Marketing is a very dynamic and volatile industry. What worked today, might not work tomorrow. What worked well for a food company might not work well for a media company. A long time ago, companies believed word-of-mouth marketing was enough to generate sales. Today, unfortunately, one tactic is not enough. What is a lead? In marketing, a lead is any person who shows interest in your company. A lead is a potential customer but having a prospect is not enough. Lead quality matters a lot.

It is important that a company is able to generate as many leads as possible. Is that enough though? We often hear the phrase “Quality over Quantity” but don’t apply it. It isn’t shocking that this phrase applies to lead generation as well. The quality of your lead must be good to change these potential buyers into actual customers. 

Imagine a customer walking into your store. She gazes at all the items present. She wants to have a closer look at a few. Despite all this, the customer turns and walks away without buying anything. This customer was definitely a ‘lead’. She was a potential buyer because she showed interest in your product. Did you make any effort to influence her mind? Were you able to make her buy your product? No. So, the conversion did not take place.

Attracting customers isn’t enough. A company must understand the profile of its target audience. Imagine marketing a walking stick to a couple of teenagers. How can that generate any sales? Let alone leads. Converting leads into customers is among the topmost priorities of any organisation. Converting your website traffic into paying consumers isn’t easy. A lot of tactics go into doing so.

What Is Lead Quality? 

The internet is a storehouse of information. Unfortunately, your company isn’t the only one marketing. Millions of organisations are trying to drive sales. With so much information available online, ensuring lead quality becomes even more important.

You may have 10,000 people going through your products page daily. If only 100 of them are buying anything – does the quantity of leads matter? While a lead is a prospective buyer, lead quality is a type of prospective buyer. The better the type, the more the sales and vice versa. A lot of resources go into lead generation and thus lead quality matters.

Your company must try to optimise its resources in the best way possible. 

High-quality leads are those customers who want to buy your products and also have the money to do so. The measurements of your generated lead quality depend on the strategies you use. In addition, it depends on your products. 

Let’s look at Sandy’s example. She messages and calls a local milk brand for daily milk delivery after seeing their ads. Despite her constant questioning and requests, the brand had very poor management. They failed to reach out again after sending the first samples. This led to Sandy losing interest. Hence, it is important for any organisation to realise where and when to use their resources. 

To determine the quality of a lead, it is important to keep a few things in mind. Take into consideration the source of the lead and their engagement with your brand so far. You may also consider the likelihood of them progressing to the bottom of the sales funnel. 

What is Lead Scoring? 

We have established that not every lead generated is the same. Lead scoring is assessing a lead’s quality through the quantitative method. Using this score, marketers can get to know the willingness of a customer to buy a product. Usually, companies form their own scoring method to determine the lead score. They do so because every company is different. Your company may wish to score leads using the following ways:

• Based on information already available with the company.
• Information conveyed by the lead to the company
• Demographic considerations like location, type of population, etc.
• The lead’s behaviour this far.

Each action that the lead undertakes has a point value to make the entire process better. Lead scoring helps marketers and salespersons determine the lead that should get priority. It is a shared strategy that helps them rank all leads. Not all leads are immediately converted. This scoring helps understand which leads need nurture. It also helps understand which lead needs to be immediately converted. Lead scoring determines the position of a lead in the buying cycle. 

The information that marketers gain during this process is very important. This information is on the basis of consumer data. It helps any organisation become better not only in marketing. 

Lead scoring also helps marketers understand which marketing campaigns have proved fruitful. It also helps to create a good rapport between the marketing and sales department of a company. Finally, lead scoring will help in finding better lead quality. Thereby increasing an organisation’s revenue. 

How To Calculate Lead Quality Score 

You can use the following process to calculate your Lead quality Score: 

• Developing buyer personas: This is a fictional representation of your target audience. This is to understand the consumer better. You can do so by segmenting your audience. The segmentation is on the basis of demography. You may now determine which segment to convert. 
• Examining behaviour online: This is on the basis of how your lead is engaging with your brand online. The pages they visited, and their social media and email activity are significant points. These points are touchpoints. It is important to determine the content engaging them as well as for how long it is engaging them.
• How to Score: You now realise which touchpoint has a higher conversion rate. You also realise it is with which type of audience. This will also help you score touchpoints better. Your website and marketing analytics will play a key role in determining this. You can also run an attribution report to see which marketing strategy has had the most impact. Get feedback from the consumers through surveys and interviews. 
• Assigning Values: Finally, you must assign value to each touch point. Voila, you can calculate the lead quality score now. Therefore, lead scoring is not a set-in-stone method but a continuous process. You must test the touchpoints that are working for you. You must also ensure that you are assigning appropriate scores to each. Any mistake in this process may lead to problems.

How to Improve Lead Quality Score 

Unable to crack a better lead quality score? Try following these steps below:

• Understanding your buyer’s persona: It is important to know who is your ideal customer. Marketing isn’t shooting your shot in the dark. It is knowing and studying your target well. You must be able to provide value to your customer without them asking for it. Good knowledge about your customer base also helps in formulating targeted content. Targeted content helps nurture generated leads. 
• Make Use of your Analytics: Digital marketing runs on Data. Ensure your data is up to date and analysed to cater better. You must know which touchpoint is driving traffic. You should also be aware of which touchpoint is driving conversion. Therefore, leveraging and investing in analytics are important. You must be able to recognise how much of your traffic is organic or paid. 
• Work with your sales team: Your sales team is the one which has a closer relationship with the audience. They know these customers better. Thus, it is better to have your sales team on the same page as you. Seek information and input from them. 
• Including negative scoring: Scores tend to inflate as time goes by. So, it is important that negative points are also given to touchpoints that are inactive. This system may help you clear out the dead-end leads. For instance, EmailAn email (or electronic mail) is a method of exchanging communications through the internet. It is one of the most used features on the web and the number one mean... subscriptions. 

Tips and Best Practices 

Lead quality vs Lead quantity is an endless debate and both are important. Therefore, it is necessary to strike the right balance. Here are a few tips that you may follow 

• Sales and Marketing: Sales is the difference between lead quantity and quality. While marketing drives both aspects. It is important to have a person to maintain that balance between both departments. That person must be efficient to take this up.
• Define your target audience: Cash flow in business requires sales. This can only happen when you know you are attracting the right audience. It is very important for an organisation to define its lead and the buyer’s journey. 
• Set Objectives: An organisation must have clear objectives. The number of leads and quality leads must be pre-determined. This causes motivation and provides an incentive to employees. 
• Concrete strategy: Craft a good plan with inputs from both the sales and marketing teams. Your lead generation strategy must keep in mind all the touchpoints and factors. 
• Incentives: Provide rewards and incentives for employees who have been giving their best. Recognition of good performers leads to motivation for everyone in the company. It provides an incentive for employees to reach their targets sooner. 

In Conclusion

All in all, the business environment has been dynamic for centuries. There is neither a concrete right nor wrong. In an environment which keeps changing, it is important to keep up and find what works. 

Email marketing might work for a company but might prove useless for another company. Social media might draw a lot of reach for a company. However, it might not work for another company. This could be due to the difference in the targeted age group or even the product offered. It is upon the company to realise what is working and what isn’t. Only then can you generate leads and lead quality can come into question. 

Technology and data have come a long way through. Today, CRM tools play a big role in organising customer data. Optimising this in the right way possible can help a lot in acquiring quality leads. The company must know and understand the needs of the customer. It will further help the company influence the customer’s decision. 

This influence could be through showing plenty of targeted ads. This could also be through SMS or emails. Offer discounts, coupons, and giveaways to influence customers. Affiliate and influencer marketing is very much in trend nowadays. New startups use campus ambassadors and content creators to also get leads.

A strong lead scoring strategy can help you garner more sales and also improve lead quality. So, invest in good software and pay a lot of importance to analytics. Ensure to engage and interact with your customers. 

What do you think of lead scoring? Which methods do you use to get high-quality leads for your products? Tell us in the comments section below.