Lead Scoring is hot right now and for good reason. As marketers, we finally have the technology tools available to enable us to score and qualify leads before passing them off to sales.  What a lot of people are talking about is activity based or implicit lead scoring. This means scoring a lead based on the actions they are taking like downloading an eBook or attending a demo.  There is another side to lead scoring, explicit or attribute based lead scoring.  This is a way of scoring a lead based on things like title, geography or industry.

Here are some actions to consider for implicit lead scoring:

• content download
• email open/click-through
• website visit
  • number of pages visited
  • time on site
  • time spent on product pages
  • time spent on careers page
• event attendance
• viewed webinar
• viewed product demo

When you are scoring a lead based on their actions, remember that some actions will actually lower a lead’s score.  You might consider taking points off for those leads that are visiting your careers page.  Also remember to track inactivity.  A lead that was hot six months ago but has had no activity in the past six months should probably lose points and be downgraded from hot lead status until they re-engage.

Here are some attributes to consider for explicit lead scoring:

• title
• department
• industry
• budget
• propensity to purchase
• role in the decision making unit

If you don’t have all of this information about your leads you can gather it through your web lead forms or through surveys.  We have found internally that our sales team prefers to know more about a lead’s explicit attributes rather that their actions.

The best lead scoring programs will have both explicit and implicit components.  Talk to your sales team to find out what they value most.  They will also have insight into what types of leads convert.  Look back to see where your current customers came from.  Did they download a certain whitepaper?  Did they click through a specific email?  Did they attend a webinar?  Determine your ideal buyer profile.  Are they VP level?  What industry are they in?

Once you have your lead scoring program in place, don’t forget to educate your sales team on what that means.  Make sure they know how the lead attained the score.  Also be sure to allow sales to turn those leads back to you if inactivity warrants further nurturing.  No matter how well you research ahead of time to score the leads the most approriately this is still a learning process. Ask for feedback from your sales team to make sure you really are passing over hot leads and adjust your programs as necessary.  Happy scoring!