Good news, if you are wondering how to focus your efforts on the prospects who will generate the most revenue for your business, it means that your products or services are generating interest , which is (very) positive!
So how do you identify the most interesting leads for your business in order to prioritize your commercial actions ? A method at the crossroads of marketing and sales responds to this challenge: putting in place a lead scoring .
Lead scoring is an approach that aims to boost your sales performance by assigning a note (or score) to your prospects based on the criteria you are going to define and their behavior vis-à-vis your content. In this article, we are going to define this notion in more detail, give you the keys to deploying it in your organization, then explain to you how, with LeadIn , this process is considerably simplified.
Why implement a lead scoring strategy?
Lead scoring: Definition
Lead scoring is a methodology used by sales and marketing teams to determine the value of prospects , or potential customers, by assigning them a value based on their behavior in relation to their interest in your products or services. The “value” of each lead varies from company to company, but is generally characterized by the interest shown in the company or its positioning within your sales funnel.
In concrete terms, a lead scoring strategy translates into the implementation of a point-based system allowing the lead to be assigned a score or more simply a “hot” or “cold” status depending on the history of interactions. .
A good lead scoring model can help you prioritize your prospects based on:
- Business volume – Not all your customers will generate the same income, you must focus your efforts on those who will bring you the most revenue.
- The likelihood of them buying – A lead may have huge potential but a very low likelihood of coming to fruition, you can’t waste too much time on it.
- Time to purchase – Some prospects are interested but will not be able to purchase for a few months, so they will be less of a priority.
The objective of your lead scoring strategy is to find a balance between these different data , each aspect must be noted and the overall score will define the effort that your sales representatives will have to deploy to close these deals.
Discover our top 7 tips for generating B2B leads quickly
The benefits of a solid lead scoring strategy
Standardize the way leads are evaluated
Lead scoring gives marketing and sales teams a common language to discuss lead quality and quantity. By scoring behaviors based on their likelihood to convert, marketers can generate more leads by adjusting inbound strategies to target specific factors that yield high scores.
Identify and target leads that need to be nurtured
Lower-scoring prospects may need additional nurturing to increase interest and engagement . You can segment your leads by score and distribute them into nurturing campaigns to generate sales-ready leads.
Give voice to your “fans”
Lead scoring tools track your customer engagement , allowing you to identify extremely satisfied and highly engaged fans of your business. These customers are often eager to recommend your business when the opportunity arises, and you can encourage these recommendations through automated campaigns.
Refine your marketing messages
You may find that your best prospects respond to slightly different marketing approaches. By segmenting the contacts that best match your business, you can test different approaches that might not work for less interested prospects. You may be able to contact these prospects more often or be more aggressive in your calls to action .
6 steps to set up a lead scoring strategy
# 1 Define your ICP (Ideal Client Profile)
First, establish the minimum criteria that a prospect must meet to become a customer. If a criterion is not really essential, do not indicate it here. Consider only the required qualifications. For example , your target client may be a man aged between 25 and 35, who lives in a city of more than 200,000 inhabitants, who works in a CAC 40 box and who rides a motorcycle.
It can also be wider . For example, your client must be 18 years of age or older. Or, he may have to live in a specific region.
If you’re struggling to identify your minimum requirements, think about the factors that prevent prospects from becoming customers. From this perspective, you should be able to determine the minimum criteria that prospects must meet to earn your attention.
# 2 target your audience
Examine the common characteristics of your target audience. If you know your current customer base well, you can probably quickly list many of these attributes. Unlike the minimum qualifications mentioned in step one, your contacts do not need to have these characteristics to be considered customers. Rather, common characteristics are traits that your typical customer possesses.
With this method, the goal is to identify prospects who most closely resemble your typical customer. If the leads are similar to your existing customer base, they’re likely a product match.
# 3 understand the behavior of your prospects
Behavior-based rules identify interested and highly engaged prospects.
Start by listing all the behaviors prospects can engage in.
Although some behaviors are more important than others, it is useful to assign a point value to all behaviors (even if it is a very low value).
Don’t rule out behaviors just because they don’t matter to you. Balance is crucial .
Here are some examples of actions you need to integrate:
- Opening an email
- Email clicks
- Email responses
- Sharing on social networks
- Web page visits
- Form submission
If you have a follow-up campaign, note the behaviors it causes.
What calls to action does it contain ? The actions that the majority of your prospects take before they convert are called ” critical conversion behaviors .”
This could be starting a free trial or requesting a sales demo.
# 4 establish a system
For many companies, a simple 1-100 rating scale will suffice , but other options exist. If your business deals with different types of leads , you can use the thousands digit for further classification.
For example, a company like Amazon will have leads in e-commerce (B2C) that will be totally different from its leads for the Amazon Web Services (B2B) offer.
Thus, B2B companies can use
- “1” for small business
- “2” for medium enterprises
- “3” for large companies
In this case, a lead with a score of 2089 would be an average business with a score of 89.
Once you’ve completed the first stage, you can use a lead’s score to qualify it apart from any other factors. This way, a bad lead will never reach your sales team (no matter how many behavioral rules it triggers). You can do this by assigning blocks of 100 points for specific “must-see” criteria, so that a prospect qualifies if they meet the criteria.
For example, you may need leads located in a certain region , leads who have a contact in a specific department, or leads who are in a certain industry . By awarding 100 points for each of these rules, a prospect only becomes sales-ready when they reach 300 points . In this case, a prospect with 389 points will be passed on to the sales team, but not a prospect with 289 points.
# 5 Define a sales “threshold”
Sales and marketing teams again need to work together to specify a score that indicates when a lead is ready to sell, which means they should be contacted by a salesperson.
Don’t forget the path to purchase: you don’t want to pitch too early or risk wasting time on unqualified leads . Your lead scoring system should reflect the lead’s progress through the sales funnel.
# 6 the final score
When setting up a lead scoring system, it is important to remember that adjustments and tune-ups will be required first. Don’t take this as a step backwards, but take the opportunity to assess the effectiveness of the system in determining high quality leads and refine it to better target this group.
Take a look at the highest scoring leads, compare their similarities and differences, and buyer’s journeys. See what worked and what didn’t and adjust the lead score threshold as needed. Once you start using the scoring system, you will be able to see what needs to be refined.
How LeadIn facilitates your lead scoring?
As you can see, implementing a lead scoring strategy is essential to ensure that you are focusing your sales efforts on the prospects that are most worthwhile. However, setting up a system that is relevant to your organization can prove to be complex, especially for small structures.
Rest assured, by using our services, coupled with the power of information available on LinkedIn, you will be able to easily identify the prospects on which to focus.
Only contact prospects who match your ICP
LinkedIn is a real gold mine of information, especially in terms of B2B prospecting. The advanced search options on LinkedIn allow us to sort prospects based on:
- The industry in which they operate
- Their geographic location
- The size of their business
- Their post
The prospecting campaign that we are going to deploy for you will therefore be pushed only to prospects who perfectly match the criteria you have defined! It is therefore impossible to waste time trying to get in touch with irrelevant prospects.
The leads you get are already “scored”
When we forward to you the prospects resulting from the campaigns carried out via your LinkedIn account, we classify them according to 4 levels according to their interest in your services:
Level 1 – Reserved:
The highest level of interest means that the prospect has booked a call with you, you just have to take control and present your services in more detail.
Level 2 – Interested:
The prospect is “hot”, he could call on your services, he must be contacted again to explain how.
Level 3 – Pre-qualified:
The lead may be interested in what you offer, you have to educate him a little by providing social proof for example in order to bring him to a call.
Level 4 – Cold:
The prospect redirects you to another interlocutor or offers to contact him again in a short time.
Go further by feeding cold prospects with content
A prospect described as “cold” doesn’t mean you have to drop it! On the contrary, you now have access to his email address and his LinkedIn profile, so it must be integrated into your lead nurturing strategy.
This strategy consists of supplying your prospects with relevant and personalized content in order to educate them on the solutions that you can bring them. You can do this using different channels such as emailing by adding the email address to the mailing list of your newsletter for example. But this is a whole different subject! We will come back to this in the future. To be informed, don’t forget to follow LeadIn on our social networks!
So, do you have a lead scoring strategy? Do you have enough repeat leads in your pipeline to see the benefits?
If you don’t have all of these must-have acquisition tools, and you want LeadIn to take care of everything for you to boost your pipeline right now, then let’s talk! You can request your free consultation at the bottom of this page at any time.
