What is Lead Scoring and why should you implement it in your B2B company?
Posted: Mon Dec 23, 2024 5:28 am
While attracting traffic and generating leads from your website are fundamental aspects of an Inbound Marketing strategy, a fundamental issue of the inbound process is that marketing and sales teams identify in the best possible way: which leads are ready to be contacted by sales, who requires more education before a sales call or email, and who simply is not qualified to buy.
Implementing an efficient qualification and distinction of the contacts in your database is fundamental for a B2B company and is better known as “Lead Scoring.” In this article we will discuss some aspects of the Lead Scoring methodology, its benefits, how to implement it, and techniques that will help you identify your future clients more efficiently.
Contents of this article:
What is Lead Scoring and why is it so important for a B2B company?
How do I know if I need a Lead whatsapp new zealand Scoring system in my company?
How to implement a lead scoring system in a B2B company
The most important criteria for qualifying your contacts
How to set up your lead scoring with Hubspot
Conclusion
What is Lead Scoring and why is it so important for a B2B company?
Lead scoring is a sales prospect qualification system that will help you distinguish uninterested contacts from those who are ready and better qualified to buy. It consists of scoring each contact based on their actions and characteristics, to identify and prioritize those who are ready to be contacted by the sales team.
This system is a great help for your marketing and sales team:
1. It will help them direct their efforts
towards those potential customers who are most likely to buy and ensures that they don't waste time and resources on unqualified prospects.
“B2B salespeople often fall into a vicious cycle of calling contacts based on things like alphabetical order, random date, or because it’s time for their monthly call instead of organizing based on specific data that indicates which leads are ready to be contacted.”
2. It will prevent you from overwhelming contacts who are good but not yet ready to buy and need more time to make a decision.
How do I know if I need a Lead Scoring system in my company?
Some of the distinguishing features to know if your company could benefit from implementing a contact scoring strategy are:
1. You are generating a lot of potential clients but you don't know what to do with them and you haven't made any sales despite being successful in attracting sales prospects.
2. You are capturing demographic data on your website using forms.
3. Your sales team constantly complains about having too many unqualified prospects.
4. Your marketing team is frustrated with low closing rates.
5. You often lose opportunities to your competitors in the typical situation where, on your monthly follow-up call, the client answers “I already bought from another company, thanks.” Ouch! It could have been you, but you failed to be there at the right time!
We invite you to watch our webinar:
[ 7 Key Elements to Include in Your B2B Company's Digital Marketing Strategy ]
How to Implement a Lead Scoring System in a B2B Company
Below we share with you step by step what you need to do to develop your own lead scoring system:
1. Define what a qualified contact means for your sales and marketing teams
Before you begin implementing your lead scoring system, it is vital that your marketing and sales teams meet together to jointly define the characteristics and criteria that distinguish a good potential client for your company, such as:
Company Features
such as size, industry, location, etc.
Behaviors
such as regular visits to your website, openings of your marketing emails, etc.
2. Set scores to rate your contacts
After this meeting, the next step is to develop a system in which you assign scores to each possible characteristic of a contact. The more desirable the contact, the higher the score.
If, for example, your company sells alarm systems for large companies and corporations, banks, pawn shops, and jewelry chains should get a higher score in the “Type of Business” category, as opposed to businesses like candy stores, small stationery stores, or grocery stores.
Continuing with the same example, a contact who constantly visits your website and visits your “Pricing” or “Contact” section several times should have additional points, since these behaviors indicate that they are considering making a purchase and may just need advice from one of your salespeople to make a final purchase decision.
3. Define which contacts need more information and which are ready to become customers
Once you have done this, you will need to determine which score ranges will be taken into account to classify your contacts as MQL (Marketing Qualified Lead) or SQL (Sales Qualified Lead).
An example of this is the following:
Contacts with scores below 40 points
will be considered unfit.
Contacts with scores between 40 and 80 points
They will be considered MQLs and will be initiated into a nurturing process to share information with them until they eventually begin to exhibit behaviors that indicate they are ready to buy.
Contacts with scores greater than 80 points
They will be considered as SQLs and will be channeled to the sales team so that a salesperson can contact them and guide them in their decision process.
Implementing an efficient qualification and distinction of the contacts in your database is fundamental for a B2B company and is better known as “Lead Scoring.” In this article we will discuss some aspects of the Lead Scoring methodology, its benefits, how to implement it, and techniques that will help you identify your future clients more efficiently.
Contents of this article:
What is Lead Scoring and why is it so important for a B2B company?
How do I know if I need a Lead whatsapp new zealand Scoring system in my company?
How to implement a lead scoring system in a B2B company
The most important criteria for qualifying your contacts
How to set up your lead scoring with Hubspot
Conclusion
What is Lead Scoring and why is it so important for a B2B company?
Lead scoring is a sales prospect qualification system that will help you distinguish uninterested contacts from those who are ready and better qualified to buy. It consists of scoring each contact based on their actions and characteristics, to identify and prioritize those who are ready to be contacted by the sales team.
This system is a great help for your marketing and sales team:
1. It will help them direct their efforts
towards those potential customers who are most likely to buy and ensures that they don't waste time and resources on unqualified prospects.
“B2B salespeople often fall into a vicious cycle of calling contacts based on things like alphabetical order, random date, or because it’s time for their monthly call instead of organizing based on specific data that indicates which leads are ready to be contacted.”
2. It will prevent you from overwhelming contacts who are good but not yet ready to buy and need more time to make a decision.
How do I know if I need a Lead Scoring system in my company?
Some of the distinguishing features to know if your company could benefit from implementing a contact scoring strategy are:
1. You are generating a lot of potential clients but you don't know what to do with them and you haven't made any sales despite being successful in attracting sales prospects.
2. You are capturing demographic data on your website using forms.
3. Your sales team constantly complains about having too many unqualified prospects.
4. Your marketing team is frustrated with low closing rates.
5. You often lose opportunities to your competitors in the typical situation where, on your monthly follow-up call, the client answers “I already bought from another company, thanks.” Ouch! It could have been you, but you failed to be there at the right time!
We invite you to watch our webinar:
[ 7 Key Elements to Include in Your B2B Company's Digital Marketing Strategy ]
How to Implement a Lead Scoring System in a B2B Company
Below we share with you step by step what you need to do to develop your own lead scoring system:
1. Define what a qualified contact means for your sales and marketing teams
Before you begin implementing your lead scoring system, it is vital that your marketing and sales teams meet together to jointly define the characteristics and criteria that distinguish a good potential client for your company, such as:
Company Features
such as size, industry, location, etc.
Behaviors
such as regular visits to your website, openings of your marketing emails, etc.
2. Set scores to rate your contacts
After this meeting, the next step is to develop a system in which you assign scores to each possible characteristic of a contact. The more desirable the contact, the higher the score.
If, for example, your company sells alarm systems for large companies and corporations, banks, pawn shops, and jewelry chains should get a higher score in the “Type of Business” category, as opposed to businesses like candy stores, small stationery stores, or grocery stores.
Continuing with the same example, a contact who constantly visits your website and visits your “Pricing” or “Contact” section several times should have additional points, since these behaviors indicate that they are considering making a purchase and may just need advice from one of your salespeople to make a final purchase decision.
3. Define which contacts need more information and which are ready to become customers
Once you have done this, you will need to determine which score ranges will be taken into account to classify your contacts as MQL (Marketing Qualified Lead) or SQL (Sales Qualified Lead).
An example of this is the following:
Contacts with scores below 40 points
will be considered unfit.
Contacts with scores between 40 and 80 points
They will be considered MQLs and will be initiated into a nurturing process to share information with them until they eventually begin to exhibit behaviors that indicate they are ready to buy.
Contacts with scores greater than 80 points
They will be considered as SQLs and will be channeled to the sales team so that a salesperson can contact them and guide them in their decision process.