Top 10 Mistakes When Scoring Leads

Scoring leads can help you get a better ROI on your lead generation dollars, move more qualified leads to sales and increase overall sales wins. But there are pitfalls that you must watch out for when implementing a lead scoring system.

1. Not putting a plan together - before implementing any lead scoring system, it is important that you put together a plan. Decide what interactions you want to score and which you don't. For instance, if someone opens an email that you sent, is that really an action that shows interest in your company - should that action really be scored? Take time before implementing a lead scoring system to properly think through what interactions and demographics should be scored and which shouldn't be.

2. Don't assume all clicks are created equal - if someone clicked on an email you sent, should they be scored? Do you know what pages that person visited and for how long they stayed? Really decide what pages of your website (if any) should be scored and which shouldn't. Also include the time spent on a page as a possible indicator of interest.

3. Don't ignore demographic information you can collect from a lead - scoring behavior is just one part of the equation. If you have leads fill in forms, make sure it's worthwhile and that you are collecting good, relevant data. Score a lead's title, industry, size of company - whatever best fits your lead criteria.

4. Make sure your definition of a lead fits with sales - the idea of scoring is to find leads that are "sales ready" and to keep leads that aren't quite ready for sales. If marketing's definition of a lead is different than sales, then no level of scoring will help overcome that issue. Start with a common definition and score from there.

5. Don't get too granular - when developing your lead scoring system, hold back the instinct to score every touch point leads have with your company. Each behavior can be tracked, but they shouldn't be scored. If you get too granular, you will have difficulty really getting those leads that are "sales ready" to bubble to the top.

6. Don't score only certain types of leads - when implementing a lead scoring system, you should include all leads generated by the company (assuming they are for the same type of sales force). Don't treat online and offline leads any differently. Factor both types and their possible interactions and demographics into your overall mix. Someone that attends a tradeshow could also be the same person that downloads a whitepaper from an email offer you send out. You want to track all interactions of that lead overtime - online and offline.

7. Don't think that you'll be right the first time - stay flexible and know that you will probably have to change your lead scoring rules as you measure the effectiveness. Lead scoring is an iterative process and requires companies to measure its effectiveness and adjust.

8. Don't forget to measure - you must measure the effectiveness of your lead scoring. Track the number of "sales ready" leads that marketing sends to sales. Continue to track that through to sales. Track how many leads that you are nurturing and how many of the nurtured leads become "sales ready." Also measure your campaign ROI - has it increased since you implemented your lead scoring system?

9. Don't use lead scoring in isolation - for leads scoring to be effective, it should be used within a system that you can track, segment, nurture and move leads. If a lead score is not high enough, what good is it to indentify if you don't have a plan to nurture that lead to move its score higher? What good is lead scoring if you are unable to immediately take "sales ready" leads and move them to sales?

10. Don't ignore the need for lead scoring - marketing can no longer take clicks, suspects and inquiries and throw them over the wall to sales and hope. Less marketing resources, a slowing economy, expensive sales resources and struggling revenue growth all point to marketing taking more action to increase the ROI it gets for its lead generation dollars while maximizing sales resources.

Learn how to score every interaction by every lead, online and offline, and prioritize leads automatically for appropriate next steps by downloading our ' Forget the ABCs of Lead Scoring ' whitepaper today!