Maximizing Your Sales Leads - Part II

Three more components for developing a lead-scoring marix:

4. Score Decay: If your lead hasn't been active within a certain time period (maybe two or three weeks), you may want to deduct from their score to indicate lack of engagement. At this point, your lead nurturing should include targeted email marketing pieces that engage leads by asking if they're still interested or need more information.

5. Sales Ready Lead: After collaborating with sales and learning what type of behavior a sales ready lead displays, you should have an accurate view of what qualifies as a "hot" score. Leads with these numbers should automatically be routed to sales or resellers for follow-up. However, if one lead carries a high score but still isn't far along the sales cycle, it may be time to revamp the criteria that you've applied. Perhaps you've assigned too high a score to certain behaviors.

6. Recycled: If a lead has graduated through the cycle and received sales follow-up, but still isn't ready to buy, a strong lead nurturing campaign will keep them from dropping out. It may be the changes at a lead's company (such as budget cuts or personnel changes) have caused their progress to stall. A smooth transition back to marketing for further nurturing may then be effective.