What is lead scoring and how do you use it to optimise your sales funnel?

What is lead scoring?

Lead scoring is a method where you assign potential customers, or leads, a score based on their interactions with your company and their willingness to make a purchase. This score helps you determine which stage of the buying cycle a lead is in. The higher the score, the more likely the lead is ready to proceed to a purchase.

Leads are awarded points based on a number of criteria, such as:

• Behaviour on your website: How often do they visit your website? How many pages do they view? Have they downloaded white papers or filled in contact forms?
• Email interactions: Do they open and click on your emails? Do they subscribe to your newsletter?
• Demographics: Do they fall within your company's target demographic? For example, do they work in a particular industry or have a specific job title?
• Engagement with social media: Do they interact with your brand through social media channels?

These signals will help you identify the leads with the most potential, allowing you to use your time and resources efficiently.

Why is lead scoring important?

Lead scoring allows you to target leads in a targeted way and optimise your sales and marketing efforts. Here are some reasons why lead scoring is important for your business:

More efficient use of time and resources

Not every lead is ready to make an immediate purchase. By scoring leads, your sales staff can focus on the most promising prospects. This prevents them from wasting time on leads that are not yet ready to convert.

Better alignment between marketing and sales

Lead scoring helps marketing and sales teams work better together. Marketing can deliver more qualified leads, ensuring higher conversion rates and a better return on investment (ROI) for your marketing efforts.

Improved lead nurturing

Leads that are not yet ready for sales can be nurtured by marketing with targeted content and campaigns until they are sufficiently scored. This increases the chances of them eventually becoming customers.

Increased sales conversions

By allowing your sales team to focus on leads that are more likely to convert, you increase your sales team's success rate. This leads to a shorter sales cycle and higher sales figures.

How do you implement lead scoring?

Implementing lead scoring starts with setting up a framework and defining the right criteria for assigning scores to your leads. Follow these steps to set up a successful lead scoring system:

1. Define the ideal customer profiles

Start by creating an ideal customer profile (CPI), also known as a buyer persona. This will help you determine which leads are valuable to your business. Consider demographic factors such as job title, industry, company size and geographical location.

Leads that match your CPI automatically get a higher score because they fit your target market better. For example, if you sell software to IT managers at medium-sized companies, leads that fall into this category will get a higher score.

2. Define behavioural criteria

In addition to demographic data, it is important to identify the behaviour of your leads. What actions indicate that a lead is showing interest in your products or services? These could be actions such as:

• Filling in a form on your website
• Viewing your product pages multiple times
• Request a demo
• Opening the newsletter or clicking on links in your emails

Decide how many points you assign to each action. For example, a lead who requests a demo gets a higher score than someone who only opens the newsletter.

3. Use lead scoring software

There are several marketing and sales platforms that support lead scoring, such as HubSpot, Marketo or Salesforce. These tools automate the process and help you score leads automatically based on set criteria. This ensures that you have an easy overview of the most promising leads.

By implementing automated lead scoring, you can respond quickly to opportunities and are able to track leads in real-time.

4. Set a threshold for sales

Not every lead is ready to be contacted by sales right away. Therefore, it is important to set a threshold: from what point should a lead be forwarded to the sales team?

For example, a lead that has achieved 100 points can be seen as ready for a conversation with sales. Leads that fall below this threshold remain in the lead nurturing phase, where they are further supported by marketing.

5. Evaluate and optimise your lead scoring model

Lead scoring is not a one-off action; it is an ongoing process. The behaviour of leads and the effectiveness of your scoring model can change over time. It is therefore important to regularly evaluate and optimise your model.

Analyse which leads end up becoming customers and which points were crucial to their conversion. Adjust your criteria and scoring system to ensure you always identify leads with the highest chance of success.

Apply lead scoring to optimise your sales funnel

An effective lead scoring system helps you better manage your sales funnel and use your time and resources more efficiently. Here are some ways lead scoring contributes to an optimised sales funnel:

• Targeted marketing campaigns: You can tailor marketing campaigns based on the stage the lead is in. Leads with low scores receive educational content, while leads with higher scores can be more targeted with specific offers or invitations to a sales meeting.
• Shorter sales cycle: By focusing your sales staff on the most valuable leads, the sales cycle is shorter and you have a higher conversion rate.
• Better lead nurturing: Leads not yet ready for sales are automatically further nurtured with relevant content, increasing the likelihood of conversion later in the cycle.

Conclusion: start lead scoring for a more efficient sales funnel

Lead scoring is a powerful technique to improve the quality of your leads and make your sales and marketing efforts more efficient. By targeting the right leads at the right time, you increase the chances of conversion and improve your company's performance.

Want to know how lead scoring can optimise your sales funnel? Contact us and find out how we can help you implement an effective lead scoring system. Our team of experts is ready to take your sales process to the next level!