Congratulations! Thanks to your commitment to inbound marketing, you’re generating more leads than ever before! [Blogger’s note: What, you haven’t committed to inbound marketing yet? We should talk!]
Of course, gathering leads is great, but as we know, not every one is created equal. The question is, how do you zone in on most qualified leads? It’s not like a box of chocolates where you know the square ones are delicious caramel and the oval ones are, well, likely bound for the trash.
Here’s the good news: a growing number of businesses are addressing this challenge by turning to predictive lead scoring (which is part of HubSpot’s CRM). And they’re witnessing tremendous results. Here’s what you need to know:
What Is Lead Scoring?
Lead scoring describes the process of assigning every contact a value or point based on multiple characteristics, such as the information they share, how they interact with your brand, and activities or actions taken on your website.
Once a lead accumulates a certain number of points, they’re deemed “qualified.” This will help your marketing team prioritize quality leads and increase the rate of converting them into buying customers.
Predictive Lead Scoring Models
Different companies adopt different models for assigning points to their leads, but using data from past leads is a good way to go…not just the contacts who became customers but also the ones who didn’t. Study what the contacts from each group have in common with each other. Then decide which attributes should be prioritized.
Although the process of predictive lead scoring may seem easy, it can quickly become complex depending on the type of data you collect from leads and your business model. To make it easier, take a look at these five models:
1. Demographic Information
Ask demographic questions on your landing pages and use the answers provided by your leads to determine how well they fit your audience. This information can help you get rid of outliers by subtracting points from leads that fall outside your target group. For example, if you’re selling to people in a specific location, you can assign a negative score to any lead from outside that location.
2. Company Information
For B2B companies, tailor your questions to suit your target market. For instance, ask for their industry, company size and award more points to leads that fit your target audience.
3. Online Behavior
As mentioned earlier, how a lead interacts with your website and brand can tell you if they’re interested in buying, or they’re just looking around. For example, see what offers they’ve downloaded and how many pages they’ve visited, and how many times they visited.
4. Email Engagement
Email is one of the oldest and most effective marketing and messaging channels. HubSpot reports that for every $1 spent, email marketing generates up to $38. But this doesn’t mean everyone opting to receive emails from you is interested in your products and services. To narrow down your search, you want to investigate open and click-through rates.
5. Social Engagement
Social media is also one of the most powerful ways to identify and nurture good leads. The more engaged a lead is on your social network the higher their chances of buying from you. According to Global Web Index, over 50% of social browsers use social media platforms to research products and services. Find out how many times they checked your company’s tweets and viewed Facebook posts. Did they retweet or share your posts? If so, how many times. You may want to add points to leads that did all that.
Lead scoring is one of the best ways to help you focus on the right leads and increase sales. HubSpot predictive lead scoring collects all of your customer context in one place—from first page viewed to most recent deal closed, and everything in between! As a HubSpot certified agency partner, the Brainstorm team can help you develop the best lead scoring model that suits your business. Contact us today to speak with one of our friendly lead scoring experts.