At the HubSpot’s Inbound Conference, the announcement of a new lead scoring tool kind of stole the show for me. Actually, there were LOTS of announcements today and I’ll admit it - all of these new tools are really awesome. In our opinion here at Stratus, the real stars of the show at Inbound are always the announcements of the newest product and platform tools and advancements. I mean, between new additions to their CRM, website upgrades and Leadin upgrades...my heart is literally racing with excitement. However, the one that stole my heart, left me with goosebumps and an urge to do cartwheels through Club Inbound was.....Predictive Lead Scoring.
Tell me more! Tell me more! Tell me more!
As HubSpot has said, “Predictive Lead Scoring acts as the cooler, smarter older sister to lead scoring. It is rooted in analytics to help provide businesses with a more organized approach, while also serving as a way to differentiate them from the competition.”
What’s interesting, and the reason I find this new tool so appealing, is that 68% of companies do lead scoring, yet only 40% of sales people get value from it, according to a study by Sirius Decision. So what gives? Probably the fact that many lead scoring models are complex and inconsistent, often mired down by ambiguity and guess work. But Predictive Lead Scoring is different.
Predictive Lead Scoring helps you to stop guessing and start knowing! How's it work?
The algorithm combs through all of your contacts and provides a lead score based on that contact's likeliness to become a customer. HubSpot then processes all of those contacts and pulls together a model that rates the likeliness to convert. HubSpot will then provide a recommendation of what you should do…..What prospects need more nurturing? Who is ready to purchase? etc. What I'm also loving about this new tool is that you won’t walk into a black box of what qualifies a lead. HubSpot will show you the exact attributes that affect a positive or negative score so you are aware of everything that goes on and are well-equipped to capitalize on these attributes.
What problem does it solve?
Good marketers generate dozens of leads through campaigns and lead nurturing, but not all of these are qualified. Understanding all of the characteristics and factors that equate to a qualified lead can be difficult, if not impossible, especially if your company has never gone through an exercise to identify ideal customer profiles. Not only do you need to determine all of the lead properties that must be accounted for in your lead scoring model, but you need to figure out how much proportional weight each should have. That’s where predictive lead scoring comes in. Not only will it take into account information from multiple sources, but it will then predict the characteristics of a lead that are most likely to become a customer. Marketing can then focus on generating the highest quality of leads while sales reps can focus on who to prioritize in the sales process.
Why do we like the new HubSpot Predictive Lead Scoring?
If you're doing an awesome job with you inbound marketing, you might feel the pressure of “So many leads, so little time!” And of course, this isn't a bad problem to have, but it's still a challenge that if not addressed can suck the life out of your sales team. Think about it, you may have an amazing inbound marketing strategy that reels in leads faster than you ever expected. But, without a proper process for prioritzing this influx, this progress doesn't really do much in the ways of increasing revenue or success (for your marketing OR your clients' marketing). In fact, it might result in a lot of wasted time on crappy prospects and an overall decrease in morale across your sales people and team. You might end up taking on clients or deals that are just ALL the wrong fit and that's a recipe for disaster. Having this newly added tool will help Stratus, and many other companies, prioritize leads and increase efficiency to the highest level...and we can’t freakin wait!
To all of you lead generating machines out there; go forth and conquer your prospects with the new Predictive Lead Scoring!
