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Most B-to-B marketers are now bought in to the concept of lead scoring. Using a combination of activity and known data to identify who is ready to speak with sales, and who is not, has become an accepted concept for most marketers who are focused on enabling their sales team.
However in some instances, lead scoring can be set up, but not act as a foundation for sales and marketing alignment. In these cases it offers very little value, as sales does not focus their selling efforts on leads based on lead score, and marketing does not continually focus on driving qualified leads to sales based on the agreed-upon definition.
The path from merely scoring leads to rebuilding the sales and marketing relationship based on a common definition of what a qualified lead looks like is a long one. It involves changing mindsets and business processes. So, as such, it often encounters debate, opposition and change. Those are good signs, as they mean that progress is occurring.
The opposite, however, is also true. There are signs that a lead scoring system is not working to change your business processes and your sales and marketing alignment. Here are four of the best signs to look for:
Sign 1: You are Missing a Clear Matrix that Defines What to Do with Each Lead. It's critical to score leads based on two dimensions; their "fit" and their "engagement." Fit is based on explicit information about who they are, what company they are from, the industry they are in and their role. They are factors that don't change rapidly over time. Engagement, however, is based on implicit information about how interested they are, how responsive they are to your marketing and what they have been looking at on your Web site and social media properties.
Fit and engagement provide us with a matrix of options. If fit is given a letter grade, from A to D, and engagement is given a number grade from 1 to 4, we can have A1 through D4 leads. A1 leads are your best fit and most interested and should be followed up on immediately. A4 leads, however, are a great fit, but are not showing any clear signs of engagement and must be nurtured until engagement develops. D1 leads are actively engaged, but not an ideal fit, and perhaps should be talked with to understand if, perhaps, they are junior employees doing research for a more senior executive.
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