The Promise of Lead Scoring: Spotting Diamonds in the Mine
Every year the US Navy recruits about 40K people. Half of these recruits apply to be a Navy SEAL. But, unfortunately, only 6% meet the SEAL criteria.
These are the most robust and enduring humans out there.
However, only a fourth of this small set of people come out as elite Navy SEALs.
Your GTM funnel is like this. You spend top dollar to attract leads, score them, and proceed to qualify them. However, unlike the Navy SEAL program, many businesses lose out on high-quality, high lead-score prospects and fail to pursue them. Heard of the phrase: "Leaving money on the table?"
Failing to pursue the high intent leads down the funnel is a problem that has existed for years and does not have to.
Consider this: every time a new iPhone launches, there’s a line outside the Apple stores. So people enter in a first-come, first-serve methodology. It helps the store staff manage the experience better.
Or perhaps you are waiting in line to dine at your favorite restaurant in Palo Alto. It’s first in, first out. The method works for the restaurant to ensure all customers have a great experience.
These models are democratic. They treat every prospect or customer the same way and line them up in the queue.
Translate this online, and the website traffic increases dramatically, and you do not want to replicate this model in your business. After all, not all leads are created equal. Hence Marketing came up with the lead scoring methodology.
Lead scoring allows companies to rank prospects against a scale representing the perceived value each lead represents to the organization. The resulting score determines which leads the SDR function will engage in order of priority.
The lead scores usually represent a mix of ICP fit and the degree of engagement and intent the leads display on the website (demo request form submissions, white paper downloads, webinar registrations, etc.).
Marketing departments continuously refine the lead scoring model to ensure it reflects their learnings.
Lead Scoring Spoiler Alert!
This is where the lead scoring stops for most companies. However, Marketing wishes to tie the leads to their revenue potential. And that is a complex and critical problem to solve in Demand Generation & Marketing Operations.
Many leads with high scores do not translate into SQLs and Opportunities.
Ultimately, suppose the lead scoring bumps up the MQL, but your SQLs keep dropping. In that case, the lead scoring is visibly working on increasing the MQLs without a high correlation toward pipeline generation.
The result is a triple whammy:
- Teams are not focussing on the right leads since they have a wrong assessment, so one misses out on the diamonds in the coal mine.
- Teams are inundated with too many leads and are not able to prioritize.
- Your SDRs and AEs are focusing their precious time across the range of the general lead spectrum and not on the precious leads first.
This is as much an application problem as a marketing problem.
The Gap Between The Lead Score And $Pipeline Potential
Wondering why this problem even exists?
- The inability to tie the entire funnel in one view: from website visitors to MQL to SQL, Opportunities, and deal closures.
- The inability to dissect every detail, which MQLs from what industry in which cohort converts into the best SQLs and Opportunities.
- The inability to objectively measure what lead scores best translate into pipeline v/s the lead score attribution stopping at MQLs currently.
Marketing and Revenue functions need to know how their budget is yielding not only MQLs but generating SQLs, Opportunities, and Pipeline:
- What percentage of MQLs translate into SQLs, Opportunities, and wins?
- At what stage of the lead or opportunity journey do these leads get dropped?
- How much budget was spent to bring in X number of MQLs, and how much pipeline and revenue did these MQLs generate?
That’s the level of detail marketing wishes.
However, lead scores don’t capture the lead’s potential to pipeline and revenue since they don’t include a full-funnel feedback loop from the sales pipeline.
RevSure's Genie has granted Marketing's wishes. We built it!
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