Lead Management

Sales Ready Leads with Lead Scoring

Lead scoring is vital for every business. It is used by organisations to gain potential customers by analysing data available from existing customers. Through which the Sales and Marketing teams can focus on high-value customers.

What is lead scoring?

It refers to a strategy wherein the marketing and the sales team aim to identify which prospects would be most valuable to the company based on their current sales funnel. Lead scoring allows the sales team to focus on consumers that have achieved certain steps in their buyer's journey.

Many of these systems depend on different attributes like the demographics of an ideal customer or actions taken by the prospective customer at different stages of the buyer journey. These include clicking on emails, visiting the website, downloading content etc. This is a point-based scoring model. Once the customer reaches the assigned threshold of point total, they are qualified as hot leads. The sales team focuses more on such prospective customers. They approach the customer slowly, knowing when to reach out to not get annoyed. The team is focused and informed when it targets such customers.

Older customers or prospects tend to engage with the brand more. They are not against individual attention from the sales teams compared to someone who is interacting with the brand for the first time.

Why is Lead Scoring Important?

Lead scoring is the primary driver of revenue in many organisations. Those using automated marketing platforms find it even more beneficial. However, several companies are still not aware of the benefits it offers. For example, it makes the sales process efficient and effective.

The idea of Lead scoring is easy to understand, but it can get tricky to implement. It is a way to rank leads based on specific acts within the organisation's sales funnel. The sales team then analyses the actions taken by the previous converted leads. The scores are given to the current prospects based on that. Some of them include: Click-throughs, frequency of email opens, types of email opened, website visits, content downloading etc. Once the scores are given, it becomes easy to ascertain which prospects are engaging more than the others and which are not. The sales team can focus their efforts in the direction of those consumers that are likely to become converted leads.

Reasons why Lead Scoring is Significant for Businesses:

1. Information

Lead scoring provides valuable information to the sales team while allowing them to weigh in on the prospects. It can help them determine whether the consumer is interested in the product/ service or not. Once they have that knowledge, they focus their efforts on the leads that are likely to convert.

2. Prioritisation

With lead scoring, the sales team does not have to pick up random people from the list or even chronologically. Instead, they can segment the data and prioritise the leads that have expressed more interest in the product/ service. As a result, follow-ups with these consumers tend to be more effective than those with initial interest.

3. Customisation

Every customer is different, and every sales funnel is unique. The team can customise their efforts during the lead nurturing journey based on demographic and behavioural information available to them. They can focus on high-value prospects with more concentrated efforts and change their approach when necessary.

4. Coordination

Apart from lead scoring, the Marketing and Sales team are required to work together. Most of the time, both of them have varying methods of lead generation. But with lead scoring, they tend to be more aligned as they have an agreed-upon method to close the deals swiftly.

5. Improved Sales Pitches

With the buyer's information at hand, the sales team can tailor a more effective sales pitch to interest the prospective clients. This can improve the conversion rate and drive up revenue.

Benefits of Lead Scoring

Quality lead scoring can be significant for any sales funnel process. The sales team is empowered to create, build, and launch campaigns that generate new leads. They can nurture those leads with continued engagement throughout all marketing channels. This is one of the major benefits of lead scoring. Other advantages of a Lead scoring system includes:

Lead Evaluation Process:

The lead scoring platform can be easy to use and more efficient in qualifying leads based on the decision criteria. These criteria are dependent upon the behaviour and attributes of the existing customer, which is the reason behind the correlation. With the means of an automated cycle to rank leads, the marketing team can figure out which leads require more attention and are more likely to convert & buy.

Knowledge about Potential Leads

Apart from aiding the marketing and the sales team in the lead conversion process, lead scoring platforms provide a clear image of the potential leads. Based on both social and demographic attributes, the teams can manage a lead through the marketing funnel.

Relationship Management

Lead scoring can help you manage your relationship with the leads. Suppose you understand the needs and interests of the consumers well. In that case, the content that will be provided to them can be customised to suit them. It allows organisations to forge a stronger relationship and leads are more likely to convert. For this to happen, the teams need to have relevant information for the best lead scoring practices.

Leads' Buying Process

Marketing automation generated leads can be found at different stages of their buying process. For example, some could be researching the product/ service, while others are close to making a decision. Lead scoring allows you to interpret where the lead is headed or where they are in their journey. That way, the sales team can send follow-ups to convert them to customers.

Quality Leads

Lead scoring can allow an organisation to get more quality leads. These leads are passed to the sales teams after they arrive at a certain rank when they are interested in the product and are also ready to make a decision. With a screening method, the odds of the sales team being able to convert such leads increase rapidly.

Conclusion

Identifying prospects is an integral part of every organisation. A lead scoring system can drive you towards leads that can be nurtured into potential customers. As a result, your sales team can close the sales cycle quickly and gain more leads. Additionally, the system provides information that allows you to prioritise leads, allowing you to focus your efforts on the high-value customers which can drive up revenue.