Lead Scoring
How to Take Your Sales from Good to Great
Lead scoring is an effective and systematic method of prioritizing
sales leads so that the best leads get priority attention, so more sales are
closed and your company’s profitability rises.
Lead scoring is a relatively new idea in demand marketing. What lead
scoring entails is having a system in place whereby potential customers
receive a score based on how likely they are to buy your product or service.
In companies with separate marketing and sales division, the information is
then turned over to the sales department who can easily see which leads are
most valuable. In smaller companies, lead scoring helps the company
determine which lead to go after first because they can tell which prospect
is more likely ready to buy.
For a B2B company online, it is important to gather as much explicit
information as possible to contribute towards the lead scoring of potential
clients. This includes factors like the size of the company, the industry,
the prospect’s title and where the company is located. Implicit
considerations are also a part of lead scoring and include how often the
prospect visits your site, if they download a white paper, if they subscribe
to a blog or email newsletter and how recently this contact was made.
By combining implicit and explicit information, good marketers can infer
how likely a prospect is to buy in the near future.
What you do with your lead scoring is also important. Analysis of your
lead scoring process and results is a crucial step in marketing your
business. Careful notes must be kept on the process of following up with
each potential client. Salespeople should keep track of how long it takes to
close a deal after reception of the lead, how accurate the scoring was and
if the deal falls through, why? This data should be tracked back to the lead
scoring process to make sure it is being done correctly. It may be that some
individuals are scoring leads properly while others are not. It may be that
the system is flawed at some point and needs to be revamped.
Lead scoring is an effective way to prioritize leads that come as a
result of your B2B online marketing efforts. However, as with any leads,
time is of the essence. By prioritizing them according to a systematic
scoring method, you will be able to get to the ones which have the highest
chances of success and those that are likely to be most lucrative in a more
timely fashion than those who are simply browsing and are not ready to buy.
This is a great way to increase your sales force’s success rate.
For more information on having MarketBlazer guide your business to
the next level in marketing, call (770) 406-6343 or email us at
info@marketblazer.com.
