You’ve implemented a lead scoring program and your team has started churning out campaign after campaign to fill the pipeline with Marketing Qualified Leads. Your job here is done, right?
Maybe for the time being things will keep happily humming along. At some point, though, pipeline velocity slows down, and you find out Sales is no longer happy with the quality of leads coming through.
The hard truth is that scoring criteria can change for various reasons. The model that worked for you in the past can — and likely will — lose its effectiveness over time.
Below are some common scenarios that indicate it’s time to reevaluate your lead scoring model:
- Low conversion rate
- Too few leads entering the funnel
- Internal restructuring
- New product launch
Low conversion rate
A low conversion rate mid-funnel is a good indicator that leads are being scored too high. When prospects have a great score but don’t convert, it’s time to talk to Sales and determine where things have broken down.
Maybe prospects aren’t engaging with the right kinds of content. Maybe you’ve overlooked some behavioral data that can be gleaned from prospects’ digital body language. Or, maybe they’re just not the type of prospect Sales wants in the first place.
If leads are dying on the vine mid-funnel, it could indicate that what marketing is sending over is not appropriate for the sales cycle at that time. But you have to get together with Sales to understand why they aren’t buying what you’re selling, so to speak.
Too few leads entering the funnel
Conversely, maybe too few prospects are even entering the funnel in the first place. It may simply be a matter of not scoring them high enough. Maybe you aren’t offering the right kind of content to draw in the right kind of prospects. Or, maybe your scoring model relies on a piece of information that you’re no longer collecting because it’s not a key element of your ideal customer profile anymore.
Again, you need to work with Sales to come up with a solution so when more leads enter the funnel, they’re ones that Sales actually wants to engage with.
You can’t just look at a few records and jump to conclusions. You really need to evaluate the past three to six months of data. Then, you can go back and talk to Sales armed with this information and determine what’s going on.
Internal restructuring
One of our enterprise clients recently reorganized their team into three business units, including a new cloud team. Everything had been humming along until the reorg, but the lead scoring program didn’t work for the new business units. They engaged DemandGen to evaluate their lead scoring program.
We performed a comprehensive audit and found that the cloud team salespeople had very different requirements than the traditional enterprise sales team. Not only did they have different sales cycles, but their prospects also experienced different pain points. One scoring model simply wouldn’t work across all three business units.
If your business has evolved to the point where you need to restructure your organization — however big or small that may be — your lead scoring model may need to evolve along with it.
New product launch
When you’re about to launch a new product, it may be tempting to save time by applying your current lead-scoring methodology to your upcoming campaigns. Resist the urge. You’ll pay for this initial time savings with lower-quality leads and more time repairing the damage later on.
Just as every company is unique, different products require different lead-scoring approaches. Make sure your lead scoring is as targeted as your campaigns so only the highest-quality leads make their way down the funnel.
Don’t let a good lead scoring program go bad
If you’re not getting the right kind of prospects, the right number of prospects, or the right levels of engagement, you could easily have a scoring issue on your hands. As a best practice, it is recommended you revisit lead scoring every six months.
Lead scoring is like a gourmet meal. Immediately after it’s prepared, it’s hot, fresh, and the flavors blend together harmoniously. After that meal sits out awhile, though, subtle changes start to take place. The sauces separate, the bread goes stale, and the food becomes unsafe to consume. At a certain point, it’s time to go back to the kitchen.
If you’re starting from scratch or don’t have the resources to spare, let DemandGen help you take the guesswork out of lead scoring!
Patti Ammann, a Client Engagement Manager at DemandGen, works with clients of all sizes to understand their objectives, needs, and challenges and build and maintain relationships with key stakeholders across the organization. She has over 15 years’ experience in project management, strategic account management, marketing operations, high-tech marketing and sales, and implementation and execution of campaigns supported by marketing automation platforms.
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