Lead Qualification & Scoring

Two very timely posts today around lead qualification/scoring... I've always maintained that one of the critical components in a lead management system is a process (preferably automated but can be manual), that enables you to qualify and score (part of the lead nurture process) the initial inquiries you receive. That's a big part of the reason why your organization wants lead management.

In this interview today on Funnelholic Thought Leadership Interview #10: "Bridging the Gap Between Sales and Marketing with Trish Bertuzzi, Trish hits on a number of terrific points with regards to lead qualification from the perspective of someone who consults and helps co's build their inside sales organizations. It really underscores the critical link between sales and marketing when putting in place a lead management system.

A summary of key points Trish makes:

• Viewing the marketing function of lead qual or lead development as really the very front end of the sales process
• The time to deploy a lead gen model is when a company has evolved from start-up status, is established enough that marketing generates a consistent pipeline of inquiries to be qualified and the company is selling to the entire decision chain so that multiple touches are required to different people
  
• If your sales model readily can accept inquiries that turn into sales-ready leads at the outset of receipt (or very quickly thereafter) perhaps a lead qual/nurture model is not required

In that same vein Marketing Sherpa has an article titled Lead Scoring: 6 Strategies to Partner with Sales to Rank, ID Prospects which adds some additional great points on lead scoring, including defining a sales-ready lead, establishing scores for different activities, how to test your methodology and refining a system through ongoing collaboration. Excellent information from Emily W. Salus, Senior Marketing Manager, CollabNet, who's quoted in the article.