Before stating the importance of using lead scoring for your business, it would be wise to know what this system really consists of and how it works.
What is lead scoring?
Lead scoring is a marketing technique aimed at scoring prospects according to their ability to become customers. The scores obtained are the result of close collaboration between the company’s marketing and sales departments, which will have defined evaluation criteria beforehand. Thus, it becomes possible to prioritize leads according to their position in the buying process and to propose the appropriate marketing actions afterwards. To measure the importance of this system, it is therefore essential to understand how it works.
How does it work?
Lead scoring is a relatively simple but effective method. Its goal is to prioritize prospects according to their purchase intention, each of them will then be assigned ratings. But how can this result be achieved? There are 4 main steps.
Definition of evaluation criteria
How to know the position of each lead in the buying process? If a prospect is more interested in your offer compared to another? It will be necessary to rate them according to criteria defined in advance by the sales and marketing managers. Two main families of criteria coexist: explicit criteria and behavioural criteria.
Explicit scoring criteria
These include all the information related to:
- The function or role of the prospect;
- The size or workforce of the company;
- The capital of the company;
- The company’s sector of activity;
- The type of products or services desired;
- The budget allocated to the project;
- The expected completion date;
Behavioural scoring criteria
- The opening rate of your newsletters by the prospect;
- The number of digital guides they downloaded from your site;
- The comments he made on your blog;
- The subject’s subscription to your social networks;
- Registration for a conference organized by your company;
- Subscribing to a trial offer;
- Direct contact by phone, email or on one of your platforms;
The assignment of the values of each criterion
After determining the criteria that seem relevant to you to evaluate the interest that your prospects give to your offer, it is time to assign their values. For example, if you perform a lead scoring on 100 points, the main criteria will make 15 points. You then decrease the scores based on the degree of importance of the other factors. Be careful, with regard to behavioral criteria, the analysis becomes more sensitive, hence the interest of close collaboration between the departments concerned. Indeed, a lead who has already contacted your company or who has subscribed to a trial offer is more likely to become a customer than another who has simply opened your website.
Identification of negative criteria
What are negative criteria here? These are the actions performed by a prospect who in reality is not one. Take the example of a one-time visitor to your website, or a competitor who performs a watch. They will never become your customers since they are simply not interested in your products or services.
Automated processing of results
Once the steps have been taken upstream, it’s time to add up the scores to identify the prospects to target first. If this task can be done manually on a small scale, it is strongly advised to entrust this work to specialized software. This will save you time, but also efficiency.
What does lead scoring bring to the prospecting process?
You will have noticed that lead scoring brings novelty in the prospecting process. Let’s take a concrete look at the benefits that this system brings to your business as well as its importance.
Considerable time savings
Even if lead scoring requires a fairly significant amount of preparation work, once set up, you will be helped by your software to accurately determine the prospects to target first. The calculation is done quickly, and will be renewed as other leads appear. You will therefore know at all times to whom you will have to provide all the marketing and commercial efforts. No more wasting time spent on people or entities that will never become your customers!
Effectiveness of prospecting
The prospects who get the highest scores will be the ones with the best conversion rate. In other words, it will be leads who are really interested in what you have to offer, therefore likely to be customers. In general, content rich in arguments and adapted to their position in the buying process will be enough to push them to action. It’s up to you to work your creativity to convince them to buy your product or service, since there is only one step that separates their status as a « prospect » from that of « customer ».
One step ahead of your competitors
The goal of any business is to grow. So at one time or another, you will have to look for new customers to increase your turnover. Lead scoring will help you greatly in this conquest, because unlike a company that does not use this technique, you will be one step ahead. That of knowing precisely the people who could respond favorably to your offer.
A major ally of automation
Combined with automation, lead scoring becomes a major asset. Depending on the interest of the lead and his situation in the purchase phase, you will be able to bring the appropriate actions. Let’s take the example of a person who is undecided, but who would be strongly interested in what you have to offer. To remove any doubts that could hinder him, you can invite him to subscribe to a free trial offer. In the case of a prospect who begins to discover your products or services, you will make him discover the benefits of these as well as the benefits he could derive from them.
Sources:
https://www.bluenote-systems.com/faq-crm-sugarcrm/lead-scoring-signification-definition.html
https://www.anthedesign.fr/marketing-2/lead-scoring/
https://www.markentive.com/fr/blog/lead-scoring-4-etapes-classer-prospects
