If you’re not using lead scoring yet, you should be!
Lead scoring uses data on past customer behavior to effectively predict which leads are most likely to buy.
In effect, the system evaluates the constellation of factors that point to a purchase and rates each lead based on how many of those factors have been demonstrated so far.
With scoring, all the data you’re gathering over time has more value than ever before. Now, you can funnel it all into software that produces immediate effects on the department – and teaches actionable lessons about serving your audience better.
Understanding the Benefits of Lead Scoring for Sales
What are the benefits? Try these for a start!
1. Measurable ROI on Lead Generation Efforts
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All other factors being equal, measurable ROI leads to higher budgets for sales teams. Better allocation of resources to what really works benefits everyone. It sharpens the focus on key goals and ensures that ineffective ideas are discarded in favor of valuable innovations.
2. Higher Conversion of Qualified Leads to Opportunities
When people think about lead scoring, they’re usually thinking about this. Moving leads forward faster creates more sales revenue in the pipeline. It also means your team spends far less time chasing down decision-makers who won’t ultimately commit to the purchase.
3. Increased Sales Productivity
Higher sales productivity makes certain you can do more with a smaller, leaner team. When companies are just starting out, this can be the difference between victory and defeat. Even as they mature, a more efficient department will equip each newcomer to contribute sooner.
4. Shortened Sales Cycle
Everyone knows that the sales cycle is getting longer and longer here in the B2B world. There’s only so much you can do about it – but scoring leads is one of your best moves. It cuts out a lot of the busywork and waiting around, so you can zero in on hot opportunities months sooner.
5. Better Sales Forecasting
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Sales forecasting is a precise process not all organizations have a handle on. When you forecast effectively, it empowers you to avoid cash flow problems and optimize production. That, in turn, gives your sales team the opportunity to help guide the overall strategic direction. Wow!
6. Sales and Marketing Alignment
Everyone talks about sales and marketing alignment these days. It’s essential to the inbound way of life, but how can you make it happen? By transmitting data to both teams and handing leads off promptly, lead scoring systems deliver a high caliber of alignment between marketing and sales.
How to Get Started with Lead Scoring in Your Own Enterprise
Scoring isn’t a new idea – but until recently, very few software suites pulled all the data points together under one roof. Instead, someone had to pick through individual data points and combine web analytics with the direct observations made by sales professionals.
This led to rickety, imprecise scoring that took a long time to bring online.
Nowadays, we can look to Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems for results. Today’s best CRMs translate their own data directly into intuitive and consistent scoring of leads. Everyone throughout the value chain can use and understand the output right away.
If you’re looking to implement lead scoring fast and well, the HubSpot CRM is great.
HubSpot's CRM is designed and developed by the masters of inbound marketing over at HubSpot. These are the guys and gals who created, tested, verified, and evangelized all of the inbound marketing best practices today’s most successful enterprises swear by.
HubSpot's CRM has two ways to architect your lead score process:
- Manual lead scoring lets you do things your way with criteria-based smart lists.
- Predictive lead scoring lets the system bake up a lead score largely on its own.
If you don’t score your leads yet, then HubSpot is our top recommendation. The HubSpot CRM is robust, under continuous development, and – best of all – free.
Even if you do have a current CRM solution, it’s a good idea to compare it with HubSpot and evaluate whether your existing CRM will meet your future needs.
Either way, lead scoring is the most powerful way to bring an otherwise healthy sales team up to the next level. It will cut out so much work – both busywork and guesswork – you’ll wonder how you ever did without it. You can focus in on real priority tasks like never before.
Lead scoring: It’s the secret sauce for sales success. Now, you can be in on it!
Rob Steffens
I am the Director of Marketing here at Bluleadz. I'm a huge baseball fan (Go Yankees!). I love spending time with friends and getting some exercise on the Racquetball court.