Lead scoring is a strategic method for evaluating the sales maturity and relevance of leads. Using various models, points (scores) are assigned to them for certain attributes or behaviors. Find out below what approaches there are and why you should use a lead scoring model to evaluate your leads in the first place.
Why evaluate leads?
Leads are potential customers who have expressed interest in company offers through certain actions (e.g. filling out a contact form with personal data). Classifying them in good time and "nurturing" them correctly until they - ideally - convert is business-critical, especially for B2B companies.
However, in order to determine which leads are actually promising, i.e. a) interesting or relevant and b) most likely to buy, you need a classification system. Lead scoring models are just such systems: They are designed to help evaluate leads and prioritize the most important among them - because while some still need more convincing, others are already close to the "deal", the conversion, so can be passed on to sales earlier and with less effort.
Scoring leads is of considerable importance for companies, as it creates a basis for deploying marketing and sales resources efficiently.
How lead scoring works - two types
The aim of lead scoring types is to determine the significance and probability of a lead conversion as accurately as possible. However, they are neither uniformly defined nor are they based on strict mathematical rules. Rather, the evaluation is company-specific and merely attempts to reflect the complex reality of the purchasing decision process and the economic relevance for prospective customers.
There are two types of scoring, which differ in terms of their focus and approach: explicit and implicit scoring. A combination of both can be used to create an overall score.
Explicit lead scoring
Explicit lead scoring (profile scoring) involves checking the available information of a specific contact profile and then evaluating it according to its suitability as a potential customer for your own company. The relevant information about a lead includes, for example:
- What is the lead's position in their company?
- What industry is their company in?
- What is their number of employees and annual turnover?
This firmographic scoring is particularly typical for the B2B sector (alongside demographic scoring, which is used more in B2C and evaluates information such as age, gender, occupation, location, etc.).
Here you can proceed as follows. It is advisable to define the criteria that a contact must have at least so that it can be further qualified or so that further processing is worthwhile. Examples include first and last name, a business email address, company headquarters in the DACH region, a specific industry, etc.
Points are awarded for each of these minimum requirement criteria (e.g. 5 - 9 points). The sum of these points forms the threshold value that a contact must reach in order to be passed on to sales.
Now further criteria are defined that are to be classified above the minimum requirements, e.g. a decision-maker role, an extension number, a company turnover of X, etc. Again, points are defined for the individual criteria (e.g. 10-15 points).
Implicit lead scoring
Implicit lead scoring is based on the activities of a contact and is intended to determine the probability that a lead will make a purchase based on their previous interaction with the brand. Examples of this are:
- Website visits
- Clicks in newsletters Download of gated content (white papers, e-books, etc.)
- Registration for and participation in events
- Clicks on relevant CTAs
Defined scores (e.g. 1-15) are assigned depending on the action. The allocation is based on an evaluation of the individual activities. For example, participation in events is rated higher than a click in an email or a single page visit. The higher the total score of the respective lead, the higher the sales opportunity. Above a certain point value, for example, an automatic notification can be sent to sales employees.
Combined lead scoring
Here, both the evaluation of explicit and implicit criteria are combined by classifying leads into groups (e.g. A-D) according to their relevance (profile scoring) and assigning values from 1-4 for the level of their interest (activity scoring). This results in fields:
In this model, the A1 field means that the lead is both very interesting for the company (e.g. managing director of a renowned corporation with a high budget) and has shown a lot of interest in the form of activities.
The leads categorized in D4 are the ones most likely to be neglected in the subsequent marketing efforts. These would be contacts with low sales significance who have shown little interest anyway. However, each company must decide for itself which field groups are treated and how.
Support lead scoring digitally
Platforms such as HubSpot and Evalanche not only provide assistance in lead management, but also offer superior support in lead scoring compared to manual evaluation and lead information research. Why?
Firstly, they can partially or fully automate the scoring process. This saves time and ensures consistency, especially if you integrate other marketing tools. Here, a holistic picture of each lead is created much sooner than if individual data sheets, histories etc. have to be stored and later searched for by sales. Data records are stored automatically.
