Lead scoring and CRM work so in sync that you’d think one was designed specifically for the other and vice versa. To really tackle any marketing campaign, you’ll need to equip yourselves with the tools to help you succeed. Lead scoring models in conjunction with your CRM can help you piece together the puzzling process that is the customer sales journey.
What is Lead Scoring?
Lead scoring is the best strategy for measuring how your leads are moving down the sales funnel.
It gives you an indication of how ready your lead is to convert. This is really useful for sales and marketing teams because they are able to gauge exactly who they should follow up with and who they should spend a little more time nurturing. A good lead scoring model sets you up for success and is well worth the time and investment. It can save you from chasing down the wrong people and more importantly, keep you on track for nurturing the right people.
This is a pre-determined system created from a collaborative effort between marketing, sales, and company leadership. Key decision makers should get together and decide on what they would like to prioritize in terms of readiness to convert. Someone that reaches out by filling out a form requesting a demo may be bumped to the top of the contact list. Someone else on the other hand, may not be as hot of a lead because they’ve only had one, minimal interaction with your brand like following a link from an email to your site, only to exit the page a few minutes later.
There are many reasons why lead scoring models may be just what you need to propel your marketing strategy forward. For one, it can provide insight on how to prioritize your leads resulting in higher conversion rates. In addition, you’ll find that a clear lead scoring model can really help align your lead generation with your sales strategy. The goal with this is to understand what actions lead to the best results for you. By collecting the data and finding the patterns, you’ll easily be able to follow leads throughout their journey.
Lead Scoring Best Practices
There’s no right or wrong when it comes to lead scoring. Ideally you want to come up with a model that works well for your company and fits with what you’re looking to aim for. A few tips we’d like to share on this:
- Be sure to create a buyer persona before you begin. It can be difficult to come up with a model if you have no idea what your customer base even looks like. This represents your ideal customer and can be constructed using your knowledge of current customers, industry trends and data, or even research.
- Pick out data points to score from the beginning. You don’t have to know every single thing you’re looking for but have a base set of attributes to start with. You can break these up into two categories falling under demographic information and behavioral information. Consider data points like location, age, job title, clicks, email opens, etc.
- Leverage your resource when assigning point values. It’s useful and important to include all kinds of collaborators in this process. Each person on your team has a different experience with customers that come through your sales funnel. They are your biggest strength when it comes to designing your model because they may have insight that you’re not exposed to.
- Sales and marketing automation tools can help you get the job done better. Lead scoring can get tough if you’re doing it all by hand. The best way to remedy this is to tap into a bit of help through a tailored tech stack. A marketing automation tool can help streamline your process while your CRM can help you keep up with what you’re seeing.
Lead Scoring Tools
One of the most useful tools you can employ when working on building your lead scoring model is a CRM (or customer relationship management software). This is a specific type of technology that’s designed to track and manage any and all interactions with customers and prospects. This solution allows companies to focus on developing personalized relationships with people and keep close tabs on them throughout each stage of the customer journey.
CRM systems can store all kinds of information that can then be utilized in a variety of ways and inform a wide array of decisions. Mainly you’ll find yourself storing customer information and managing marketing campaigns. They also make it easy for you to work with people all across your company. This is a data source that is visible, accessible, and easily trackable.
By definition, this makes CRM an obvious pairing for lead scoring models. This source is ideal for collecting information but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it can work to perfect your strategy all on its own. This is the organization aspect. Now you need to incorporate a powerhouse marketing automation platform to really leverage the information in a way that benefits you. These work as a team to empower your marketing and sales processes with your data.
CRM matters in lead scoring because it gives you a clear overview of every person that’s touched your brand as well as their history with you. This is highly valuable because you already have half of the work done. All that is needed is to properly align these collected data points with your lead score.
The Takeaway
CRM and lead scores are great tools all on their own but to really pack a punch, they have to be leveraged together. These two players can have a major impact on your lead generation and lead nurture process. Once you have them both set up and running well, you’ll find that your marketing and sales funnel runs a lot smoother!
To learn more about how you can leverage lead score in your CRM and marketing automation platform, contact us at expert@emfluence.com today!
