What lead scoring system do you have in place? Do you have one in place? Are you just beginning to think about one?

Don’t worry. I got you covered.

Lead scoring has huge time-savings and conversion benefits once you have it down well.

But what steps do you take to get there?

Check out these best practices to eliminate the stumbling and get there fast:

1. Add Negative Scoring To Your Positive Scoring

The first thought with most lead scoring practices is to assign positive values when a prospect takes certain actions on your website.

That’s good. But you can get skewed results.

For example, the lead could be someone interested in working at your company. So, they read your blog, case studies, and white papers.

Looks good on paper. But you don’t want sales to talk to them of course.

So when that same lead visits your careers page, you reduce their score. The same goes for any other actions they take that likely decrease their value to your organization.

2. Obvious: Track Explicit Criteria

This information gets voluntarily submitted to you via an online contact form. There’s no doubt about it.

It can include:

  • Name
  • Position
  • Work email
  • Company name
  • Company size
  • Revenue
  • Lead source

…And a host of other things.

Of course, that has to be a part of your lead’s score.

3. Less Obvious: Track Implicit Criteria

What is “implicit criteria?”

You don’t get this information provided to you.

Instead, you derive it by analysis from your explicit criteria.

For example, this could include the number and time frequency of website visits and content consumed.

4. What Are Your Threshold Scores? 

“Thresholds” simply communicate at what point your leads are considered sales-ready. In other words, those leads are likely to act now or soon after they talk with your sales team.

By the way, if your lead doesn’t meet the threshold, don’t throw them away. Re-engage them in your funnel with more nurturing since you already have a relationship established.

Here’s an example lead scoring matrix from Act-On:

lead-scoring-example-from-act-on

5. Avoid the Biggest Lead Scoring Mistake

As with anything, you can make lots of mistakes in lead scoring. According to Ian Cleary of Razor Social, the biggest mistake you can make is not building your email list.

Most of the prospects that visit your website won’t be ready to buy or talk to sales. So, rather than worrying about scoring them so much, keep them in your funnel.

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