Everything you need to know about lead scoring

What is lead scoring?

Lead scoring is a technique sales teams use to identify their most promising prospects. Leads receive scores based on their actions, such as website visits, emails opened‌ and free trial signups. Prospects with higher scores are more likely to become customers.

Why is lead scoring important? 

Lead scoring aims to identify leads who are likely to convert. This process allows you to target your time and energy appropriately. 

Additional benefits of lead scoring include:

• determining whether a lead is warm enough for sales to contact

• reducing wasted time and effort on unproductive leads 

• delivering the right message at the right time 

• lowering customer acquisition costs. 

What are explicit and implicit lead scoring?

You can use explicit and implicit information in your lead scoring model. Here's how these data sources differ:

Explicit 

Explicit lead scoring uses demographic and firmographic data directly associated with the leads. This information can include: 

• job title

• industry

• company size

• geographic location

• seniority level.

Implicit 

Implicit lead scoring evaluates leads according to their actions and behaviours. This information may include:

• website visits

• free trial signups

• support requests

• webinar attendance

• email opens and engagements.

Leads earn points for meeting relevant criteria, as well as for their behaviours - some actions are scored higher than others. For example, a lead might earn 20 points for registering for a free trial but only 5 for opening an email. Signing up for a free trial indicates a greater purchase intent than simply opening an email, making it more valuable.

5 lead scoring models to use

1. Negative 

The negative lead scoring model helps identify leads that may have initially appeared promising, but are showing signs of declining potential. This method subtracts points from leads who show specific signs of disinterest, such as unsubscribing to emails. Deducting points this way prevents deceptively high scores and wasted time on bad-fit prospects. 

2. Purchase intent

Lead scoring models based on purchase intent identify prospects actively considering your product or service. This information is available from first-party sources, such as website analytics, signup forms, or third parties like your ads manager. You can reach leads at the right time by understanding where they are in their buying journey.

3. Engagement 

A lead's engagement with your brand reveals their interest, and scoring leads based on their interactions can reveal who's ready to buy. This might mean giving points for opening an email, clicking a link or responding to a promo email. You can also track interactions on other channels, such as social media likes, comments and shares. 

4. Degradation

Not all leads will turn into customers. By removing points for inactivity, the degradation lead scoring model helps you identify stagnant leads who haven't interacted with your brand in a while. Similarly to negative scoring, you can quickly see who's stuck and either provide further information to nudge them forward or move on to more promising leads. 

5. Predictive

Predictive lead scoring is an automated process that scores leads based on both explicit and implicit attributes. It uses an algorithm to assign points to leads and identify patterns based on behavioural data and demographic information to pinpoint your hottest prospects automatically. 

How do you implement lead scoring?

Choose a platform

Manually assigning and tracking lead scores can quickly become time-consuming and difficult to manage. CRM software can help you set up and automate your triggers, actions and interactions. This will help you manage your leads effectively, so you’re focusing your efforts on those likely to convert.

Collaborate on criteria

A close alignment between colleagues in sales and marketing is crucial to avoiding wasting time or missing out on potential customers. Teams should work together to develop a lead-scoring system and regularly assess how well it’s working for them.  For example, the group might agree that a free trial signup is worth 30 points while an email signup is only worth 10. 

Set a threshold

Your lead scoring threshold is the value that defines when a lead becomes qualified and passes to the sales team. Choosing this value carefully is crucial — too low, and you might scare prospects off; too high, and you might lose a hot lead. Look to historical data to help you set the threshold, and then use your chosen lead scoring tool to notify your sales team when a lead reaches the threshold.

Analyse and refine

Your lead scoring model should evolve with your business, so check in regularly to see how it performs. For example, if you’re getting a lot of qualified leads, but sales can’t seem to convert them, there might be a misalignment in your scoring method. Continue to analyse and tweak your process until you're getting consistent results.

Use a CRM for lead scoring

As your business grows and scales, the benefits of CRM software become extremely clear. The ability to score leads means you can focus your sales efforts more effectively. However, when your CRM is integrated into a broader business management platform, you can gain even more insights and efficiencies.

MYOB is a business management platform that addresses the six core workflows that any business may need to handle: customers, suppliers, projects, employees, finance, accounting and tax. Cloud-based, you only pay for the software you need, but can add on capabilities across all workflows as your business matures and your needs become more complex.

Use your CRM for lead scoring and effective lead management. Try MYOB CRM, designed for goods-based businesses, free for 14 days. Or check out MYOB’s App Marketplace to see other CRM integrations.

At MYOB, we have you covered. 

Disclaimer: Information provided in this article is of a general nature and does not consider your personal situation. It does not constitute legal, financial, or other professional advice and should not be relied upon as a statement of law, policy or advice. You should consider whether this information is appropriate to your needs and, if necessary, seek independent advice. This information is only accurate at the time of publication. Although every effort has been made to verify the accuracy of the information contained on this webpage, MYOB disclaims, to the extent permitted by law, all liability for the information contained on this webpage or any loss or damage suffered by any person directly or indirectly through relying on this information.