What lead scoring methodology do you use?

Hi Teri,

As we’ve watched the trade press, lead scoring has gotten very complicated. There are so many things to measure, and so many ways to measure them, that sometimes it seems as if we've lost sight of why we developed lead scoring in the first place – namely, to gauge each lead’s level of interest, and, if appropriate, qualification.

Jeff is right about establishing a lead definition to start from. If reaching agreement with Sales will take too long, though, you can start with one of your own, and then ask for feedback as “scored” leads start getting to Sales.

When it comes to actual lead scoring, however, we’ve found that simple response-based scoring seems to work best in virtually all settings. Response-based scoring differs from activity-based scoring in that only those actions that constitute responses of some kind are counted. What this translates to is that email opens, clickthroughs, page landings, landing site browsing, etc. don’t count.

We’ve actually tested this to see whether there are “hidden” responses among the “opens only,” “clickthroughs only” and “page landings only,” and found that less than 5% of leads at those stages subsequently responded – even after a period of time had elapsed.

What does count in response-based lead scoring are landing page conversions, event registrations, offer downloads, etc. The premise behind this approach is that responses of whatever kind represent a self-declaration of interest by a lead. They declare themselves by providing contact and profile information. The key here is that they take the initiative to do it themselves.

To score the other activities requires imputing some sort of interest level to the lead without the lead having declared it. No matter how good the information is that we may have on a lead, if they don’t declare themselves, they haven’t shown real interest. That’s what our testing showed. And if there isn’t self-declared interest, lead qualification according to BANT or other methodology won’t be able to make up for it.

I agree with Jeff but be sure to take your definition work with sales and marketing further. Be sure you define every stage of the buyers journey from initial response all the way through to defining a customer.

Also to Jeff's point look at scoring on demographic (built on your ideal prospect/buyer profiles) and behavior. To many companies base their qualification on BANT (Budget, Authority, Need & Timeframe) and come up with to many false positives.

Keep in mind that scoring is not static, it is a dynamic process and one that should be measured, analyzed and adjusted accordingly.

Carlos Hidalgo
The Annuitas Group
www.annuitasgroup.com
@cahidalgo

We use a combination of explicit (demographic) information and implicit (behavior) based information. After about 10,000 months of data we have found that what someone is doing with specific content is a better predictor of whether or not they will buy. Turns out in our business the executives sometimes give junior people in the organization the task of gathering information regarding a potential purchase.

This has caused us to focus heavily on content creation and management and work on delivering appropriate content for various stages of the buyers journey

Wow Alex. 10,000 months of data. That means Eloqua was invented in 1177AD. And only on version 10! I look forward to version 11 in 2093.

It has taken a long time to realise that the online researcher - the person you have contact data for - is usually not the decision maker and persuading him/her is not really the right game plan.

Seth Godin put it beautifully in his book Spreading the Ideavirus. You have to find the "Sneezer" and inspire them to spread the idea inside the corporation. That means giving him/her the tools to do so, with specific documents for all of the potential people involved in the decision - ROI for the CFO, Overall benefits for the CEO, Operational benefits for the COO etc.

It also shows the need to gain the maximum intelligence on the company at as early a stage as possible. This is a key reason why true B2B marketing automation is so different from those systems with B2C DNA (they all claim to be able to do B2B but they don't do it well). It is Marketing Intelligence, not Automation, which is key to B2B lead generation.

That's why here at LeadFormix UK we have a whole division dedicated to helping you write compelling content. It isn't just how you automate what you send out - what you send and who you send it to are also important.

Ha! - Thanks for calling me out Peter; you are right, I did not explain that number well. With over 800 clients and 60,000 users we collect a lot of benchmark data. The 10,000 months is data across all those clients and all the sales and marketing cycles they have run.

So as much as I would like to claim that the Lombard League was an Eloqua user when they defeated the Roman Emperor, Frederick I (Barbossa) at Legano in 1176 it is just not true.

I am a big believer in basing your treatment of leads on explicit content provided the content is captured by a means where the lead can control how you treat them. You have a much better chance of delivering relevant content to a CFO, CEO, or CIO if you ask (well)versus assume. BANT questions are only appropriate if the respondent is ready to answer them. If they are not ready, dont ask or you will get a high percentage of false positives and bounces.

You've inspired me to write a piece on this but it exceeded the 4,000 character limit.

You can read it here:
http://news.marketingpipeline.co.uk/?p=103

Peter