In today’s competitive business environment, brands need to constantly optimize their processes and implement new strategies in order to succeed.
Still, the main concern of most businesses is attracting new leads. But what should you do once a new lead enters the funnel? How do you know which leads are genuinely interested in your business? How can you prevent your team from nurturing unqualified leads? The answer is pretty simple: by using lead scoring. In fact, according to Aberdeen Research, companies that implement lead scoring have an average lead qualification rate 192 percent higher than those that do not.
What is lead scoring?
Before we dive into more details, it’s essential to understand what lead scoring is and why it matters.
Lead scoring is an effective technique that enables you to identify which leads are the most valuable and where they are positioned in the sales funnel. The process consists of assigning values to each of your leads based on the information they have shared with you and their interactions with your business. This way, your marketing and sales teams know how to treat each lead, which ones to prioritize, and which ones to nurture.
Why use lead scoring?
According to HubSpot’s State of Inbound report, sales professionals’ main goals are closing more deals and improving the efficiency of the sales funnel. There are several reasons to implement lead scoring:
-
It helps you qualify prospects.
-
It helps you identify where leads are in the buying cycle.
-
It supports your automation efforts.
-
It improves collaboration between sales and marketing, as you can clearly define who the MQLs and the SQLs are.
Many resources are spent on attracting and nurturing leads, so ideally, you should only add qualified leads to your sales pipeline. Lead scoring helps you take the appropriate actions for each lead and identify the qualified ones.
Furthermore, as your business grows, you might want to address a larger audience or explore different markets. You can use lead scoring to assign different scores based on regions, markets, buyer personas, or other criteria.
How does it work?
HubSpot’s lead management system is great for assigning point values to your leads. Implement lead scoring with these simple steps:
-
Identify the scoring filters
-
Determine point values for each criterion
-
Set it up in HubSpot
-
Determine score ranges for MQLs and SQLs
-
Reevaluate your scoring filters regularly
What to take into account when setting up scoring filters?
HubSpot’s lead scoring functionality is extremely helpful. However, it’s up to you to define the scoring filters in a way that’s relevant for your business.
Scoring criteria differ from company to company, but there are some general elements you should consider:
-
Demographic information: Don’t overlook demographic data in your lead scoring process. Depending on your industry and the type of products or services you offer, they may be more or less relevant. Pay attention to aspects such as age, location, and income.
-
Company information: This is especially relevant for B2B sellers. Are your ideal customers small or large companies? Do you sell products in a specific industry? Are you focused on B2B or B2C clients? Identify the answers to these questions and reduce points for companies that don’t fit your ideal customer profile.
-
Online behavior: Analyze how leads interact with your website. Do they spend time reading detailed product descriptions? Have they downloaded any offers or materials? Do they visit your website frequently? Their online behavior is highly relevant for determining their level of interest.
-
Email engagement: Being on your contact list is not as relevant as how leads interact with your emails. Open and click-through rates provide a much clearer idea of whether they are interested in your business.
-
Engagement on social media platforms: Check how active the leads are on your social channels. Do they follow you? Do they interact with your posts? Leads who engage with you on social media are much more likely to become loyal customers.
Tips and examples
There are a few things you can do to make the lead scoring process more efficient. Take a look at the tips below:
1. Do some research before setting up score filters
To improve your scoring criteria, determine what actually turns leads into customers. But how can you do that?
-
Talk to your sales team. Ask them which resources they use to drive prospects toward a sale and which marketing materials are most effective. Then, assign higher scores to leads who accessed those materials.
-
Interview past customers and ask them what convinced them to purchase from you.
-
Check your attribution reports. See which sources generate the most leads and assign higher scores to those.
2. Use negative scoring
Don’t be afraid to apply negative scoring for actions that suggest a lead is unlikely to purchase from you.
For example, if leads criticize your products on social media or visit your website’s careers page, they are probably not interested in buying from you. Therefore, their score should decrease. Negative scoring makes it easier to distinguish between qualified and unqualified leads.
3. Set clear boundaries
It is essential to set boundaries that signal where someone is in the funnel. These should be based on the values you set up earlier. For example, here’s a general idea of what it could look like if you are using a 0–100 model:
-
-20 – 0 score: Out of the funnel (yes, with negative attributes, you can have a negative HubSpot score)
-
1 – 20 score: Lead (top of the funnel)
-
21 – 50 score: Marketing Qualified Lead (middle of the funnel)
-
51 – 80 score: Sales Qualified Lead (bottom of the funnel)
-
81 – 100 score: Opportunity (hottest leads)
Final thoughts
The days of going through massive contact lists are long gone, as lead scoring can take over the qualifying process for you. HubSpot’s lead scoring tool is valuable for any business, saving time and helping both marketing and sales teams work more efficiently.
As a platinum HubSpot partner, NNC can help you step up your inbound and outbound marketing campaigns through HubSpot services. Plus, we offer support in managing all the tools included in the platform.
Find out more about the services we provide and get started today!
