You already know your digital tools — CRM, website, email, and social media channels — are among the most valuable sales and marketing tools in your arsenal. But are you gaming your system to its full potential?
Lead scoring is, by definition, a lot like Monopoly. Red and orange properties? Snap ‘em up. Experts say those are the most landed on, which means more potential rent fees. Utilities? Meh. One group of enthusiasts did the math for you during a Monopoly World Championship, and they say you have about a 3% chance of getting a return on your investment.
Like ways, effective lead scoring is all about your long and short-term strategy, and if you want to stay ahead of the game, you have to keep an eye on hot properties and invest in those that are most likely to bring in the highest returns.
What is Lead Scoring?
Lead scoring is a system by which you rank the worthiness of your leads.
Used by sales and marketing teams to help formulate an overall game plan, lead scoring begins with a set of attributes defined by how your target audience relates to and engages with your products and services; you attach weighted numerical values to each one.
The value of each lead may vary by product or service, but generally speaking, every prospect is characterized by their interest level in your offerings, how and when they engage with your business, and where they are in the buying cycle. Using this point-based system allows you to rank them from hot to cold, and serves as the foundation of your lead qualification strategy.
How to Use Your Digital Assets for Lead Scoring
Queuing up new insurance prospects in the sales pipeline is job one, but once it fills up, the focus turns to which leads are hot and which ones are not. This is when deploying lead scoring can help you separate the wheat from the chaff.
And here’s some good news: Your insurance CRM can serve as a powerful threshing tool. Some of the types of information you can collect and quantify include:
Website. Along with names, phone numbers, and email addresses, website contact forms will generally also let you also ask for geographic location, job title or role, income and education levels, business size, and industry. Quantified over time, all of this information combined can tell you a great deal about who your buyers are, who they aren’t, and where they land on the lead score board.
CRM. A CRM like Quotit can help you collect a ton of customer data that will come in handy for lead scoring. During the quoting process alone, you can find out who requested a quote, how many people live in a household, their ages, zip code, county, genders, and relationships to each other, product types of interest, a la carte benefits of interest, and purchases.
Emails & Social Media. These channels can also prove to be unexpected sources of valuable lead scoring data. Social media metrics will tell you who is engaging with your content, how often, and to what depth. A page follower on Facebook or Twitter, for instance, may “like” your posts, but sharing and commenting on them indicates a deeper engagement level. Similarly, insurance email campaigns show open and click-through rates, making it easy to find out who’s just looking and who wants to know more about you and your business. Additionally, customer surveys can reveal a veritable trove of information related to customer behaviors, expectations, and levels of satisfaction with your business.
What weight this abundance of data carries in your lead scoring model depends not just on the points assessed to each attribute and how they’re calculated, but also on the conversations you have with your customers and internal stakeholders.
Ultimately, the picture all of this information paints will help you hone in on what a qualified lead looks like for your business, and how to consistently drive more conversions.
