All customers are important to your business, but some are absolutely mission-critical. They’re the 20 percent who comprise 80 percent of your business, the clients who affect your organization at an enterprise level. You know who they are now – but do you know who the next one is? With a quality lead scoring program, you can learn to see these VIPs coming and welcome them from the start of your business relationship.
Lead Scoring 101
Lead scoring analytics scan customer data and sales histories to gain insight into what makes buyers tick. The system then assigns a point value to demographic, firmographic, and behavioral cues based on how influential these elements are. When you work with a MARKETING AI®, the software does the scoring for you, pointing you to the leads who have the greatest expected lifetime value, those who are sales-ready, and other high-interest prospects. The system can also adjust lead scores over time, adding points as prospects move through lead nurture programs.
Something in Common
Your VIP customers and leads have some characteristics in common. It’s the job of your MARKETING AI to figure out what they are using analytics to develop lead scoring algorithms. Some trends are easier to spot than others; you’d quickly see, for example, that most of your top leads come from a particular industry or geographical locale. Other shared characteristics are less readily visible, at least to human observers. A marketing automation system’s sophisticated analytics can draw correlations that might not be as intuitive, revealing other areas of common ground that indicate a potential VIP buyer.
Timing It Right
There’s a reason we asked you where, and not just who, your VIPs are in the title – while it’s vital to understand your prospects, you also need to know where they are in their buying journey. How close leads are to making a buying decision has a significant effect on your marketing approach and sales offers. Potential VIP customers are too important to your business to lose, and understanding when they need more time in lead nurture programs will help them get the knowledge they need to feel confident buying.
Weigh Carefully
Which actions send the strongest signals of sales readiness? Is geographical location a better indicator of VIP status than company size? Which decision-makers within an organization carry the most influence? Your analytics can tell you, but first you need to set up your weighted lead scoring system. Some behaviors or demographic characteristics carry more weight in the scoring system because they’re more predictive of VIP customers than others. Industry type, for example, would be highly predictive for a company selling biomedical equipment; their clients would almost all come from the healthcare sector. For a landscaping company, geographical location might be a better indicator of VIP status.
Give your most valuable prospects white-glove treatment from the first time they visit your site with an automation-driven lead scoring program.
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