Did you know scoring your leads will increase your ROI by 77%?
With a good lead scoring system you’ll ensure you’re allocating your resources as efficiently as possible in order to close more deals.
But how does this work?
What is lead scoring?
Lead scoring consists essentially of assigning numerical scores to your leads in order to prioritize them accordingly.
When companies prioritize leads correctly, it allows them to be able to decide appropriate and personalized strategies for each tier, but also to know which leads need more nurturing or the ones that would need too much time and ultimately may never convert.
By using the correct strategies and being able to predict the outcome (to a certain extent) sales teams become much more efficient in their efforts and increase their conversion rates exponentially.
There are several different rating systems that you can use with your leads.
- Lead qualification: This is another methodology used to prioritize your leads. However, this method does not use numerical values. It is a more subjective method, which works best when combined with lead scoring.
- Lead grading: This methodology is based on prioritizing leads according to demographics. In your ICP, you should define your buyer persona and company and lead level information in order to conduct lead grading. Another salient difference with lead scoring is the fact that lead grading is done by letters, not numbers.
Types of lead scoring
Unidimensional lead scoring
Unidimensional lead scoring follows a simple system where you classify your leads with a numerical score ranging from 1 to 100.
- Retrospective scoring
With every action the lead takes (opens an email, comments on LinkedIn posts, requests a demo, etc.) the lead is given a score. This score can change depending on other actions the lead chooses to take.
- Predictive scoring
With this method, behavior analysis comes into play. Depending on how the lead has performed previously, a score will be given to them as a prediction of their future actions, valuing if they will meet the objectives and criteria of your company.
Not all systems are perfect, particularly when dealing with large amounts of data that can’t always be qualified with a numerical value due to its complexity and subjectiveness.
For this reason, some experts deem this system as insufficient and inaccurate.
Multidimensional lead scoring
Multidimensional lead scoring is a more advanced system that is based on multiple factors or dimensions, therefore it provides a much more complete assessment.
The dimensions may include:
- Demographic factors, such as age, job title, industry, location, or company size.
- Interaction with your company. By this, we mean website visits, downloads, or time spent on your website. For example, spending a long time on the pricing page could indicate that your lead is seriously considering making a purchase.
- Engagement with your brand, both social or by email.
- Previous knowledge of your product or service.
- Technology stacks the lead’s company is using.
- Buyers intent or other indications that your lead is looking for your solution
- Position in the sales funnel
When applying a score to each of your leads, you also need to decide the priority of the different dimensions. For example, a lead’s engagement (behavioral) might be considered more important than their demographic fit in some cases.
Your total lead score will be the combination of all the dimensions, with one overall value.
This method provides a more holistic view of a lead’s potential value. .
How to build a lead scoring model
1. Define your ICP
Before you begin, you need to know exactly what you’re looking for in a lead and what factors make the perfect lead.
With the lemlist persona generator, you can create your ICP in mere seconds.
By following the buyer persona you have generated, you will ensure that your lead scoring stays consistent and accurate throughout the whole process and among the whole team.
2. Define relevant factors
Whether you’re conducting unidimensional or multidimensional lead scoring, you need to know what factors are considered relevant to your whole team and product or service.
By taking into account only the most relevant factors, you will help you make sure that your leads are as targeted as possible.
3. Assign a score to your leads
Once you know what factors are relevant to your company, you need to consider how important they are by assigning a numerical value to them.
For example, you may decide that a lead who is head of sales if worth +20 points, while a lead in marketing could be worth +5 points since they are not typically decision-makers when purchasing products or services.
You can also assign a numerical value per engagement on your content. For example, visiting your profile could be +1 points, while commenting and reposting could be +10 points per post.
When assigning value, don’t forget to include negative scores too.
Not everything can be construed as positive, there are actions that will also devalue your leads’ scores.
For example, unsubscribing from your newsletters, engaging publicly with your competitors, or having irrelevant job titles.
As an example, this is what a lead’s scoring could look like:
| Lead’s factors | Score |
|---|---|
| Job title: CEO | +20 |
| Company size: +500 employees | +15 |
| Website visit (multiple pages) | +5 |
| Commented on LinkedIn posts (asked for resources) | +10 |
| Watched product demo | +10 |
| Unsubscribed from emails | -10 |
4. Define actions for each lead
In order to know what direction to take with your leads, you’ll need to set certain parameters with the scores, for example:
- Leads scoring 80 or above are considered SQLs and passed to the sales team.
- Leads scoring between 50 and 80 are considered MQLs and may require more nurturing.
- Leads scoring below 50 are not eligible or desirable choices
This will help you decide the approach you’ll need to take with each lead, and also see how they are moving through the sales funnel.
Lead scoring with lemlist
Conducting lead scoring yourself can be time-consuming and confusing, which is why investing in a tool that will take care of all organization tasks for you is a must.
lemlist’s AI Variables allow you to use a single prompt on all your leads. It’s the same as a ChatGPT prompt, except you can manipulate your leads data with it.
In other words, it’ll save you hours of manually typing each lead into ChatGPT or other AI tools.
For example:
AI Variables lets you quickly score leads based on their job title.
Here’s how you do it:
Step 1: Import leads from lemlist’s B2B database (or from a CSV provided it included job titles)
Step 2: Go to your campaign’s lead list and click on “Enhance leads” and then on AI Variable
Step 3: Call the AI Variable “Lead score”
Step 4: Use the following prompt: “Please score the lead based on their {{jobTitle}}. Use a scoring system of 1-3, with 1 being the position with the most authority and 3 with the least authority.”
You should now see a score for each lead in the “lead score” column of your campaign’s leads list.
That’s how easy it is to score leads with lemlist.
However, the above is but one example of scoring leads with lemlist’s AI Variables.
The possibilities are only limited by your imagination. Play around with some prompts (on one lead first) to get an idea of what you can do with it.
Lead scoring checklist and next steps
To make sure you’re taking an organized approach in your lead scoring process, make sure to follow this checklist:
✅ Decide your lead scoring type
✅ Make sure your ICP is clear
✅ Setup parameters and factors
✅ Take action with your leads!
To ensure that your approach is as accurate as possible, invest in software such as lemlist, and never miss valuable leads, time, or resources.
Once your leads have been properly qualified and organized, develop a good lead nurturing system and close more deals.
