If you’re able to accurately identify the stages of a lead’s lifecycle, you’ll be able to connect with leads at the point they are most likely to convert. This scoring system ranks prospects based on the perceived value the organization will derive from engaging each lead. A professional account based marketing company can create the perfect lead scoring matrix for theirclients and follow up with a nurturing strategy that keeps your sales pipeline warm.
With alead scoring model, you’ll be able to determine which leads have the best chance at converting early on. This will help you concentrate your efforts on only responsive leads. While it may seem daunting and complex, you can build your own lead scoring by following the steps below:
Step 1: Narrow down your target persona
A basicunderstanding of your customers will help you to produce a variety of content that will engage them and provide value in the long term. Therefore, the first step is to understand your customer, and how they perceive your brand, post which you can group your leads into segments.
Step 2: Figure out the characteristics of your ideal customer
Yourideal customer is the one who scores 4 on a 5-point scale or 80 on a 100-point scale, indicating that they are most likely to make a purchase. These are the 3 criteria a B2B marketing company needsto focus on to identify their perfect customers:
· Explicit Criteria- information voluntarily provided by leads likecompany name, location etc.
· Implicit Criteria- information derived by analyzing explicit data likewebsite visits, subscriptions etc.
· Negative Criteria- information that excludes leads least likely toconvert like email unsubscribe, high bounce rates, low social media engagement etc.
Step 3: Create an exclusive grade system
Onceyou’ve narrowed down your lead sources, you can start to assign points based on the quality of the leads. Usually, companies use different grading systems—some use a score-based system, where 1 point equals “poor” quality and 5 points equals “outstanding” quality.
Step 4:Pick a winning team
Hire adedicated team or avail the services of a B2B lead generation company to oversee the creation, implementation, anditeration of your lead scoring matrix. This group may include representatives from your sales and marketing departments or third-party solutions.
Step 5: Effectively automate your nurtured leads
Marketingautomation remains the single most efficient way to nurture prospects.Automated processing engines make it easy for B2B marketers to focus on top-quality leads. Partnering with a marketing automation company for the same can give access to cutting edge dashboards with comprehensive reporting and so much more. Developing a lead scoringmatrix is a fine art. If you have access to marketing automation platforms you may build your own in-house algorithm for lead scoring. If not then avail the services of external agencies.
