Lead Scoring Enters the World of Internet Marketing

You may not have yet heard of lead scoring. But this is not something new in the world of internet marketing. This is a tool that has been used in direct marketing approaches for years in fact. It helps by enabling direct marketers to prepare list selections. It also is a great way to match clients to potential new sales opportunities. In the past, the most common approach used was known as RFM (which stands for Recency, Frequency and Monetary value).

However, more recently inbound marketers have begun using this to help with their efforts. By adapting their already existing practices to include lead scoring which helps improve upon their online marketing efforts. Of course, before you can determine whether lead scoring could help you, it is important to get an understanding of what it is.

What is Lead Scoring?

There are so many approaches you can use to work with your leads. For example, lead nurturing is the practice in which you take care of the leads you have to transform them into sales. Scoring is similar to segmenting leads in which you divvy up your leads in one way or another. When you segment, you divide up leads so you approach the right groups with the right marketing materials. Scoring is how you decide which leads deserve which type of ranking.

Most of the time lead scoring is done to assign points to leads based on whichever criteria you find most important. Commonly for inbound marketing purposes the higher the score the more promising the lead. This is a way to rank your leads and determine which ones may need follow-up lead nurturing sooner. In addition, it helps you prevent following up too aggressively and potentially driving away from a possible customer.

How Can You Use Lead Scoring?

Just as we mentioned earlier, you can categorize your own leads by using scoring. Just as nurturing and segmenting are important to your lead handling, so is scoring. When you nurture or segment this is your way of taking the proper approach to handling your leads. Leads are crucial to your business, they can become sales and drive up your business.

When you segment, you determine which leads need what approach to have the most potential success. When you nurture you follow up on leads when you should in the appropriate manner. So when you score, you are making sure that all leads do not get lumped into the same category and treated as such. Leads with higher potential and those that may just be driven away, cannot be treated the same way.

Lead scoring also gives you the information you need when you do approach leads. This gives you insight if you contact a lead on whether or not they showed real interest or mild passing interest. Give a weak lead too much attention and this is an excuse for them to cut off ties. Neglect to give a promising lead the attention needed and you can lose them. This is how lead scoring changes the game.