In our previous blog post ‘An Introduction to Lead Scoring’ we discussed the basics of what lead scoring was and the two types of data that your business needs to address in order to increase the rate at which leads become customers. However, now you need to develop an understanding of the different types of data you should be collecting in order to be successful at increasing your sales close rates and revenues.
Here at Ilex, we’ve put together the 5 types of data you should be collecting to determine who becomes a SQL. All data should be GDPR compliant and stored in a transparent and secure way.
Demographic Information
Collecting demographic information is the key starting point to your lead scoring process. A way to narrow your prospect list down is by asking demographic questions in your contact forms, such as job title and location to segment your audience. By outlining who you want to target, you can give a certain demographic a higher score than prospects who have little relevance to your company.
For example, if they are in a location you do not provide your services in, then they will gain a lower score than those in your target areas, and vice versa.
Company Information
Defining what type of company you want to sell to depends on your business entirely. If you want to sell to a certain type, size or industry then this is again another question you can ask on your contact forms. Narrowing your search down to what your ideal prospect looks like will help you score your customers correctly.
Behavioural Traits
A great tool for filtering out the behavioural traits that show a progressive outcome, i.e. becoming a lead, is through Google Analytics. Google Analytics is a good way to see what your customers clicked on, downloaded, or what pages they visited on your website in order for them to become a closed sale. Customers who have visited pricing pages or filled in a contact form may gain a higher score than customers who just visited the home page or read an article on your site. Another way to help with the lead scoring process is to see who has stopped engaging with your website as much as they used to. This could be due to them purchasing elsewhere, in which case their score should be lowered.
Email Engagement
When email marketing campaigns are sent out, it is hard to determine who could potentially become a customer. By looking at who opened the email or clicked through to a certain link or page, it enables you to narrow down who may be interested in your services. Giving a higher score to people who engage the most with your emails enables you to focus on only sending to these lists of high scoring contacts.
For example, HubSpot allows you to view these email marketing campaign insights through their platform, making it easier for your company to decipher who out of your contacts you should be targeting next.
Social Engagement
Engagement is not only through email participation or click throughs to your website, it can be through social media engagement, such as retweets or likes on your LinkedIn posts. Social media engagement is important for understanding who is interested in your company, and for determining whether to score them high or low based on their engagement consistency.
Knowing the type of customer you have sold to in the past, as well as past data and the knowledge from your sales team, will help you to gain an understanding of who your ideal prospect is based on their score. Not only will it increase your closed sales, but it will enable you to create content that is beneficial to the type of customer you are targeting.
Learn more about how to calculate a basic lead score in our next blog.
At Ilex, our expert team are here to help you create a lead scoring process that is successful in increasing your sales close rates and revenues. Book a meeting today.
