5 Prospect Behaviors You Should Be Incorporating into Your Lead-Scoring Model

Today, we announced our platinum sponsorship of Sirius Decisions’ 2011 Summit. With this year’s Summit focused on forging new alliances between sales and marketing, now is a good time to shed a bit more light on a key element of sales and marketing alignment—determining which leads are the most ready to buy. As sales and marketing work together to determine their ideal scoring models, it’s important to think beyond demographic and firmagraphic data and take prospect behaviors into account.

Here are five that savvy marketers should be factoring in:

1) Visits to blogs and communities: Is a prospect engaged enough with your company that they’re perusing your blog content? If so, that’s something that should likely carry scoring weight. What if a prospect takes the time to comment on a blog entry? By adding special html coding to your website, you not only determine who is interested, but how interested they are and can act accordingly.

2) Social behavior: If prospects are so interested in your content that they want to share it with friends and business acquaintances, that’s a strong sign of engagement. Social sharing of your website content should be addressed in your scoring model—and the more active the sharer, the higher the score. Also worth considering: increasing a prospect’s score if the contact “adds” or “likes” you on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

3) Video viewings: Whether it’s a demo, product pitch or customer testimonial, video is a potent tool for connecting with prospects. So, don’t forget to add points to a prospect’s score if he or she takes the time to watch a video on your site.

4) Downloads: Offering thought capital such as white papers and Webinar recordings and presentations for download is not only a good way to position your company as an expert, but can also be an effective way to monitor engagement levels. Taking the initiative to download a piece of content or attend a Webinar likely indicates a fairly strong level of interest on the part of a prospect, so emphasize these behaviors within your scoring model.

5) Custom behavior unique to your business: Do you have interactive, industry-specific tools on your site? Examples might include:

• Financial calculators for finance companies
• Free-trial editions for software businesses
• Keyword tools for SEO optimization companies

If so, make sure to add coding to your website that allows you to capture when prospects use these items—and bump up their scores accordingly.

Bottom line: With the B2B buying cycle now more complex than ever, it’s critical to use every tool in your marketing toolkit. Incorporating a wide range of prospect behaviors into your scoring model will improve accuracy, resulting in more efficient lead management and increased ROI.