What is lead scoring?

Almost 80% of new leads never become sales
– Brian Carroll, Lead Generation for the Complex Sale.

If you’re a marketer, your main aim is to generate leads for the business. But not everyone converts into a paying customer, so how do you understand which leads are most likely to convert and how should you optimise marketing campaigns for better quality leads?

Step forward lead scoring. By using pre-determined criteria, each lead is assigned points and a final score to assess if it’s an SQL, ie. sales ready. Points can be awarded for certain demographic and firmographic attributes such as company size, industry or job title, or they can be based on customer activity such as a website visit, filling in an enquiry form or clicking on a specified CTA.

Armed with a final score, you can see clearly which leads have the highest probability of converting and can be passed to sales, and which ones are not ready yet but can be entered into a lead nurturing programme.

Why use lead scoring?

Lead scoring can be highly effective when implemented properly, streamlining and simplifying systems within your business – here are just some of the benefits.

1. Sales and marketing alignment

With lead scoring rules in place, every lead passed onto sales from marketing will be qualified to mutually agreed criteria, helping to strengthen the relationship between the two teams.

2. Better marketing campaigns

Using lead scoring means you can easily identify which campaigns are most effective and which content channels provide the highest quality leads. With this data you are able to plug any gaps and continually optimise marketing efforts.

3. Greater ROI

With leads prioritised, sales can follow up qualified leads quickly before the sale goes cold, and importantly before a competitor enters the ring. This ability can have a significant impact on driving revenue.

Setting up your lead scoring system

Every company’s lead scoring will be tailored to their own business goals, customers and KPIs – one size won’t fit all. However, there are steps that every organisation should take when lead scoring.

1. Create buyer personas

A clear outline of the characteristics that make up your ideal buyer or buyers is essential for understanding who is the best fit for your business. These semi-fictional characters are constructed from existing customer data and quantitative research and have a direct impact on your lead scoring system.

2. Determine scoring system

Next, brainstorm with your team to decide which attributes to score. Scoring can be divided into demographic information such as location, company size and type, department, industry, age, job title and behavioural information such as website page visits, email engagement, social media engagement, email open rates, newsletter subscriptions, content download or free trial requests.

3. Assign points to data

How you determine which attributes get a high or low score will be personal to your business and will be based on data from previously high converting leads. You may want to deduct points for any B2B customers who don’t use a company email address, for example and, add them if they download a white paper because from previous experience, these leads are likely to convert. Talk to your sales team, look into your CRM data and examine high performing content marketing pieces for insights.

Make the most of marketing and sales automation

Without automation, lead scoring can be laborious and time consuming and at worst, inaccurate with lead leakage. Marketing automation tools keep track of leads as their score changes throughout the funnel and ensure that no lead is ‘lost’, even when there is a large volume. Define your scoring criteria, and marketing automation platforms such as Eloqua or Marketo will automatically assign a score, allowing your marketing team to make the most of the data to refine and optimise future campaigns.

Are you considering trying Lead Scoring for the first time, or maybe it’s time to take your current lead management approach to the next level? Why not contact us for a no obligation discussion on how MarketOne’s tried and tested frameworks have helped businesses scale at speed and drive measurable impact.