You’ve identified hundreds, even thousands, of people who may be interested in your business’s products or services. But, not all your leads are equal. Some are hot prospects who will make a purchase if they are given a little encouragement. Others are mildly interested in what you do but may never become customers.
Lead scoring is a process you can use to determine which of your leads are most likely to convert. As with any other scoring process, lead scoring results in a numerical value, helping you to identify your most valuable leads and spring into action.
Why Lead Scoring is so Worthwhile
Outbound sales are proactive sales. Instead of waiting for people to approach you, you contact them, and offer them all the information they need to make a purchasing decision. But first, you need to know who is already showing an interest in what you do. Your lead generation and lead scoring processes work to identify people who may be worth approaching.
Lead scoring helps you to focus your resources where the potential for sales is greatest. Done well, this approach should result in a higher percentage of conversions achieved at a lower cost.
What Lead Scoring Models Should You Consider?
Points-based lead scoring is fairly straightforward. For example, in B2B contexts, a person in a decision-making role should be allocated higher points than a person in a support role. However, there are several other things to consider.
Look at how leads have interacted with your lead-generation activities. For example, they may have included newsletter signups and an ebook download. Those who downloaded the ebook and frequently read your newsletter should be assigned higher scores than those who signalled interest through only one of these channels. In addition, signing up for your newsletter is an indication of interest, but those who do not interact with the newsletter after receiving it are allocated a lower score than those who do.
Weighted scoring means adding bonus points or a multiplier based on criteria that are of particular importance to your company. Using B2B selling as an example, large companies may be more likely to turn into valuable customers than small ones. However, if your products specifically target small businesses, the reverse may be true and you would weight your scores accordingly.
Predictive scoring is of particular interest in the current technological climate. Software that uses AI features like machine learning may be able to predict what leads are likely to do next based on historical data. You can quickly identify which leads are closest to conversion and contact them to see whether you can address any obstacles to making a sale.
How to Calculate a Basic Lead Score
Begin by analysing your existing customer base. What do they have in common? How do they differ? What leads them to make a purchase and how do they behave as they move through your sales funnel?
Once you know “who” your customers are, and can identify customer journeys that commonly lead to sales, you’ll be better able to identify strong leads. If your customers fall into several categories or represent different personas, that’s worth taking on board. You may want to implement several sets of criteria when you begin with lead scoring.
Analysing Demographic Information
Chances are, you generated leads through landing pages, and you will have gathered broad demographic information that can help you with lead scoring. You can use this to thin down your list a little and allocate positive scores to leads that look like good matches while eliminating leads that are likely to be dead-ends.
There may be people in your database of leads who clearly won’t become customers. As a simple example, if your business is active in a specific geographical area, anyone falling outside that area is an unlikely prospect. You can indicate this by assigning a negative score.
Similarly, your B2B concern may have been developed to serve companies with specific attributes. This allows you to downgrade the scores of leads that do not match this customer profile and upgrade the scores of those that do.
Now, take your thinned-down list and allocate scores based on what you’re looking for in customers. Using a B2B example, you can allocate higher scores to leads who are most likely to be responsible for a purchasing decision. A mid-level score indicates leads who may be influential in recommending purchases, and a lower score indicates those who might influence a purchasing decision albeit to a lesser degree.
Analysing Behavioral Data
Look at online behaviour, comparing the patterns exhibited by converted customers to the behaviour of your leads. You can score leads based on the web pages they viewed and the degree to which they engaged with your website.
A person who just read a blog post before moving on might not be a hot sales prospect, but may score a point or two. If they progress to high-value pages like your reviews, pricing pages, and offers, you can assign higher point values for each of these activities guided by your predetermined lead scoring template.
When analysing the strength of leads who subscribed to your newsletter, look for degrees of interest. If they open it, do they click on your links and offers to get more information? Look for signals indicating that a lead is already exhibiting a high level of interest and is taking a closer look.
The same is true of social media engagement. Allocate points based on likes, shares, comments, and click-throughs, weighting scores based on ordinary interest or signals indicating progression towards exploration and information-seeking.
Use Predictive Lead Scoring Software
Needless to say, manual scoring as described above is very time-consuming, especially if you have many leads to evaluate. If you have few leads, it’s feasible to undertake a basic lead scoring exercise without much technological help. However, when you have a lot of data to work through, using AI lead scoring tools will help you get through the process quickly and easily.
Follow Through: Make That Call
Following your lead scoring exercise, it’s time to see whether you’ve correctly identified people who are on the verge of conversion. Don’t allow your leads time in which their interest might cool. Start making those outreach calls.
It’s not an activity that suits just anyone, however. Cold calling is not for the faint-hearted. Employing aggressive sales tactics may not win you customers either. The trick is to get the balance just right, demonstrating calm confidence and professionalism without coming across as brash or pushy.
Remember, you are offering more information on something your lead is likely to be interested in already. High quality pitches will always outperform high-volume pitches. Show respect for your potential clients by delivering the former.
If you’re confident that your outreach employs good sales techniques, the results your business achieves when following up high-scoring leads will help you to determine whether you are using the right lead scoring criteria.
You Want Outbound Sales, But…
If the very thought of undertaking a lead scoring exercise and then following through fills you with misgiving, you have two options: continue to sell reactively to people who approach you, or take the plunge and grow your sales with RSVP.
Our UK-based lead qualification service includes lead scoring and lead prioritisation. And, when it comes to that make-or-break call, our educated, articulate agents will represent you in a manner you’ll be proud of. Contact us today and let’s work together to grow your sales: it’s a challenge we’re more than equal to.