Want to make sure you’re pursuing the right prospects? That’s where lead scoring comes in. This process allows you to focus on the leads that are most likely to buy. By prioritizing high-potential leads, you spend less time on dead ends and more time building relationships that lead to deals.

A blog post from ZoomInfo says that a lead-scoring system allows you to reduce subjectivity in the process. Your system might be simple, like a spreadsheet, or more complex, like an advanced scoring system. No matter what system you use, the ZoomInfo post says you should follow 4 steps. We highlight the post in this issue of PromoPro Daily.

  1. Create buyer personas. To score your leads, you first must understand what makes a prospect an ideal fit. The ZoomInfo post says that’s where buyer personas come in. A buyer persona is a semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer. You can develop your buyer personas by using existing customer data and through research and observations.

  2. Determine which data points to score. Once you know what your ideal buyers look like, you can decide which attributes you will assign a point value. The post says you could segment lead scoring criteria into 2 main categories: demographic information and behavioral information.

  3. Assign point values. Not all scoring criteria are created equal, the ZoomInfo post says. Your goal is to define which traits and actions eventually lead to a closed deal. To do this, assign numerical values to each data point accordingly. For example, leads who subscribe to receive blog updates don’t often convert to paying customers. Conversely, leads who download a whitepaper tend to have a very high conversion rate. So, the post says, you might assign 2 points to those who subscribe to your blog and 25 points to those who download a white paper.

  4. Determine the point threshold that makes a lead sales qualified. Once you assign each data point a score, the post says you total all points amassed by a single lead. That’s their final lead score. The tricky part, according to the post, is that you need to determine what range of scores represents sales readiness. For example, you might find that leads that fall below 30 never convert into customers. You could continue nurturing them until they’re ready to buy.

Lead scoring helps you understand which leads are ready to buy and which need more nurturing. Begin by defining buyer personas, identifying key data points and assigning weighted values. With a clear system in place, you can focus on the leads that matter most.

Compiled by Audrey Sellers
Source: A blog post from ZoomInfo, a B2B database and intelligence platform.