How to Qualify Leads Using Lead Scoring in Hubspot

In today’s competitive business environment, brands need to constantly optimize their processes and implement new strategies in order to be successful.

Still, the main concern of most businesses is attracting new leads. But what should you do once a new lead enters the funnel? How do you know which leads are interested in your business? How can you prevent your team from nurturing unqualified leads? The answer is pretty simple—by using lead scoring. In fact, according to Aberdeen Research, companies who implement lead scoring have 192 percent higher average lead qualification rates. 

What is lead scoring?

Before we dive into more details, it's essential to understand what lead scoring is and why it is important.

Lead scoring is an effective technique that allows you to determine which leads are the most valuable and what their position in the sales funnel is. The process consists in assigning values to each of your leads, based on the information they have shared with you and their interaction with your business. This way, your marketing and sales teams know how to treat each lead, which ones to prioritize, and which ones to nurture.

Why use lead scoring?

According to Hubspot's State of Inbound report, sales professionals' main goals are closing more deals and, therefore, improving the efficiency of the sales funnel.

There are several reasons for implementing lead scoring:

• It helps you qualify prospects.
• It helps you identify where leads are in the buying cycle.
• It supports your automation efforts.
• It improves the collaboration between sales and marketing, as you can clearly define who the MQLs and the SQLs are.

Many resources are spent on attracting and nurturing leads, so, ideally, you should only add qualified leads to your sales pipeline. Lead scoring helps you take the appropriate actions for each lead and identify the qualified leads. 

Furthermore, as your business grows, you might want to address a larger audience or explore different markets. You can use lead scoring to assign different scores based on regions, markets, buyer persona, or other criteria.

How does it work

HubSpot's lead management system is great for assigning point values to each of your leads. Implement lead scoring with these simple steps:

• Identify the scoring filters
• Determine point values for each criterion
• Set it up in HubSpot
• Determine score ranges for MQLs and SQLs
• Reevaluate your scoring filters regularly

Here is how to set up score properties in HubSpot. 

What to take into account when setting up the scoring filters?

HubSpot's lead scoring functionality is extremely helpful. However, it's up to you to set the scoring filters in a relevant way for your business. 

How companies set the scoring criteria is different from one business to another, but there are some general elements that you should take into consideration.

Here is a breakdown of the most important criteria:

• Demographic information: Don't overlook demographic data in your lead scoring process. Depending on your industry and the type of products or services you offer, they can be more or less relevant. Pay attention to aspects such as age, location, and income.  
• Company information: This is usually relevant for B2B sellers. Are your ideal customers small or large companies? Do you sell products from a specific industry? Are you interested in selling to B2B or B2C companies? Identify the answer to these questions and take away points from the companies that don't fit the ideal candidate's profile.

• Online behavior: Analyze how leads interact with your website. Do they spend time reading detailed product descriptions? Did they download any of your offers or materials? Do they visit your website frequently? Their online behavior is highly relevant for determining the level of interest they have for your business.

• E-mail opening rate: Whether a person or a company is in your contact list is not as relevant as how they react to your e-mails. Open and click-through rates can give you a much clearer idea of whether they are interested in your business or not.

• Engagement on social media platforms: Check how active the leads are on your social media accounts. Do they follow you? Did they interact with your posts? If leads engage in your social media actions, they are much more likely to become loyal customers. 

Tips and examples 

There are a few things you can do to make the lead scoring process more efficient. Take a look at the tips below:

1. Do some research before setting up score filters

To further improve your scoring criteria, it is essential to determine what turns leads into customers. 

But how can you do that?

First, talk to your sales team. Ask them what resources they use to drive prospects towards a sale and which marketing materials are the most effective. Then, you can assign higher scores to the leads who accessed those materials.

You could also interview your past customers and ask them what convinced them to purchase from you.

Lastly, check your attribution reports. See which sources are generating the most leads and assign higher scores to those.  

2. Use negative scoring

Don't be afraid to use negative scoring for actions that suggest a lead is unlikely to purchase from you. 

For example, if leads criticize your products on social media or visit your website's career page, they are probably not interested in buying from you. Therefore, their score needs to decrease. Assigning negative scores will make it easier for you to distinguish between qualified and unqualified leads.

3. Set clear boundaries

It is essential to set boundaries that signal where someone is in the funnel. These should be based on the values that you set up earlier. 

For example, here is a general idea of what it could look like if you are using a 0-100 model:

• -20 - 0 score: Out of the Funnel—yes, if you have negative attributes, you can have a negative HubSpot score.
• 1 - 20 score: Lead (top of the funnel)
• 21 - 50 score: Marketing Qualified Lead (middle of the funnel)
• 51 - 80 score: Sales Qualified Lead (bottom of the funnel)
• 81 - 100 score: Opportunity (hottest leads)

Final thoughts

The days of going through massive lists of contacts are long gone, as lead scoring can take over the qualifying process for you. HubSpot's lead scoring tool is handy for any business, as it saves a lot of time, helping both marketing and sales teams work more efficiently. 

As a platinum HubSpot partner, NNC can help you step up your inbound and outbound marketing campaigns through HubSpot services. Plus, we offer you support in managing all the tools included in the platform. 

Find out more about the services we provide and get started today!