Lead scoring is a systematic method of ranking and prioritizing leads based on their perceived value to an organization. It involves assigning numerical values or points to various prospect behaviours, attributes, and interactions to determine their sales readiness and likelihood to convert. This scoring system typically evaluates multiple factors including:
The accumulated score helps sales and marketing teams focus their efforts on the most promising leads, efficiently allocate resources, and determine the appropriate timing and type of follow-up actions. Through lead scoring, organizations can improve conversion rates, reduce sales cycle times, and increase the return on their marketing investments.
Demographics are your basic “does this make sense?” checks. Like, if you’re selling industrial machinery, you probably don’t need to chase leads from college students looking to write a paper.
Behavior watching is exactly what it sounds like – what are people actually doing? Are they just glancing at your website once, or are they coming back daily and devouring your content like it’s their favorite Netflix show?
When someone fills out a form saying “call me, I want to buy,” that’s explicit scoring – they’re literally telling you they’re interested. No detective work needed.
Think of it like a video game – different actions get different points. Opening an email? That’s like 1 point. Watching a demo? Now we’re talking 20 points. Downloading your pricing guide? Ding ding ding – 50 points!
The trick is figuring out which actions really matter. Someone who spends an hour reading your technical specs might be more serious than someone who just keeps clicking on your blog posts about industry trends.
You need to decide what matters most to your business. It’s like judging a cooking contest – sure, presentation matters, but taste probably matters more. Maybe a CEO at a small company is worth more points than an intern at a huge corporation. Or maybe not – it depends on what you’re selling.
Starting a scoring system is like setting up a new exercise routine – you need to start somewhere, but you can adjust as you go. Begin with the obvious stuff (job title, company size, downloading a whitepaper) and build from there.
Your tech stack should make your life easier, not harder. If you’re spending more time managing your scoring system than talking to qualified leads, something’s wrong.
Here’s the real talk – are your high-scoring leads actually buying more than your low-scoring ones? If not, your scoring system needs work. It’s like having a metal detector that keeps beeping at bottle caps instead of coins.
Bad data is like bad ingredients – you can’t make a good meal with them. Make sure your information is accurate before you start scoring it.
And yes, sometimes your sales team will trust their gut over your scores. That’s fine – use their feedback to make your system better.
Keep it simple at first. You can always add complexity later. Start with maybe 5-10 really important factors rather than trying to track 100 different things.
And please, document everything. Future you will thank past you when you need to train new team members or update your system.
Your scoring system needs to speak your sales team’s language. If they think in terms of “hot,” “warm,” and “cold” leads, maybe use those terms instead of numerical scores.
The bottom line? Lead scoring isn’t about replacing human judgment – it’s about helping humans make better decisions about where to focus their time. Think of it as your business’s version of a GPS – it’ll suggest the best route, but you can still take a detour if you know something it doesn’t.
