If you’ve been running an inbound marketing campaign for any length of time, it’s likely that you’ve got a number of business leads already lined up.  However, the more leads you start to receive, the more overwhelming it can be to know what to do with them, especially if you don’t have enough employees to contact them all.  How do you know which ones are worth pursuing and which ones only gave you their contact information for the freebie you offered in return?  It’s important to recognize that not all leads are equal in value, so you’ll want to sort out those that you can convert into making a purchase to those you’ll be wasting your time with.  With a bit of time and effort, you can rank these leads in order of importance and soon see the profits. 

So, What Actually Is Lead Scoring?

Lead scoring is a system, tailored specifically to your company, which ranks leads based on certain criteria.  These can include the geographical location of the lead, their apparent interest in your product or service, their budget, and all manner of other things.  By giving a score to each of these criterions, you can work out which leads are most likely to become a customer and focus your attention on converting them.  Below are some tips on how to get started.

Tips for Getting Started

1. Assign Each Criterion a Value

The first thing you’ll want to do is work with your marketing and sales teams and assign each criterion a value.  How many points will you assign a lead who has sent you all of their contact information, including phone number and mailing address as opposed to just their name and email?  How many points will you assign to a company that is closely related to yours, or in the same location as you?  Will you assign negative points to leads who have a small budget?  This is the most important step to take, so consult both teams prior to choosing criterion and assigning values.

2. Ensure Every Member of Your Team is Onboard

Once you’ve given each criterion a value, you need to ensure this is properly communicated to both your marketing and sales teams, so that they know which leads are more important to pursue.  You don’t have to neglect lower scoring leads, but they shouldn’t be a priority.  Communicating this information will also ensure that your marketing team knows when to pass a lead over to the sales department.  Your sales team hopefully have the training they need to close deals, so it is them who should be doing this, not the marketing department.

3. Determine the Software You Need

Technology helps to make scoring and maintaining your scoring system a lot easier than it did in the past, and businesses now have a variety of software programs available to help automate the task.  The lead scoring software from SendInBlue is a great automatic option that can be fully customized according to your business’s needs.  It can also assign each lead to a specific mailing list so that you can send targeted campaigns to those who are close to purchasing from you.

4. Make Sure to Re-evaluate Your System

If your highest scoring leads aren’t turning into paying customers, it’s likely because you are focusing on the wrong criteria to score them.  Don’t be afraid to play about with your system to ensure that points are being assigned to those who are more likely to convert.  Perhaps you may even need to add extra criteria to your system.  Your marketing team will be able to advise on what they think needs to be changed to achieve the desired results.

5. Audit Your Marketing Techniques

Finally, it’s also a good idea to regularly audit your marketing techniques so that you can work out where you are gaining your leads and how successfully they are converting.  Perhaps the most beneficial leads are arriving on your website due to organic search, or maybe they’re being tempted by the PPC ads you’ve launched.  Ensure that the pages these leads land on provide quality offers that will encourage them to do business with you and audit your techniques to determine which are worth focusing on moving forward.

Get Started Today!

Lead scoring is one of the most powerful things you can do as a business, and when done correctly, will see your conversion rates – and therefore profit – increase substantially.  It ensures that your sales department is speaking to those who are most likely to want to do business with you and not wasting their time on those who aren’t.  The guide above should help you on your way.

Did this article help you?  Let us know more about your lead scoring success in the comments.