Lead Scoring Models: Getting Started

Once a company has reached the expansion stage, it might be time to consider building a lead scoring model. Loosely defined, the expansion stage is the period in a company’s development in which it has a fully-developed product, has established some market traction in terms of revenue and customers, and is ramping up its sales and marketing efforts. If the company is there, and has several sales reps, a strong and growing inflow of leads (ideally more than sales can effectively follow up with), it is probably time to build a lead scoring model.

A good way to start is to download a large lead data set that has associated lead characteristics (country of origin, landing page, PPC words clicked, number of website visits, number of pages viewed, webinar attendance, datasheets/case studies/whitepapers downloaded, whether the lead trialed/demo’d the product, etc.), along with whether the lead converted to an opportunity or a sale. The lead attributes are independent variables, and should be fields that are filled in before the lead is sent to the sales team (this is important if one of the goals of building the lead scoring model is to effectively prioritize leads being sent to the sales team and optimize the use of sales resources). The conversion of the lead to an opportunity or a sale is the dependent variable.

Once the data set is configured, analyze the relationship between each of the independent variables and conversion (the dependent variable). Do leads that have attended a webinar or downloaded a whitepaper convert at a higher rate? Do U.S. leads have a higher conversion rate than non-U.S. leads? If, for example, leads that have visited the website more than 3 times convert into opportunities/sales at a higher rate than average, give those leads 10 points. If leads that have trialed the product convert at a much higher rate, perhaps those leads should be given 25 points. While the actual point values and total score don’t matter, relative point values do, since the idea is to rank the leads (relative to one another) by their potential to convert into an opportunity or sale. If leads that have trialed the product have a higher conversion rate than leads that have downloaded a white paper, trial leads should get more points than whitepaper leads.

Next week, I will cover in more detail, how to assign point values for specific lead attributes, how to avoid pitfalls, and how to test a lead scoring model.