Lead Scoring for B2B Marketers

Adam B. NeedlesDirector, Field Marketing Twitter: @abneedles

Agenda

• Introductions• B2B marketing defined• Lead scoring defined• Context• The basics• Advanced issues• Closing thoughts + Q&A

Product Marketing – 2% Marketing

Communications – 12%

Hiring – 10%

Market Definition –20%

Sales Process – 10%

52%Lead

Generation

Leads = your greatest challenge

52% of B2B marketing organizations say lead generation is their #1 marketing challenge

>>> SiriusDecisions

Lead management challenges

47%

53%

Lead Scoring Adoption by B2B Marketers

Score

Don't score

>>> Silverpop

Webinar goal: Understand the context and application of lead scoring for B2B marketing initiatives

What are your goals?

Tweet: @abneedles + Q&A

Introductions

Adam[B2B marketer]

My company

• Solutions for marketers

• B2B + B2C• Marketing

automation + e-mail marketing

• Software-as-a-service

www.silverpop.com

My role

• Director, Field Marketing

• B2B marketing advocate

• Evangelist for the Engage B2B platform

B2B marketing

B2B marketing is different.

B2B marketing is different.

• Direct sales forces• High-involvement sales process• Lower volume; higher purchase price• Rational vs. emotional purchase• Complex and savvy 'buying unit'

B2B marketing legacy

B2B case >>> AllRegs

• Mortgage industry data provider

• 2006– 25+ tradeshows per year– Low conversion rates– Major source of leads

• Today– 10 tradeshows per year– Higher conversion rates– New lead-gen avenues (e.g.,

alerts)

B2B marketing’s primary goals:

drive leads for sales

cost effectively

qualified

improve close rates

help retain customers

sales is marketing’s customer

B2B marketing is

focused on pre-sales buyer dialogue

Lead scoring defined

Lead management

Lead management

• Information capture• Scoring• Routing

– Sales– Nurturing

• Monitoring

Marketing Qualified

Interest + investigation

Sales Qualified

Sales Accepted

Awareness

Marketing

Sales

New Business

Lead stages

Marketing Qualified

Interest + investigation

Sales Qualified

Sales Accepted

Awareness

Marketing

Sales

New Business

Lead stages

L E A D S C O R I N G

Lead scoring = ‘Propensity to buy’

Lead scoring = ‘Resource triage’

Lead scoring looks at

• Buyer fit• Demographic fit• Behavioral fit

Role of lead scoring

“A solid lead scoring approach not only helps to rank prospects against one another, but can smooth the lead flow and serve as the baseline for building a range of business rules that include ownership, role and activities.”

>>> SiriusDecisions, “What’s the Score?”

Lead scoring: Context

Nurturing context

>>> MarketingSherpa

17.50%

12.50%

70.00%

Average B2B Initial Lead Break-down

Discard / disqualified

Sales-ready now

Longer-term oppor-tunity / worth nurtur-ing

Quality context

48%52%

Lead Quality is a Top Concern for B2B Marketers

Top concern

Lesser concern

>>> Forrester

Marketing Qualified

Interest + investigation

Sales Qualified

Sales Accepted

Awareness

Marketing

Sales

New Business

Stages context (w/ average B2B 08/09 conversions)

>>> SiriusDecisions2008 / 2009 data

3.9% / 3.8%

58.3% / 64.0%

49.1% / 45.9%

23.1% / 20.7%

2.57:1000 / 2.31:1000

Cultural context

Cultural context

Marketing

• “They don’t follow up on any leads we give them”

• “A lead to them is a sale”• “They ‘cherry-pick’ and act

like they know what the leads want before calling them”

• “They don’t even look at half of the leads we give them”

Sales• “We have no visibility into

what they are doing”• “We need more support

from them”• “The leads they pass to us

are worthless”• “They don’t understand

who our target market is”

Why score?

• Align– Business– Marketing– Sales

• Prioritize resources• Maximize sales team capacity• Testing, analysis and improvement

Lead scoring: The basics

36

What do we know about a prospect?

Download a Whitepaper

5000Employees

VP Sales

$100MCompany

EvaluatingSolutions

Has2009

Budget

NeedsFit

Solution

Visited Website Last

Week

37

Putting the pieces together ...

Download a Whitepaper

5000Employees

VP Sales

$100MCompany

EvaluatingSolutions

Has2009

Budget

NeedsFit

Solution

Visited Website

Last Week

Demographic

BANT

Implicit

Lead scoring = grading a prospect

Lead scoring components

• Explicit• Implicit

Explicit scoring components

• BANT– Budget– Authority– Needs– Timing

• Demographics– Individual– Firm

Progressive profiling1. Basic Lead Form 2. Returning Leads –

Pre Populate

3. Returning Leads – Pre-Populate – Gather More

4. Returning leads – Personalize – Pre-Populate – Progressively Gather More

Lead scoring example

>>> Silverpop Engage B2B

Implicit scoring components

• Recency• Frequency• Behavior

No

. O

f C

los

ed

Op

po

rtu

nit

ies

(or

$)

Activity/Behavior

DownloadWP A

E-Bookcampaign

Web Activity

In Last 5Days

Visitedwebsite

>10 times

ViewedOnlineDemo

SubscribesTo

Newsletter

NurtureCampaign

TradeshowVisit

LandingPageOffer

Use your sales data to learn

Measuring implicit

Lead scoring example

>>> Silverpop Engage B2B

B2B case >>> Edgar Online

• Online corporate financial information

• Challenge managing leads and qualifying them

• Highly-granular lead scoring– Based on everything lead views– Helps with campaign evaluation– Enables greater scale– Quality vs. quantity of leads

Issues for your model

• Sales + executive team collaboration• Weighting of factors• Market segmentation• Managing complexity• Impact of ‘demand type’ on BANT

Silverpop on Lead Management• Download online:

http://www.silverpop.com/marketing-resources/white-papers/engage-b2b.html

Lead scoring: Advanced issues

Advanced issues

• Dialogue and momentum• Insights from the communication

channel and the nature of the information 'consumed’

• Insights from both online AND offline activity

• Adjusting your model over time• Re-assessing lead score data• Tuning the relative 'elasticity' of

variables

More on advanced issues

• New blog post: http://www.silverpop.com/blogs/demand-generation/lead-scoring/advanced-lead-scoring-secrets.html

Closing thoughts

Closing thoughts

• Lead scoring is more about process than technology

• Successful lead models come from sales/marketing collaboration

• Efficient, repeatable lead scoring and lead management requires marketing automation

Additional Q&A

Thank you!• Phone: 617-413-6087• E-mail: aneedles@silverpop.com• Twitter: @abneedles• Blogs

– Demand Generation (Silverpop): • http://www.silverpop.com/blogs/demand-generation

– Propelling Brands (personal): • http://propellingbrands.wordpress.com/

• Silverpop – Lead Scoring for B2B Marketers