Get more from your sales team with lead scoring

Internet lead generation can be a challenge for many companies because it is difficult to identify if a prospect is close to making a purchase. Sales representatives may have different methods of recording activity and interactions with leads, and it can create disorganization in the team or potentially alienate clients if they have been contacted too many times. Lead scoring identifies the quality of a lead based on the amount of activity, and this can help the sales team improve their follow-up procedures.

While most sales professionals use a customer relationship management system, many teams do not feel their CRMs provide the information they need to close the deal, according to a survey from Corporate Visions. In the extremely competitive field, representatives often struggle to act on customer data to say the right thing or negotiate. Without unified information and processes, sales teams can risk losing the deal.

How marketing automation can improve sales procedures

With inadequate information in the CRM, sales professionals may follow up at the wrong time and bombard a prospect with phone calls and emails. They may end up annoying the lead rather than closing a deal. If companies use a marketing automation platform, the sales team can become more efficient, and the marketing team can generate a higher number of leads with less effort.

As many as 79 percent of marketing leads are never converted into sales, according to an infographic from Salesforce. This means the marketing team may be expending a great deal of time and resources generating unqualified leads. But 68 percent of companies have not measured or defined their sales funnels, which can also contribute to inefficiency.

A marketing automation platform scores leads based on visits to the website, requests for information, phone calls, email opens and link clicks. Sales reps can dedicate their time to following up with prospects who have higher scores to avoid wasting time pitching to a lead who doesn’t have any intention to purchase, and this increases productivity within the team.

With lead scoring, follow-ups can be assigned by rank within the team. Seasoned sales professionals can contact warmer leads and newer team members can work with lower-scored prospects. Marketing automation can prevent fewer leads from going to waste, and it can make teams more efficient by making it easier to know the right time to communicate based on the level of interaction.