Marketers spend a great deal of time focused on getting new leads into their pipelines. Nowadays, there is also a greater emphasis on marketing being tied to producing results in the form of ROI, so it can take an Avengers-like team of marketing superheroes to meet their business’s expectations contributing to revenue, but many teams do. How do they pull off this feat?
There are many reasons, but one important thing to factor in is how you not not only add new leads to your pipeline but work with the ones you already have. Once you have leads in your funnel, you have to know what to do with them. You can’t just ignore them. You certainly shouldn’t waste them. You have to nurture them and find ways to move them to the next phase of the funnel.
This is where lead scoring comes in.
What Is Lead Scoring?
Lead scoring acts as a vital part of any lead management approach. In brief, lead scoring means scoring, or ranking, your leads in terms of how interested they seem and how likely they appear to be interested in making a purchase or taking another action.
How do you rank your leads? Well, like with all things in digital marketing these days, it comes down to your data and how you work with it. Like .a detective, you have to sift through the mass amounts of data to find the most salient points and derive the most useful insights.
What data should you be looking at when scoring leads?
Well, you can’t read minds. However, a close look at the data might help you do the next best thing and determine what maybe your prospect will do next (or what they are likely to do with the appropriate amount of nurturing).
Where the Data Comes From
You should be trying to use your data to get to know your leads better, as to personalize your nurturing efforts and content marketing to more directly speak to them and their needs.
Where does this information come from, though?
From how customers are interacting with your brand.
- Have they signed up to join a newsletter?
- Signed up to receive some type of content, such as an ebook or whitepaper?
- Do they follow you on social media?
- Have they attended a trade show or webinar that you have put on?
Their actions and interests should dictate how high of a lead you score them and how you approach nurturing them.
How to Score Leads
Different companies will have different scoring models, depending on their varying needs. Once you have your model set up, you can tweak accordingly. You then create point system for which leads meet which criteria depending on your campaign. Depending upon your model, some information will weigh more heavily than other types. You can even have different scoring models for different campaigns and different brands (if they fall under the same corporate umbrella). Iron Man has a different set of armor for every occasion, so you can have a different lead scoring model for when you need it.
The data can give you a good idea of who your lead is, their business, what they need, and what they are looking for. Remember to take a good focused look at:
- Demographics: A lead might have filled out one of your forms online and given you information about who they are, where they live, their age, ethnicity, and maybe even something about their interests.
- Company Information: Similarly, by filling out one of your forms, a lead might be giving you information about the company or industry that they are in. Once you know that, you can also do a little bit of research into that company or industry, enough to brush up on what they might be interested in.
- Digital Body Language: Reading someone’s physical body language might help predict what action they are likely to take next. Similarly, a lead’s digital body language might indicate what action they might take next with some nurturing (downloading a case study, checking the website, getting on a call with sales, and so on) their level of interest. What is digital body language? It’s everything a lead does online when interacting with your brand. Consider a lead’s actions:
- On the Web – Are they visiting your website or blog? How long do they stay on a page? What are they downloading or looking at?
- With Emails – Have they signed up for a newsletter? What kind of open and click rates do they show? Have they asked to unsubscribe?
- With Social Media – Do they follow you online? On which platforms? How often do they like or share your posts?
Putting It All Together
Once you have decided what data is most important in scoring your leads, you can determine how much of a fit a lead is for your target audience and what their level of interest might be. You might even use the data to create a marketing persona to utilize when further nurturing and helping guide your most interested leads in crossing the finish line and becoming ready to make a purchase.
Of course, once that’s done, you can’t just sit back and beat your brawny chest in celebration. It might take at least a little nurturing or more to ready a customer to be turned over to sales. Thankfully, you have the data to parse through and a lead scoring model that can help you prioritize which leads to concentrate on. Even so, you don’t have to give up on any of your leads. Someone who is reluctant today might be more interested next week, or you might be able to change their mind. These leads might just take more work, but the universe always needs saving, and digital marketing and lead management almost always require taking the extra step and putting in a continual, super-heroic effort to produce results.
How do you properly nurture a lead? You don’t have to rely on just emails. Find out some tips and tricks with “Lead Nurturing for Modern Marketers.”