Lead Scoring Tip

Quick tip: When assembling a lead scoring standard for their lead nurture programs, many marketers assign a score based upon a scoring range, usually 0-100. This helps determine how qualified a lead actually is and where (generally) it is in the funnel. As long as both sales and marketing know what that range is and what it corresponds to, they figure the system works.

Try this - add a further (and simple, at-a-glance) understanding to your lead scores by assigning a letter/number score to the rate range. For example, 100-80 points would be further broken down as A1, A2, A3, A4 (A1 being highest). 79-60 could be B1, B2, B3 and so on. You could extend this scoring convention in any number of ways and any number range.

This assists your sales team further in equating a known grading system (A-excellent, B-very good, C-average, D-below average) to the value of the lead. Numbers standing alone don't always equate to a quick understanding of the lead quality and its' sales readiness.

In routing leads into SFA tools such as Salesforce.com, I've often given the lead an A1, A2, A3 lead score in the sales tool to gain the salesperson a better understanding of the lead value. Give it a shot...

Digital Body Language

Steve Woods, one of the co-founders of Eloqua the marketing automation company, has written an interesting book (and writes a great blog with Paul Teshima here), on what he terms digital body language. This idea is a very interesting examination of the concepts of self-paced information gathering, needs evaluation, lead qualification/scoring and profile development and suggests that there is a definite digital footprint a prospect creates that provides detailed data on a his/her buying intentions and motivations.

Rather than 'read the room' like in the old days, marketers and sales people now need to decode a person's digital body language to better understand their roles, their information needs and what they find relevant, what their buying process is like, where they are in the funnel and the cadence of how to best communicate with them. As more and more of the relationships between marketers and their targets move online, the value exchanges that take place create a rich profile of the target and this new body language provides critical data and hints as to how you can best anticipate and meet their needs.

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.