Hot Leads Or Are They?

What makes a lead hot or cold?

Your company might choose to score leads by assigning points, using rankings like A, B, C or D, or using terms like “hot,” “warm” or “cold,” but what exactly constitutes a qualified sales lead, and can your marketing and sales departments’ productivity, efficiency and synchronicity get better with a scoring system?

Does quality lead scoring there are rules you need to decide upon such as:
 •What your ideal buyer profile is
 •What a prospect has to explicitly tell you in order to move forward in the buying cycle
 •What activities must be observed for a prospect to move forward in the buying cycle?
If lead scoring methodology is shared between sales and marketing and a qualified ranking of those leads is made to determine their sales-readiness sales should go up with less wasted time for the sales staff. Leads can be scored based on interest they show in your business, place in the buying cycle, and their fit with your business.

The first step in lead scoring is determining your ideal target. Creating this perfect buyer profile requires sales and marketing to sit down together (now there is a new concept) and come together on the definition. Then you can use both an explicit and implicit scoring to create a picture of each lead’s value. Explicit scoring is based on the information the prospect tells you, whereas Implicit scoring is based on the information that you observe, or infer, such as their online behaviors.

Use this checklist as a starting point to identify the key demographics that are relevant to your organization, as well as the key behavior-based scores to consider. We have listed more than 50 explicit scores and more than 200 implicit scores to help you find the ideal scoring rules for your company.

How to use this checklist:

Check off the attributes you think should be included in your perfect customer. Next to each attribute mark whether it is critical, important, influential, or negative.

Relationship scoring rules:
Title
Role
Purchasing authority
Number of direct reports
Level of manager (to whom do they report?)
Years of experience
Specialties
Type of email used (Gmail, corporate, Yahoo)
Years at current position
Designations/Certifications
Honors and awards received
Social network participation
Social network connections
Social network influence
Public recommendations
Affiliations - groups and associations
Career interests
Personal interests
Degrees received
Rankings/Stock Indexes: Fortune 500/Inc 500, etc
Number of employees
Company revenue
Revenue growth (growing, declining, etc)
Company financial viability
Number of divisions
Number of products sold (SKUs)
Location
Account type (Potential vs. Actual)
Previous relationship
Website traffic
Website plug-ins
Year founded
Organizational structure (proprietorship, partnership, corporation)
Geographic markets served
Competitors
Partners
Fiscal year end
Industry
Product(s) purchased
Complimentary technologies used (CRM, ESP, ERP, CMS, MRM, MA)
Recycled count
Lead source

Did everyone on your Sales and Marketing team the same attributes? We all look at things from our own personal perspective. Discuss and see if you can come up with the perfect relationship as a team.
200+ Behavior-Based Scores to Consider:

Budget defined (Monthly, Quarterly, Annually)Timeframe (Project completion deadline)
City
State
Zip
Country
Phone area code
Headquarters or satellite
Location of branches
Size of branches
Customer
Partner
Competitor
Prospect
Investor
Ex-customer
Lost opportunity
Website
Sponsorship
PPC
Content syndication
Online ad
Surveys
Search Activity Podcasts
Online courses Videocasts
Certifications
Tradeshow
Visited
Completed
Viewed results
Participated in multiple surveys
Searches for company name
Searches for product name
Searches other (scored on term)
Search engine used
Listened
Listened multiple times
Downloaded
Subscribed
Viewed information on
Registered for
Completed
Registered for multiple
Completed multiple
Viewed
Viewed multiple times
Downloaded
Viewed information on
Registered for
Received certification
Received multiple certifications
Attended
Visited booth
Watched demo
Attended multiple tradeshows
Livestreamed events Web pages Community Additional Behaviors
Registered for
Viewed
Commented during
Asked question during
Reviewed follow-up recording
Rated event
Viewed landing page
Fills out form on landing page
Uses instant chat functionality
Uses request a call back functionality
Viewed - any
Viewed - product specific
Viewed - pricing
Viewed - customers or reviews
Viewed - multiple web pages
Viewed - multiple web pages in 1 WK
Shared via social sharing
Browser used
Submitted an idea
Submitted multiple ideas
Read about best practices
Read about ideas
Visit knowledge base
Read about product information
Asked a question
Asked multiple questions
Answered a question
Answered multiple questions
Shared a best practice
Shared multiple best practices
Roadshow/Seminar
Microsites
Registered
Attended
Attended multiple events
Viewed
Shared via social sharing
Again ask did you all mark the same attributes? Discuss any that don’t match and figure out what really matters. There might be some major disagreements but you need to get on the same page!

Bad Behaviors (Implicit data)
Email unsubscribe
Non-product web visit
No website activity for a long period of time
Change in purchase timeframe
No progression in buying cycle
Added to “Do Not Call” list
Spam complaint
Negative social media comment
Declines contract/warranty renewal
Career page
Press room
Investor page
Leadership page

While most action items give positive scores, there are actions that don’t. Don’t ignore these negative pieces of the sales and marketing process when building your model. You need to be honest with yourself. The only one you will be hurting if your not is yourself. If you this information to your advantage in conjunction with other scoring methods.

Larson Notes & Satire: If you this information to your advantage in conjunction with other scoring methods you may as an individual have developed you will start to find areas of attack where your odds of winning are stacked in your favor. Being a cherry picker from way back I like to pick the low handing fruit.

“We don’t sell lists, we find customers.”

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Howard Larson
Larson & Associates, a Division of US Telemarketing Group LLC
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
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