Time to Get Started on Lead Scoring to Prioritize Your Sales Leads

Marketing teams are usually faced with challenges pertaining to leads as they need to identify only those leads that can bring forth the best opportunities for their sales teams. Therefore qualification of leads is crucial to all sales teams’ effectiveness and success. Automated lead scoring techniques also work wonders for an enterprise in its pursuit to collect and nurture new leads. If you're just getting started with lead scoring, here are a few tips to get you on your way.

• Ensure that the lead score encapsulates both online and offline activity

To get a complete and accurate picture, it is important for a lead score to take in the online as well as the offline activity. It is therefore imperative to ensure that inbound calls and other offline behaviors that are integral to the buyer’s process are fully integrated into the scoring methodology.

• Expect changes in the scoring model

It is necessary to examine historical data and look for correlations that exist. It is only through continuous experimentation and monitoring that your lead model will mature.

• Re-evaluate the lead score data continuously

It is important to automatically add new data as it is gathered over time and re-score leads. To maintain accurate scores, it is necessary to constantly re-assess and update the data.

• A low score is not a low value lead

 Low lead scores indicate that a person is early in their buying process. A low score has the potential to develop over time, so don’t discard it.

It is important to start simple and tweak the programs, your scores, and the metrics that are being looked at to analyze the scores of the leads. The actual score, of course, does not matter. What matters more is that the higher the score, the more actionable the lead is. The right kind of lead scoring solution can ensure that leads are automatically stored and prioritized. It makes it easier for sales teams to discriminate between leads that may be sales ready and those that may not be.

Lead Scoring is the process of assigning a quantitative qualification to prospects on the basis of their behavior and potential of making a purchase in a given time. So lead scoring is basically the process of separating qualified, sales ready leads in an automated fashion into two parts – their behavior and their demographics. With optimized B2B lead scoring methods, companies can easily prioritize sales leads, gauge the level of interest of the website and provide answers about the Intent behind visitors’ actions.



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Lead Scoring in 2011

Did you know that marketing budgets for marketing automation saw an increase from 6.4% of marketing budgets in 2010 to 6.9% in 2011? Enterprises have realized that with complicated marketing strategies and global recession, marketing automation tools can be more effective in grasping the complexities of marketing campaigns and can therefore offer solutions to solve these complexities. Marketing automation tools can equip enterprises with a cost effective way of ensuring marketing operational efficiency. When conventional and expensive marketing initiatives have failed, it has been the newer marketing elements that need to be focused upon. One such marketing automation element is lead scoring. Very simply put, lead scoring is the process of ranking and getting leads prioritized according to some pre-defined parameters.


Lead Scoring in 2011 - The Road Ahead

Lead scoring can assist enterprises in understanding the interests of their website visitors. Also the intent of these visitors can be ascertained. Often enterprises are plagued with questions about the intent behind a particular prospect’s website visit or about the actual reason behind the 11 will emphasize the ability to grasp the prospect’s intent correctly. Only then can marketing and sales teams take lead score results seriously and also take necessary and suitable action. Also the year will see sales leads scoring engaging more intensely in the analytical aspect of understanding the intent of prospects, which will further help marketing and sales teams to strategize and ideate better on their marketing campaigns. The social media bandwagon will continue to create an impact and it will have some impact on lead scoring techniques as well.

With automated lead scoring methodologies available, enterprises can be assured of better synthesis and communication between their sales and marketing teams. Therefore there will no longer be a sales and marketing teams working as separate teams, rather they will function and work together. 2011 will ensure that lead scoring techniques offer better direction towards the allocation of capital to the right kind of leads rather than focusing on prospects that may yield no profits for the enterprise. Targeted leads, when nurtured, will offer more profits and revenues to the enterprise, and this year will definitely be witness to enterprises enjoying such scenarios.

2011 could very well be the year when enterprises see the economical yet amazingly rewarding aspects of automated lead scoring techniques.

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How to Improve Your Lead Management Process

How to Improve Your Lead Management Process

Capturing and nurturing a customer’s interest is of prime importance because it is the impetus for whether a product is actually purchased or not. The sole intent of lead management is to build a relationship with each prospective customer in a way that their interest develops into an opportunity for sales. The goal, however, always remains the same - ensuring complete customer satisfaction by marketing automation.

One of the most fundamental processes that is required for an increase in revenue is a periodic review of the lead management program. As prospective leads originate in a variety of different ways, there is usually only a very loose structure in place to manage all those leads. Lead management system begins with the ability to hit revenue targets in your sales pipeline. By adopting the following strategies you can improve your lead management efforts.

• Specifically define a lead so all employees understand it.

The definition of a lead is one of the biggest disconnects between sales and the rest of the company. Most of the leads that are sent to the sales team are never acted upon. This usually happens when the lead is either not routed through the right person or isn’t ready to engage with the sales person. For sales effectiveness, the sales staff and the rest of the company need a specific definition of when a prospect becomes an actual lead and when it needs to be forwarded to the sales team.

• Trail the lead source.

It is necessary to keep track of where a prospective lead originated so that you can better determine what works and what doesn’t, as most people hear about a company and its services through ads or referrals. Keeping track of a source helps determine how many times a customer needs to be contacted and what methods of contact work best. By not capturing a source, there is no way of figuring out what works and what doesn’t.

• Allocate leads quickly.

Studies have proven that the sales closing rate increases tremendously if a prospect is contacted within 48 hours. Quick response sets you apart from the other competitors in the market. This can be tracked as a key sales metric.

• Implement Lead Nurturing.

Lead nurturing best practices call for nurturing of leads. Most prospective leads are not converted to a sale after the very first interaction with the salesperson. It is necessary to develop campaigns that facilitate the interaction with prospects numerous times so that they can be moved from the sales cycle until they are actually ready to make a purchase.
Any marketing organization will be on its way to optimizing lead generation, maximizing sales revenue, and improving marketing results by implementing these key strategies of lead management.

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Marketing Automation Tools-The need of the Times

Marketing Automation Tools : The Need of the Times

Almost everyone thought that the recession would alter the way B2B enterprises viewed marketing automation and that enterprises would think twice before investing in marketing automation. However, even as marketing strategies are becoming complex and terribly intricate, the recessionary times have seen marketing automation tools emerge even stronger as they have now become adept at understanding and offering solutions that cater to these complexities. An optimized marketing automation tool can provide enterprises effective reduction in costs along with end-to-end marketing operational efficiency. In a constantly evolving business landscape, conventional methods of emailing, print advertisements, etc., have been replaced by newer marketing initiatives, webcasts, search engine optimization, etc. A good marketing automation tool can help capitalize on your marketing promotions and campaigns by providing you with qualified customer leads.

Benefits of Marketing Automation Tools

• Radical reductions in cost: Manual campaign executions take time and can be fabulously expensive. An optimized marketing automation tool can not only launch but also execute online marketing initiatives speedily.
• Evolve with the changing environment: Change is inevitable, therefore an optimized marketing automation tool that can respond quickly to changes in the marketing environment can be enormously beneficial for enterprises and their sales teams. Such a tool will improve agility among sales teams as far as their responsiveness towards different evolving aspects of the business is concerned.
• Business intelligence: Once you know your customers inside and out, catering to their needs will be very easy. A marketing automation tool can offer such intelligence, enabling enterprises to run marketing campaigns that have been planned on the basis of such customer related information and ensuring complete success.
• Gets you closer to your customer:  Marketing teams across the world search for that one formula that can provide them with the perfect information about their customers’ specific needs and wants. An optimized marketing automation tool can provide such information to assist marketing teams in engaging such content that is customized according to every customer’s likes and dislikes.

• Effective lead management with enhanced productivity: It is time every enterprise bids a hasty goodbye to dull and repetitive campaign planning tasks. Marketing automation, with its effective lead management software, can offer maximized productivity for all your campaigns.

Every enterprise can benefit from the advantages that marketing automation tools can offer for diverse marketing campaigns. From providing qualified leads and optimized cross-channel communication to effective prospect-customer management, the right marketing automation tools can truly turn an enterprise around and bring in enhanced productivity and ROI.

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Effective Lead Nurturing For Increased Sales



Getting potential customers to come to your website and register does not guarantee increased sales. Not all prospects are ready to buy, but that does not mean that they will never buy. You need to keep these prospects engaged if you want them to ultimately buy. It is important to nurture them so that eventually they become your customers.

The concept of lead nurturing has become immensely popular with marketers today.  It can be thought of as the art of keeping your prospects engaged with the right kind of information at the right time so that ultimately you are the choice the prospect makes.  Lead nurturing is the process of developing a positive long-term relationship with leads/prospects through meaningful dialogue, keeping their attention with a series of time-appropriate messages and then tracking their development into sales opportunities.The information or communication sent to the customer needs to be appropriate and timely or your customer may lose interest in your product and make your marketing efforts ineffective. Lead nurturing programs have become much simpler to design and launch with marketing automation.

According to Aberdeen Research, implementing a lead nurturing practice can yield a 50%+ increase in sales-ready leads, making a large impact in a company's revenue and growth goals. 

Based on lead nurturing, marketers categorize leads based on their sales readiness and pass on to the sales team, only those leads that are ready to buy. And the prospects that are not ready are further nurtured to create interest in the products or services offered. The sales team, on the other hand, makes great progress as they have only hot leads to follow up on. And if any hot lead turns warm, it is directed back to the marketing team to be nurtured. Thus, with lead nurturing, enterprises can ensure maximum sales success.

Highly Effective Stages of Lead Nurturing

Some of the best practices in lead nurturing that can bring about the desired results are:

1. Map out a Strategy – Chalk out a strategy that can help you keep your leads interested. Plan out the kinds of content that need to be delivered to the prospect as a part of lead nurturing program, keeping in mind their interests. The kinds of content that can be sent include white papers/articles, case studies, data sheets, videos, podcasts, webinars, links to specific industry news/resources and interviews with experts/executives.
2. Personalize Your Interaction – Personalizing emails is a good strategy. It kind of breaks the ice. Send relevant content based on the interest in the prospect. You have a much higher chance of keeping your prospect in the fold if you provide information they want.
3. Create a Lead Nurturing Schedule – Develop a schedule for sending out information to the prospect. This helps you keep track of where you are in the lead nurturing funnel.
4. Reinforce Brand/Product – The prospect has shown interest in your product, and it is up to you to keep his attention with timely messages. Share white papers, videos or demos about your brand or product. Develop case studies and share success stories with clients. In this way you will be able to create an image about your brand.
5. Strengthen Relationship – Once the image is built, you need to strengthen it and maintain that interest further. You now need to send a controlled communication to influence the prospect’s buying decision.
6. Close the Deal – Once the prospect is purchase ready, it is time to pass them on to the sales team to close the deal. This can be done with offers of a free trial, and sending references.

In going through the above stages of lead nurturing, you can build up a relationship with the prospect and seamlessly progress to making them potential customers. These best practices can help marketers achieve better sales and improve ROI.

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Intelligent Lead Management Strategies

A mutual effort between sales and marketing  is the most important in lead management , as these two departments determine the success of a business to a large extent. As we know, leads are crucial links to any prospective sale. Converting these leads to sales and enforcing a stable lead management process is what ensures success in a business.

Combining the Chalk and Cheese

A business could suffer enormously, if there is a difference with the sales and marketing teams. To make progressive headway businesses should understand the need for marketing and sales alignment, and make optimum use of lead management capabilities. The process may not  be  an easy one, though some best practices in lead management can help enhance productivity and quicken the sales cycle.

It is vital to focus on retention and nurturing of leads with the help of a process that integrates sales and marketing efforts. Marketing automation software can facilitate such a process by providing favorable lead management solutions that help marketing teams to nurture leads during the early stages and make them qualified enough for the sales team to pursue further.

Lead Management Benefits

1. Keeping a tab on each lead –Helps in keeping the sales team clued in on the leads that have been contacted. This way the leads are more systematized, and multiple contacts with prospective customers can be avoided.. .
2. Concentrate on Sales – Lead management eliminates time-wasting tactics such as cold calling, and provides a good opportunity for your sales team to concentrate efforts on sales-ready leads.
3. Lead Segmentation – Lead management can be helpful in categorizing leads as per their locations, occupations, business etc. This in turn helps you to identify their needs and sell accordingly. Also, with the help of lead scoring you can choose leads that you wish to pursue and those that you want to nurture.
4. Predictability & Analytical Advantage – Data gathered through lead management can be used as reference for future enhancement, and for ensuring complete customer satisfaction.
5. Collaboration & Team Work – Lead management allows each team member to see their individual progress as well as that of others. This gives them a chance to correct their mistakes and enhance their efforts.
6. Personal Touch – Lead nurturing and other lead management techniques give a personal touch to your relationship with prospects, and help in developing a strong bond, which is not possible through cold calling.
7. Flexibility & Versatility– Every business has different needs and lead management programs can be customized according to the requirements of your business.
8. Comprehensive Information– Lead management can help you gain valuable information about your leads, and can give you a fairly good idea on which are the best channels to approach them and what messages would be most appropriate for them.

Managing leads effectively is most vital and cannot be stressed enough. A strategic leads management is perhaps the best solution in today’s competitive market environment.

Hence, by following lead nurturing best practices and employing marketing automation solutions, your sales and marketing teams can work in unison towards the common business goal, and achieve the desired results.

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Lead Nurturing – Uncover a Gold Mine of Opportunity

Nurture is very simple word that means to supply with nourishment. Today, lead nurturing is immensely popular with marketers because it is a simple yet extremely powerful marketing automation software. Lead nurturing programs can be compared to a garden that will produce a good harvest only if tended well. Similarly it is not enough to just generate leads, it is important to nurture them to be converted into customers.

Organizations spend huge amounts of money marketing their products sending mailers, email and invitations to webinars or advertising heavily on TV and radio. The leads generated by this exercise are passed on to the sales team. As sales are responsible for generating revenue for the quarter, they tend to ignore the prospects that are not hot – thus sales teams ignores almost 80% of leads generated by marketing. That is 80% of the budget going to waste.

This gap between sales and marketing teams is the biggest challenge faced by B2B enterprises. Once the lead is handed to the sales team, the marketing team no longer follows up on these leads as they have already been handed over to sales. Hence it makes more sense for marketing to pass on only the qualified leads to sales. This is whereLead nurturing programs comes in.

Lead nurturing in the B2B space is the process of building long term trusted relationships with qualified prospects irrespective of whether they are interested or not, through a consistent dialog throughout the sales lifecycle. Thus we can say lead nurturing is a process that converts inquiries into leads and leads into sales.

Remember 75% of these unqualified prospects will eventually buy from you or your competitor. Yes, there are some who may be unqualified; those should be siphoned out of the system immediately. The rest we should care about and focus on. Lead nurturing best practices helps keep your finger on the pulse of those undeveloped prospects.

According to Forrester Research, companies that excel at lead nurturing are able to generate 50% more sales-ready leads at 33% lower cost-per-lead.

Build a Relationship

Lead nurturing is used to build bridges and inspire trust between the lead and yourself. It helps you to provide valuable education and information about the product to the lead up front, in the form of letters, emails, case studies, white papers, articles, webinars and success stories.

By using this kind of lead nurturing campaign you relate with your prospect better and get deeper insights into their buying intent. Once you have built that trust you are looked upon as an expert. You don't sell; you only provide information and solutions. You space out your campaign depending on the lead time. You ultimately benefit from more and higher quality sales leads and increased conversion rates with an increased bottom line.

Thus if lead nurturing is done right fewer leads are lost, more qualified prospects get into the funnel and your sales team can focus their attention on the most promising of them.

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