The next step is to determine the attributes that you will assign value to. These attributes can be segmented into 2 main categories for the purpose of lead scoring.
The criteria you use for scoring your leads will depend on your personas, industry, and products and services but the above attributes are common among B2B organizations.
The best way to understand lead scoring is to look at an example using a point scale from 1-10.
Let’s say your organization sells recruiting software.
A lead who subscribes to your newsletter may take longer to convert into a customer. You may not even know if this lead is seeking a job or looking for a recruiting service. The nature of their action (subscribing to the newsletter) isn’t indicative of what they’re looking for. In this case, you’d assign 3 points to this lead.
Whereas, a lead that downloads a whitepaper on “The Top HR Tech Tools Your Business Needs” is likely further down the funnel and may convert into a customer more quickly. This lead would get 5 points in this example.
Sometimes leads may take specific actions or have characteristics that disqualify them as a good lead. Some examples of attributes that would warrant negative lead scores include:
In these circumstances, you’d subtract points from these leads.
Lead Name |
Action Taken |
Points Scored |
Points Subtracted |
Total Points |
A |
Subscribed to newsletter |
3 |
3 |
|
B |
Whitepaper download |
5 |
5 |
|
C |
Requested a demo |
7 |
7 |
|
D |
Submitted a job application |
-10 |
-10 |
|
E |
Subscribed to newsletter Hasn’t opened an email in 6 months |
3 |
-3 |
0 |
Next, determine the range of scores that represent “sales-readiness” of the lead. This will require some level of testing and analysis when you first implement lead scoring.
Map out your lead scoring system together with your sales and marketing team to determine a minimum point threshold together. Say you use a point system from 1-10, perhaps a score of 7 would indicate a lead is far enough down the funnel that it’s time to have a conversation with your sales team. Using software or a tool made specifically for lead scoring will help streamline this process. See below for examples of tools.
Rather than having your sales reps manually go into your CRM frequently to check in on your lead scoring initiatives, save them some time by setting up notifications which are triggered when a lead reaches the predetermined sales-readiness threshold.
Regardless of the size of your organization, lead scoring can be a huge project to take on manually. Without the help of a tool, the process may become tedious, time-consuming and may lead to data inaccuracies. Moreover, as leads are nurtured, their score is likely to change. Without automated processes in place, it’s difficult to keep pace with even just a single lead’s activities, let alone 1,000 other leads.
Below are a few tools that can help you with automating your lead scoring
Once the system is implemented, the efforts of your sales & marketing teams will become more aligned and you will be able to reach the right customers at the right time, on the right channel.