Are you unable to convert leads and prospects into customers? Are you struggling to establish their degree of maturity in order to adapt your sales prospecting? Do you need an effective method to understand where your leads are in the buying cycle? Thanks to the implementation of a lead scoring strategy, each lead has a number of points. It’s simple: the higher the score, the more qualified your target!
Lead scoring, definition
Lead scoring is a marketing strategy aimed at assigning a score to leads and prospects. This scoring system is calculated based on certain lead information such as age, industry, company size (demographic scoring) or behavior such as visiting your website, your blog, downloading your white paper, (behavioural scoring), etc. This is a relevant approach to differentiate a curious lead from an MQL (Marketing Qualified Lead), that is to say, a lead who is really interested in your business.
In b2b, lead scoring is a formidable method to improve your conversion rate. Indeed, thanks to it, you precisely identify the degree of maturity of a lead and you know his position in the sales cycle. You then prioritize contacts with hot leads, and you personalize your messages with the prospect, taking into account the information contained in your database (CRM).
Cold leads still need to learn about your services or products. They’re not ready to buy so you don’t waste time contacting them right away. Implementing a lead nurturing strategy makes more sense to move them forward in the buying cycle.
Discover in a moment how to set up lead scoring!
What are the benefits of lead scoring?
Implementing a lead scoring strategy allows your sales teams to be more efficient. They know who to contact, when and what sales pitch to make to close a sale. Thus, your salespeople identify customers who are genuinely interested in their solutions and they don’t push them to buy, the prospect is already convinced!
It is also possible to use marketing automation software, in order to automate the sending of messages, personalized emails when the contact has a precise score.
For a b2b company, demographic scoring is based more on the characteristics of the company rather than the individual. This involves determining its size, budget, sector of activity and geographical location. So, if your service is aimed at large enterprises, SMEs naturally score lower. You then know which customers to contact first.
Here is an example of lead scoring to understand how this strategy works in practice:
- For a lead to be qualified or hot, it must reach 50 points;
- He visits your website and reads several blog posts + 5 points/post;
- The prospect downloads your marketing strategy guide + 10 points;
- He then opens your email + 5 points;
- The prospect registers for your training, your webinar + 20 points.
The lead scoring strategy fits perfectly into your inbound marketing strategy. This consists in attracting the lead to your website, it is he who comes to you, because your content, your digital presence, bring him valuable information.
Generally, lead scoring consists of awarding points, however, it can also take points! For example, if a lead doesn’t open your emails or gives a wrong phone number, negative lead scoring kicks in!
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How to set up a lead scoring strategy?
Establish a lead scoring scale
It’s about classifying your content as well as lead actions in different phases. Each of them allows you to obtain a certain number of points:
- Discovery of the need (from 5 to 10 points);
- Evaluation of solutions (10 to 20 points);
- Decision making (20 to 30 points).
1. Discovering the need
This is the first step, where the prospect becomes aware of his suffering, of his problem . In terms of actions it can be:
- Subscribing to your newsletter;
- A click on sponsored content, a link in an email;
- The fact that it follows your business on a social platform like LinkedIn ™.
Regarding the content they read, they correspond to articles such as “Why and how to set up a…?” » or « How to succeed…? “.
2. Evaluation of solutions
In this second step, the lead knows his flaws and he sets a goal to achieve . For example, converting more visitors into qualified prospects or making its salespeople more efficient. He searches and compares the different methods, in order to find the one that best meets his needs. This may correspond to:
- Registration for a webinar, training;
- Downloading your white paper containing your expert advice to boost your sales sustainably.
Reading an article like ” What are the best performing btob trading strategies?” » or « The 5 infallible techniques to convert prospects into customers! » also allows leads to evaluate and choose the methods to apply to achieve their goals.
3. Decision making
The lead knows what method to put in place, he is now looking for a service provider to train his salespeople and marketing teams so that they become more efficient. It compares rates, services, customer reviews. It visits everyone’s site and pays attention to each page. This is explained by :
- The request for a quote;
- Contacting your teams for more information;
- The contact asks about your guarantees.
In terms of content, he visits your “Who are we?” page. », that of your prices and the articles concerning your services, your products and their benefits. It is this final step that earns the lead the most points.
Automate personalized content in the customer journey
Depending on the position of your target in the customer journey, send them personalized content adapted to their situation in order to facilitate conversion or make it faster.
If they’re a hot prospect, offer them a meeting or a free quote. On the contrary, for low-qualified leads, educational content is relevant for them to become aware of their issues.
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Adopt marketing automation software
Lead scoring is an effective method, however, if not automated, it can become complex to develop and follow. Fortunately, many automation software allow you to collect data from prospects, classify them and give a score to each of them. In other words, thanks to them, you follow the progress of each target without having to calculate its score.
Thanks to CRM tools like Hubspot™, all you have to do is configure your lead scoring according to the criteria of your choice, to obtain a detailed report of prospects.
For example :
- What are the conditions that contacts must meet (b2b player, geographical area, sector of activity, etc.) to become hot prospects?
- What actions do they have to perform to get points?
- Or what segmentation system (scale of 1 to 100 points, classification of small, medium and large companies, etc.) do you want to put in place?
Lead scoring to conclude
- This strategy takes into account demographic scoring (company, company size, position, age, etc.) and behavioral scoring (visiting your site, downloading your guide, subscribing to your newsletter, etc.).
- Thanks to lead scoring, you know the degree of maturity of leads, guess their needs based on their behavior (articles, pages visited, etc.), prioritize contact with hot leads and personalize your speech.
- Lead scoring is an inbound marketing practice that means your prospects learn about your products or services because they meet their needs. These are therefore qualified prospects.
- Structure your lead scoring in 3 steps: discovery of the need, evaluation of the possibilities and decision making. You assign actions, content and points to these phases, in order to set up your scoring system.
- Investing in lead scoring automation software is essential to save time, perform better, and get detailed reports on your leads.
Lead scoring to summarize in 4 questions
How do I do lead scoring?
Lead scoring is a marketing practice based on a calculation of points, a score, assigned to each lead. To set it up, establish a scale: an action = a number of points and segment them among 3 phases (discovery, evaluation, decision-making). Investing in marketing automation software is also beneficial for automating your lead scoring.
How to calculate a prospect's score?
In the implementation of a lead scoring strategy, the score of a prospect is calculated according to your scale. Indeed, each action performed by the lead earns or deducts points. The goal is for him to reach the set score which corresponds to a qualified prospect.
Thus, if he subscribes to your newsletter, he gets 5 points, he consults your services several times, 10 points, he requests a quote, 30 points, etc.
How do you score a customer?
Assigning a score to a customer is a process that is based on several pieces of information:
- The demographic data of the target (age, company, sector of activity, location, etc.);
- Behavioral data (purchase history, reading the pages of your site that he visits, the articles he reads, the time he spends on your site, etc.).
What is lead nurturing?
Lead nurturing is a marketing practice that involves advancing low-qualified leads through the sales cycle. They aren’t ready to make a purchase yet, however, they seem to have a genuine interest in your business. Sending educational or informative content is then, to be an effective strategy.
