Lead scoring is a systematic way of valuing leads for your business. Without lead scoring, you’ll be shooting in the dark in terms of which leads to nurture and target as potential customers. It’s critical that your organization understands that some leads are more valuable than others, and how to determine which leads need your attention most.

Data Driven Business

I promise I’m not here to talk about big data. There are only a million other blog posts on that topic for your viewing pleasure. What I am here to talk about is making smart business decisions based off data, whether that data is big or not. No matter the size of your company is, how many leads you’re generating, your company’s annual revenue, or the number of employees, there are attainable tools that can empower your marketing efforts greatly. One of those tools is a lead scoring system made easy with HubSpot.

HubSpot Lead Scoring

Horton Group uses Hubspot’s Manual Lead Scoring tool to automatically value all leads generated by the company’s website. Manual Lead Scoring allows you to set up custom rules based on the nature of your business to qualify visitors’ interactions with your website. Here are some examples of positive attributes that we use currently.

IP City

(Screenshots directly from HubSpot Manual Lead Scoring)

If a website visitor’s IP City places them in Nashville, that lead is given additive points. Because they are close to home, in Horton Group’s case – Nashville, that lead is more likely to do business with us than someone who is in Phoenix. For example, our Account Managers have the ability to meet with them face to face and connect on a personal level during lead nurturing.

Horton Group Resource Download

If a website visitor has download our 6 KPIs to Make Your Boss a Marketer eBook, they have identified themselves as interested in Horton Group’s expertise and are likely in need of marketing help. Because Horton Group, from an organizational and business development perspective, values Inbound Marketing clients, the value of that lead is increased by 10 points.

Job Title

Lastly, if a website visitor’s Job Title is President, or any C-suite executive level title, we increase the value of the lead. From a traditional sales perspective, you always want to be interacting with decision makers. With Hubspot’s help, we have automated that valuable information as part of our lead scoring.

Horton Group’s perfect lead would have a score of 100. There are plenty of other positive attributes, as well as some negative attributes, that go into a contact’s finalized HubSpot Score. That HubSpot Score is used in a variety of our internal processes and reports. It’s become a staple of Horton’s data driven approach to sales and marketing.  

Closed Loop Reporting

It’s also important to note that Manual Lead Scoring rules are not a one-and-done thing. Closed loop reporting is a staple of inbound marketing methodology. What does all of that jargon mean? It means that Manual Lead Scoring rules can be improved over time based upon which leads end up as customers. For example, if you’re finding that VP or Manager level employees are converting into customers more frequently than CEOs, knock down the value of leads whose job title contains CEO, and add a positive attribute for Job Title containing VP. Over time, your lead scoring rules can help your marketers and salespeople turn website visitors into customers.