Have you ever been asked what your favorite song or movie is? Have you managed to name just one? I doubt it! Why would you do that? The reason is very simple. Because there were so many possibilities, you couldn't decide because several options seemed equally good. How can you make the best choice when there are no quantitative criteria? Next time, choose 10 criteria that are important to you and calculate the score for each option. By following this simple process, it is much easier to choose the best option(s). When it comes to qualifying potential clients, it's the same thing. How can we successfully identify our best candidates when we don't define criteria on which to evaluate them? Scoring is a very effective method when you want to identify that handful of contacts that have reached maturity. I can't wait for you to learn more about this revolutionary method! Without further ado, here are the basics and best practices in scoring.
What is lead scoring?
Lead scoring consists of calculating and assigning a number of points (score) to each prospect to reflect their conversion potential and their level of interest in your business. The calculation of the score is based on contact attributes or behavioral data. This technique will allow you to easily identify the positioning of your leads in the buying journey.
You can then segment your contact base and your marketing actions in order to send relevant content to your prospect at each stage of their journey. For example, you could award 20 points to a contact for signing up for your webinar or 5 points for opening your latest newsletter. Points are awarded based on the value of the action to your company. The more effort required, the higher the score.
How to find the right criteria?
Do you have writer's block? Don't worry, there's a process to help you find good qualifying criteria. First, you can use passive criteria to make an initial segmentation. Passive criteria refer to the information provided by the contact when they enter your database. Demographic criteria for example. The position they hold, their age, the sector in which their company operates and many others. These criteria will help you identify the candidate's position in relation to your ideal profile and the potential size of the opportunity he represents. However, it is imperative that you do not stop there, as these criteria do not reflect their interest in your company.
Once you have completed this step, you can move on to active criteria. These criteria will be based on the actions taken by the potential customer to assign points. It is therefore important to note the entry point of your contact in your CRM. Interactions with your social networks and subscription to your newsletter are also good actions to add in your scoring. As these criteria represent a relatively low level of engagement, the points should oscillate between 0 and 15.
Next, the most important criteria are those related to your marketing efforts. The interactions with your marketing emails, the downloading of content on your website or the filling of forms. Since these actions show that the prospect is interested and wants to learn more, they deserve more points, between 15 and 30.
Once you have finished building your criteria, you need to determine the number of points attaching a contact to a life cycle stage. For example, if you determine that when a contact reaches 15 points, they become a marketing-qualified lead and at 60 points, they become sales-qualified, be sure to set up dynamic lists of contacts that fall within that range. This way, you can easily identify the distribution of these contacts in your lifecycle, and at the same time, send relevant marketing content to each one.
Are there any best practices to know?
Definitely! Adding scoring criteria that assign points to actions will help you qualify your leads. On the other hand, some contacts do not belong in your lists of qualified leads for marketing, sales or other purposes. Think of your company's employees, suppliers, partners or other contacts who have no interest in becoming a customer of your company. It is therefore important to filter these contacts so that they do not end up in your marketing contacts. I invite you to create negative scoring criteria that will bring the contact's score to 0. For example, contacts associated with your company should have a 200 point reduction.
Finally, think of your scoring as a plant. Just because you put super soil and water once at the beginning doesn't mean your plant will grow. Scoring is the same thing! You have to take the time to adjust it as you add forms, send marketing emails and more. Otherwise, you will lose its usefulness and it will wither like your plant. So make sure you follow up and give it some love once in a while.
How to implement a lead scoring system?
Unless you've spent the last few years hibernating, you use customer relationship management (CRM) software to keep track of all your contacts. In a CRM like HubSpot, implementing scoring is very easy to do. A scoring property already exists on your contact record. All you have to do is add your positive and negative criteria, and establish the points given for each. Moreover, it is possible to create new scoring properties if you want to qualify other criteria or even your transactions. Feel free to contact our HubSpot Experts for a helping hand!
The scoring technique, when used properly, allows you to target your best potential customers and to follow the evolution of your contacts in their life cycle. Simple, fast and efficient, don't waste another second and adopt it! Who knows, you might even make a movie out of these customer journeys 😉
There are many other reasons to use the HubSpot CRM platform and its 5 hubs. In fact, you can check out our article that mentions the 40 reasons to adopt this CRM platform.