What is lead scoring

So, if you’re wondering how to identify which potential customers can turn into paying customers, you’ve come to the right page!

One of the most effective ways to recognize the types of leads you have in your company is by implementing the lead scoring strategy.

First, it’s helpful to understand what a lead is and what its characteristics.

¿What is Lead Scoring?

Lead scoring is a digital marketing model that focuses on the qualification of potential customers through a collaborative effort between the sales and marketing departments.

Lead scoring is carried out with the aim of understanding the purchase motivation of prospects based on their interest in the brand or business, their current position in the conversion funnel, and their alignment with what the company offers.

The process, which we will delve into further, goes as follows:

First, you determine which criteria or data points indicate a qualified sales lead and then assign point values to each of these criteria, resulting in a final minimum score for each potential customer.

Having a lead scoring system allows you to eliminate the subjectivity from the process and truly understand which leads have the best chances of conversion.

In other words, those likely to make a purchase.

This can be done using classification labels such as A, B, C, D to indicate A (most interested) to D (least interested), or with terms designed by both departments’ teams, allowing them to classify interest and purchasing capacity.

But, ¿what is the real purpose of conducting lead scoring?

Benefits of Lead Scoring

Lead scoring helps optimize inbound marketing processes in several ways, primarily serving to align marketing and sales goals. When implemented effectively, it can yield numerous positive impacts:

1. More Effective Marketing Campaigns

Lead scoring enables the identification of campaigns and channels that yield high-quality leads. Subsequently, you can tailor your marketing strategy to generate more qualified leads.

Ultimately, this strengthens internal efficiency and productivity, with a focus on targeted marketing and the potential for increased sales by analyzing customer needs to expedite or guide them through the lead nurturing process.

2. Sales and Marketing Alignment

It’s no secret that there are often significant differences between the sales team’s goals and those of the marketing team.

Lead scoring is one internal approach within your organization that can positively impact the functioning and alignment of both teams.

3. Revenue Growth

With lead scoring in place, the sales department can prioritize which leads to pursue first for segmented and optimized nurturing. By reaching qualified leads in a timely manner, revenue can be significantly enhanced.

These are just some of the benefits that this lead scoring system brings. So, if you’re already convinced that it’s a plan you can implement in your company, don’t hesitate to start designing one. It’s actually not very difficult.

Here, we’ll provide some recommendations to consider when beginning a lead scoring plan.

¿How to Design a Lead Scoring Plan?

There isn’t a specific formula for designing a lead scoring strategy because each company should have its own scoring system that aligns with its specific goals and objectives.

However, here are some elements to consider when designing your own model, keeping in mind that the greater the integration between teams in the plan’s construction, the better and more satisfying it will be for all members of the company.

1. Create Buyer Personas

Before you can design scoring criteria for your leads and customers, you must have a clear understanding of the characteristics that make a potential customer ideal for your products or services.

Buyer personas, or customer archetypes, are created with the goal of crafting a semi-fictional character representing your ideal customer. You may have multiple buyer personas that characterize everything related to your customer type, based on quantitative research, qualitative insights, and observations from you and your team about people who engage with your brand.

If you don’t already have buyer personas, we recommend checking out this practical guide, which will undoubtedly help you create a clearer understanding of your buyer personas.

At this stage, it’s also crucial to talk to the sales team and engage with customers.

2. Determine Scoring Criteria

Now that you know the customer archetype, it’s time to decide which attributes you will assign point values to. Criteria can be divided into two main categories: sociodemographic information and customer behavior data.

In the first classification, you’ll find data such as location, age, job title, or profession, etc.

Among the behavioral characteristics, include those that individuals have already exhibited with your company. For example, if they’ve subscribed to receive a newsletter, visited your website, used a free trial, downloaded content, engaged on social media, etc.

3. Assign Point Values

After the previous step, the important task is to determine the point values assigned to each element on the list above, as not all criteria will have the same value.

For instance, someone who subscribed to receive a newsletter will not have the same score as someone who has already acquired a free trial, as the latter has a much higher conversion rate.

But how do you decide what’s important to give more or fewer points?

• Talk to your sales team and marketing team.
• Interact with your customers to gather more information about their buying behavior.
  Record and track the analytics data from your marketing strategy.

4. Identify the Point Threshold that Qualifies a Lead as a Sales Prospective Customer

By totaling the accumulated points of your ideal customer, you will discover the threshold score that qualifies your leads as qualified customers ready for conversion.

You may need to conduct several tests to determine the range of scores that represent “sales readiness” or the stage they are in within the conversion funnel. Initial tests when you begin implementing your lead scoring plan will reveal how effective the assigned points are.

5. Utilize Sales and Marketing Automation Tools

If you’re considering designing this customer scoring plan, it’s important to note that doing it manually is a cumbersome and complicated process, and it may not be reliable for tracking customers and point counting.

Therefore, make sure you have marketing and sales automation tools to make your lead scoring truly effective.

Using a CRM system will help your entire company optimize processes related to the sales funnel and your relationship with leads and customers. To learn more about CRM software, we recommend visiting this link.

Conclusion

Lead scoring systems provide insights for designing lead nurturing campaigns, using sociodemographic data and scores derived from behavioral metrics such as clicks, keywords, website visits, page interactions, or CTAs in emails, among many others.

Don’t hesitate to start designing this strategy, as it will greatly enhance the return on investment you make in your digital marketing efforts. At Dazzet, we can assist you in structuring your entire plan in a personalized manner.