Lead Scoring

Lead Scoring

Introduction

In today’s world where time is a commodity in sales, well-streamlined sales

have become imperative. One useful way to save time while increasing

sales is to make sure that you focus on the best available leads, and not

waste time on inactive/dead-end leads. Track your leads’ behaviors and

web activities and determine their level of interest in your organization

and your level of interest in them.

In this handbook, we’ll tell you how to increase your marketing

effectiveness and lead quality using Lead Scoring.

I

Lead Scoring

Table of Contents

Earning Potential Leads for Successful Business .............................

What Is Lead Scoring? ..........................................................................

Why Is Lead Scoring Important for My Business? ............................

What Are the Data I Should Consider for Lead Scoring?..................

Classifying Leads for Efficiency- Hot, Warm, and Cold ....................

Factors Determining Sales-readiness of Leads ................................

Introducing Custom Scoring ...............................................................

Steps to Implement Lead Scoring for My Business .........................

Conclusion ............................................................................................

01

01

02

10

03

11

08

12

19

II

Lead Scoring

1

Earning Potential Leads for Successful Business

What Is Lead Scoring?

Have you found smarter ways to become a bigger presence in your

industry? Personalized content, best marketing practices, and, of

course, identifying the leads? Great! Now, think about what you’ve been

making these efforts for - the sales-qualified leads.

Leads, nowadays, do research about your product, attend webinars, and

read blogs before they prepare to enter the buying cycle. Effective lead

management is necessary to organize the leads and lay hands on the ones

who are sales-ready.

This guide details the best practices of lead scoring, its execution, and how

your business can benefit from it.

Lead scoring is a process used in the B2B marketing to rank leads

based on their activities. That rank is used to understand the lead’s

stage in the buying cycle, i.e., the levels of awareness, interest, and

readiness to make a purchase decision about your product. With lead

scoring, each activity of the lead is given a value. This ranking helps to

identify the degree of interest a lead shows in your business and when

to move your efforts from marketing to the sales team.

Lead Scoring

2

Lead scoring supports better alignment between marketing and sales

departments, with marketing working to determine which leads are

sales-ready and which need to be nurtured before entering the sales

funnel.

The simplest lead scoring systems rank leads as hot, warm, and cold,

based on their behavior and the information they provide. Knowing

how close a lead is to a purchase decision helps sales teams target

their efforts to more effectively channel revenue to the business.

Some of the activities to consider when scoring a lead may include

email opens, clicks, page visits, downloads and you can also consider

the contact information of the lead.

Why Is Lead Scoring Important for My Business?

About 73% of leads are not sales-ready, says Marketing Sherpa. Lead

scoring helps overcome this by identifying your leads. Some leads might

have scored high and some might have scored low. You can nurture

them based on their scores. It streamlines marketing and sales in a

way that even the smallest of businesses benefit from it.

Lead scoring helps marketing determine the characteristics and value

of each lead and to decide which leads should be delivered to sales,

which leads require more targeted marketing.

Scoring information helps marketers find the right leads

https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/case-study/lead-scoring-effort-increases-conversion

Lead Scoring

3

Businesses that implement lead scoring models benefit from better

coordination between marketing and sales, leading to a higher

percentage of industry revenue.

Use lead scoring to identify the stages of purchase-readiness and

to generate different types of follow-up for each. This helps in faster

qualification of leads.

You can observe elevation in the sales productivity when the quality of

leads increase. Lead scoring ensures that sales always receives high-

quality leads.

A HR consultancy firm that implemented lead scoring decreased leads

sent to sales by 52%, while increasing sales revenue by 41%. Learn how

they did it : https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/case-study/lead-

scoring-effort-increases-conversion

When scoring leads, take into account the information you’ve gathered

about them. The following section will suggest ways to analyze the

quality of the lead and to determine when you can expect your sales

call with them.

Lead scoring increases revenue

Send follow-ups based on lead score

Lead quality is directly proportional to sales productivity

What Data I Should Consider for Lead Scoring?

https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/case-study/lead-scoring-effort-increases-conversionhttps://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/case-study/lead-scoring-effort-increases-conversion

Lead Scoring

4

Before you do this...

Marketing and sales should discuss the characteristics that would

decide an ideal buyer.

For marketing to carry out lead qualification, the leads should satisfy

the criteria they have set for an ideal buyer.

Set a target score that decides when a lead can be passed on to sales.

Lead attributes are determined by information that a lead provides to

your business.

1) Lead attributes

Lead Scoring

5

Geographical location

Where is the company located?

Job title

What is the lead’s role in the company? (E.g., CEO, Manager.)

Score your leads by how favorable the company’s location is to you,

i.e., whether your services are functioning at the company’s location.

The higher the lead’s position in the company, the more decision-

making power they will have.

Score your leads based on the job title. You may assign a higher

score to the CEO than you do to the manager

Lead Scoring

6

Company size

How many employees does the company have? What are the physical

resources of the company?

Industry

What is the company’s product?

Annual revenue

What financial resources does the company have? What is its turnover?

Check if the size matchtes your expectations, measured in revenue,

number of customers and number of employees, and score the

leads accordingly.

E.g., Company A has total employees > 10,000 and company B has total

employees < 2000. With scoring, leads from company A earn more scores

than the leads from company B.

Know leads’ industry, its products, branding and compare with the

characteristics of the ideal customer and determine whether the

industry really needs your services.

Analyze the revenue, spending capacity, sales performance of the

leads’ organization.

Assign scores if the lead belongs to your target industry.

Consider scoring them if all these elements match your ideal lead

profile characteristics.

Lead Scoring

7

From these behaviors, you can infer the level of interest they show in

your product. You can prioritize activities with increasing/decreasing

scores.

In Zoho MarketingHub, we have designed a default scoring system covering the

major activities with scores alloted. However, these scores can be customized as

needed.

All this data can be grouped as explicit information that leads give you.

You can also use customer relationship management (CRM) software to

collect this data and to build a lead profile. With this profile, marketing

can easily decide if the lead fits your target audience.

Lead activities are the behaviors that leads display when engaging

with your company. This information is collected indirectly rather than

volunteered. All you have to do is set scores to each activity and analyze

the results.

Examples of these activities are:

2) Lead activities

Email opens

Page visits

Referrals

Downloads

Social media responses

Email forwards

Sales contact

Product purchase

Email click-throughs

Lead Scoring

8

Note:

Scores for lead attributes should be given less weight than those given

for lead activities. The former just tests lead fit while the latter analyzes

the lead’s interest in your business. Only lead activities can help you

accurately estimate when a sales call can be given.

The more recent an activity, the higher the score should be. An activity

within the last 15 days has more value than the one three months ago.

In the lead qualification process, classifying leads by their scores makes

it easier for sales to concentrate on the most engaged leads. A lead is

categorized as hot, warm, or cold based on the qualifying criteria.

Classifying Leads for Sales Efficiency - Hot, Warm, or Cold

Lead Scoring

9

Hot leads

Hot leads are those who are ready to make an immediate purchase.

As discussed earlier, sales and marketing collaborate to determine a

target score for leads to be moved to sales. A lead who achieves this

score is considered “hot” - that is, sales-ready.

Leads do research from a fundamental to advanced level. These

activities should be prioritized appropriately. For example, a lead who

clicks a random link in the email would not score as highly as a lead

who clicks specific, product-related links.

Warm leads

A qualified lead that shows interest in your product but needs time to

come forward for purchase is considered a “warm” lead. Warm leads

may lag in a few qualities that the hot leads possess.

However, nurturing them with a few strategies could easily bring them

to sales.

Cold leads

These leads have not shown any interest in your product except for

signing up, filling out forms, opening campaigns or another such basic

activity. An advanced level of nurturing is needed to reach these leads

and therefore achieve target results.

At Zoho MarketingHub, we asked the administrators of the organization to set the

scores for hot, warm, and cold leads. If the target score of a hot lead is >200, the

score for a warm lead would be anywhere between 100 and 200. A lead who falls

below 100 would be considered cold.

Lead Scoring

10

How do you ensure that the qualified lead pushed to sales is ready to

purchase? Here are a few factors that can help to determine if the lead

is ready.

Factors Determining Sales - Readiness of Leads

Budget

Will the lead’s industry be able to afford your services? Are they ready

to spend on your service? If the answer to these questions is yes, check

off this lead. They are prepared to buy.

Authority

The job title of the lead plays the role here. Sales contacts should be

decision-makers. They should have the power to decide on the final

word for agreement, i.e., a YES or NO right away.

Timeframe

The time taken by the lead to make a purchase after contact with the

sales person is called timeframe.

Need

Why does the leads’ industry seek your service? Does your product

satisfy their needs? Can your marketing automation help solve their

issues? Know these things before you decide that the lead is ready to

buy.

Lead Scoring

11

Hot leads have already made the buying decision and will give an instant

yes, while warm leads, the leads may be interested but need time to

consider. It may take them some time to come to a positive decision.

Behavioral aspects

A lead’s behaviors can tell you more about how ready they are to close

a sale. Determine the behaviors that indicate where a lead is in the

buying cycle: just beginning to show interest, interested but not sales-

ready, or interested and sales-ready.

We’ve shown you a default scoring system for tracking leads’ growth in

the buying cycle, based on normal campaign activities such as opens

and clicks. However, this type of scoring satisfies only a few businesses.

Most will need to customize their scoring model for it to be truly

effective. Sometimes marketers need to evaluate their leads according

to specific types of activities. Let’s say you want to send a marketing

campaign to your subscribers about the launch of a new product in

your brand, and you prefer that your leads score higher on clicking and

performing actions while visiting a particular URL. Custom scoring lets

you set criteria particular to the desired URL and assign scores to leads.

Introducing Custom Scoring

Lead Scoring

12

User Scenario

Christopher runs a health industry, focusing on health services,

pharmaceuticals, and life sciences, with around 2000 active subscribers.

He has implemented lead scoring for his business. With the default

scoring system, scores for activities like newsletter opens and URL clicks

are defined. On the launch of new products, he wants to know exactly

which product the lead is interested in. He sets up custom scoring,

with increased scores for leads that clicked, viewed, read articles, or

made inquiries about a specific product. He also determines suitable

nurturing for these custom activities.

After custom scoring, Christopher now knows which leads are critical in

the buying cycle, follows up with encouraging offers and special coupons,

and succeeds in moving them to sales.

Zoho MarketingHub has implemented custom scoring for email campaigns

(under the name Campaign-specific scoring), covering activities like opens/

clicks by country, time and count. The same has been implemented for website

activities covering activities like goal achieved.

Develop a lead scoring system for your business in six simple steps.

Implement Lead Scoring for Your Business

Lead Scoring

13

Analyze what qualities would define a lead for your organization. This is

the most important step in the lead management process. Only those

who possess these characteristics will be considered leads.

Identify the attributes, like demographic and firmographic information,

that the lead provides to your business. Create a list of the activities

that the lead performs when engaging with your campaign and website.

Check off the attributes and activities you want to take into account for

your scoring model.

Marketing and sales should collaborate to characterize the ideal lead.

Design a profile with the desired attributes and activities from the list

you created in step 2.

Assign scores to the attributes and activities you chose for the ideal

lead.

Check the quality of your leads by comparing them with the profile.

A lead who satisfies the criteria specified will be qualified. The lead

activities are distributed with the scores as defined for the ideal lead.

1) Identify your target

2) Compile attributes and activities

3) Define your ideal lead

4) Set scoring

5) Lead qualification

Lead Scoring

14

Segment your leads into hot, warm, and cold based on their

performance. Again, it is an agreement between marketing and sales

to decide upon the scores for hot, warm, and cold categories. Qualified

leads who meet the specified score for “hot” will be directly moved to

sales. Those who fall under the score specified for warm leads need

nurturing. Anyone who not falls beneath the minimum score for “warm”

is a cold lead and needs to be nurtured with more effort. A very efficient

and powerful strategy is needed to bring these leads into sales.

Maintain the quality of your lead scoring system by redefining it at

regular intervals. Keep the lead scoring rules updated with trending

activities.

6) Lead classification

7) Keep refining

Set up leads Scoring

As an organization admin, you can set up lead scoring for your

organization by following these instructions:

Log in to your Zoho MarketingHub account.

Click Assign Scores Now to start the setup process.

Select the Qualification tab from the navigation bar and click Lead

Scoring. A welcome page will appear

Lead Scoring

15

Qualifying leads Through Campaign Activities

Zoho MarketingHub provides you with an array of campaign activities

that can be used to score your leads and discover their place in the sales

pipeline. Leads that have with your target score can be considered

marketing or sales-qualified.

Open the leads and select lead Scoring, then navigate to Campaign

Activities in the Scoring Setup tab.

1. Unique Open

Multiple Open

Unique Click

Multiple Click

Opt-in

Tell-a-friend

Unique Reply

Multiple Reply

Positive Reply

Open the campaign just once

Open the campaign multiple times

Click any attached links just once

Click any attached link multiple times

Subscribes to your website

Refers a friend to your website

Replies to your email campaign

Replied to your email campaigns multiple times

Has sent a positive/productive replyto your email campaigns.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

Here are all of the campaign activities your leads may perform:

Lead Scoring

16

By default, each campaign activities specified will possess a score. You

can edit the scores as you wish.

Edit scores

You can edit your scores any time you wish to change activity priorities.

Leads will start getting the new scores as soon as you’ve changed

priorities.

Open the leads tab and select Lead Scoring then navigate to Campaign

Activities in the Scoring Setup tab.

Use the right and left arrows on the score sheet to adjust scores based

on priority.

Click the Edit Score icon on top of the score sheet.

1.

3.

2.

To edit lead scores:

Lead Scoring

17

Note:

Scores for multiple actions (i.e., multiple opens, multiple clicks) will be

applied when the lead performs the same action for the third time.

For example, the score assigned for a unique click is 10 points, while

multiple clicks get 30 points. The first time a lead clicks a campaign,

they’ll get 10 points. This score remains the same on the second click,

then jumps 30 more points when they click for the third time for a total

of 40 points. Further clicks do not give higher scores.

Disable Scoring

Score updates can be paused. Existing scores will remain the same

until you enable scoring again.

Lead Scoring

18

Open the Qualification tab and select lead Scoring then navigate to

Campaign Activities in the Setup tab.

Toggle the switch to Disable/Enable at the top of the score sheet.

1.

2.

To pause/resume scoring:

Qualifying leads Through Their Field Information

Zoho MarketingHub provides scoring for leads based on their profile

information. All you have to do here is specify the fields and their

corresponding values, the lead should contain to earn the score

assigned.

Open the Qualification tab and select Lead Scoring, then navigate to

Field Based Scoring Details in the Setup tab.

1.

To pause/resume scoring:

Lead Scoring

19

This powerful automation strategy can help your marketing department

to attract leads with potential to buy and to push them to sales,

improving their efficiency. This, in turn, boosts revenue to your business

while reducing wasted effort.

Conclusion

Click Configure Now.2.

Fill in the required information

3.

4.

Name - A name that describes your criteria.

Criteria - Define the scoring conditions that must be met by using

the drop-down menus. You can define up to three conditions for

each criteria.

Assign score - This is the score that meeting your criteria will award.

Lead Scoring

© 2018 Zoho Corp. All Rights Reserved.

Contact us:

Zoho Corporation

4141 Hacienda Drive

Pleasanton,

California 94588, USA

+1 (888) 900 9646 (USA)

+44 (20) 35647890 (UK)

support@zohomarketinghub.com

Please feel free to share this document

You can find more details about Zoho MarketingHub on our Online Help.

Visit https://www.zoho.com/marketinghub/ to sign up for a free account!

© 2019 Zoho Corp. All Rights Reserved.

https://www.zoho.com/marketinghub/help/https://www.zoho.com/marketinghubhttps://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=https://www.zoho.com/marketinghub/help/handbooks/lead-scoring-index.html&p[title]=lead-scoringhttps://www.twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=https://www.zoho.com/marketinghub/help/handbooks/lead-scoring-index.html&text=lead-scoring