what works and what doesn’t. Continue to test and retest. Lead Scoring, ICP (Ideal Company Profiles), Customer Personas, and your sales enablement charter should be reviewed every three to six months and compared with your KPIs to ensure your efforts are on track.

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