Lead scoring is a term that you may come across from time to time when reading about inbound marketing. It’s exactly what it sounds like: lead scoring. It is a method of determining what differentiates one lead from another based on events and how leads behave.

The lead scoring system determines whether the lead is cold, semi-hot, or steamy hot.

Lead scoring allows you to keep track of where your leads are in the sales funnel, which ones are ice cold, and (perhaps most importantly) who you should take and call today. It’s all about getting in touch at the right point in time, just like with marketing automation.

This is how lead scoring works in Advedro

We at Advedro created our own lead scoring tool, LMA, and this is where all of our lead scorings take place. In LMA, we have set rules for how many points a lead should receive based on the actions they take.

For the sake of simplicity, we begin with 100 points. If someone now receives 100 points, we can send out a quote for approval, but it is not that simple… Here’s an example of how our scoring used to look (because, of course, we optimize it all the time!):

When a visitor downloads a guide, he becomes a lead for Advedro’s LMA. This earns you 5 points. An additional 10 points are awarded if the person downloads two guides.

Opening four emails earn you five points. Clicking on a link in three emails earns you five points. If he reads 5 blog posts, you get 15 points, and so on. You got the point of how it all works!

Of course, a lead can be ready for sale simply by reading our guides, blog posts, and emails with lots of smart tips that we send out. But the truly qualified leads are those who come in, read about our services, and, last but not least, take a closer look at our pages. It starts to get hot here, and high scores start to fall in!

It is possible to earn points for (almost) anything on a website. Isn’t that amazing? If a lead reads about our marketing automation, follows us on Twitter, reads some of our case studies, and visits the contact page – yes, it’s time for our sales team to contact him and schedule a meeting. All of these actions generate lead scores with varying points. When a contact reaches a certain number of points, the amount that we consider a lead, our salespeople receive an email with all the information they need to take the appropriate action.

Explicit VS. Implicit Scores

Lead scoring can be done in two ways: explicitly or implicitly. To create a comprehensive prospect analysis, both methods should be used.

Explicit scoring is based on the prospect’s information, such as name, job title, and location. This data is collected through forms submitted on landing pages for event registration, newsletter sign-ups, and e-book downloads.

Implicit scoring is based on information gathered indirectly. Because it asks questions about the prospect’s activity, it’s also known as behavioral scoring. How many times did a prospective customer visit our website? Did the prospect follow a link? Did they complete a form?

Scoring behavioral data can be more difficult than scoring explicit data. For example, one of two leads with the same score may be active, i.e., it has generated significant activity in the last few days, while the other lead is latent, i.e., its score was accumulated over a longer period of time. While they are still “hot,” active leads are better candidates to move down the funnel towards Sales.

Remember that not all prospect activity is created equal. A visit to your Careers page should be rated significantly lower than a visit to your Services or Products pages. You want someone interested in services, not someone who is looking for work.

Customization of efforts

Because every sale funnel is different, each company must be able to tailor its lead nurturing process based on the demographic and behavioral data it has at any given time. Experimentation assists clients in sorting through existing information and focusing on that which is most likely to direct sales to a high-value prospect.

Lead scoring comes into its own when the right content is in place

Because a lead can find us in a variety of ways, such as through a Google search or a Facebook or Twitter share, everything must be linked. It doesn’t matter if we have fantastic guides on the skills digital marketing needs if we don’t have a website with relevant content about what we are offering! All content must be present, including information about our services and who we are. (And, of course, what we’ve done in the past for other companies.)

Inbound marketing is all about educating visitors on what we do and who we are as a company. If you as a visitor haven’t gotten a sense of what we’re up to and why we’re so enthusiastic about it, then lead scoring won’t work. For inbound marketing, it’s basically about building relationships and mutual trust – and it’s already starting here, on the site.

What should lead scoring look like?

Creating lead scoring isn’t something you do once and then forget about it; it’s a process that requires constant tweaking, but not just for fun. How would you distribute the lead score across all of your site’s sections? Is there content on your website that satisfy your leads? Do they get a sense of your company from reading your texts?

If you answered no to the last two questions, you will need to improve your lead scoring, so marketing and sales can collaborate to achieve your company’s goals!