Filling in your sales pipeline with good leads is one way to increase your sales. However, if you have a lot of leads, you need to figure out which one to prioritize and who’s really interested in buying your products and services.

This is where lead scoring comes in. Most businesses use lead scoring to identify which leads in their sales pipeline needs to contact first and which ones should be prioritized less.

Leads can be categorized into 3 groups.

Cold leads. These leads showed interest in your product or services but won’t commit to anything yet.

Warm leads. Someone who expressed interest in learning and knowing more about your offering by asking for more information about your products and services.

Hot leads. These prospects are the closest or at the buying stage of the sales cycle. They have all the qualifications of a qualified lead, CHAMP. CHallenges Authority Money Prioritization. Identify the prospect worth pursuing



What is lead scoring?

It is used to rank prospects against a scale that represents the perceived value each lead represents to the organization. There are different types of lead scoring. You can score your leads based on;

Let’s say our basic score scale is 0-10. You can add for every positive attribute and subtract for every negative one depending on the information and the behavior or a lead. Note that the number of points to be added or deducted will depend on you.

Company Information

Criteria to use:

Company size

Type of industry

Annual sales

Example:

Target company must have 50-500 employees and 1M and up annual sales. You can add 5 points if they have 100 employees and subtract if they only have 20 employees. Same goes with the annual sales.

Related: Utilize Customer Profiling and Buyer Personas to Achieve Revenue Goals

Online Behavior

The activity logs of your lead when a user reads your blog post and visits your website or landing page.

Criteria to use:

Check for website pricing

Downloaded any offer

View blog post

Example: You can assign different lead scores per actions such as;

5 points for visiting website pricing page

3 points for downloaded any offer

2 points for viewing the blog post

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Social Engagement

Understand the buying intentions of your audience on social media by keeping track of the social activities of your leads.

Criteria to use:

Like your tweet or FB post

Share or retweet your post

Downloaded any offer in your social page

Replied or comment on your post or tweet

Example:

Add 3 points for sharing and retweeting your post, 2 points for those who like your tweet or FB post and 5 points for replies or comments on your posts.

Related: Don’t Bore Your Prospects to Death with your B2B Social Media Posts

Email Responses

Another way to determine your audience activity is by tracking your email engagement and score them based on the following:

Criteria to use:

Email opens

Email clicks

Email replies

Email forwards

Downloaded any offer attached in the email

Subscribed or unsubscribed emails

Example:

3 points for email opens

5 points for email replies

2 points for email forwards

You can also subtract on some actions such as;

-5 points for no open after 3 consecutive emails

You might as well check if you need to review your email list.

Content Upgrade

Scoring your audience’s activities depending on the number of downloads, sign ups, visits, etc can help you understand your prospect’s interest in your product.

Criteria to use:

Downloaded infographics and eBooks

Sign-ups

Contents with comments or inquiries

Visited a landing page

Visited a web page

Example: Add and subtract scores to your leads such as;

10 points for sign ups

5 points for downloading infographics and eBooks

3 points for visiting the landing page

Lead scoring lets you prioritize leads that get the most attention. This helps drive more sales because you can capture sales at the right time.

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This ebook walks you through some key questions and tips to help you get started on using a predictive lead scoring system for ranking and classifying leads. Grab our kit NOW!