Remember when sales reps used to track sales progress on Excel spreadsheets? CRM has become such a massive part of our sales process that those days seem long gone. In reality, they were only a few years ago, and many companies are still stuck in the little rows of cells that used to dictate sales. Some of the sales concepts that now seem obvious to us aren’t so obvious to everyone, it seems.
For example, the current need for the most recent and useful information has made it imperative to use a marketing automation system, but the majority of U.S. population has never heard of marketing automation, let alone used it.
Regardless of how we denominate it, lead scoring has always been a fundamental concept of sales. As the world moves faster forward, we want to take a step back and highlight the 4 most crucial elements of lead scoring.
Normalizing Definitions
It is highly important that both the marketing and sales team follow the same definitions of job titles and activity scores for prospective buyers. If the sales team puts a lot of weight on a specific activity, such as calling the sales phone line, but the marketing team scores the activity the same 
as they score a whitepaper download, the lead score will reflect a conflict of interest. but the same is irrelevant for marketing team, then there will be a conflict of interest. Such a mutually opposing approach will only be detrimental to marketing and sales alignment. Regardless of who earns what compensation for influencing a lead, remember always that at the end of the day, no one wins if the sale doesn’t close.
Score Each Activity
Identify possible behavior and relations that a prospective buyer can develop with your digital assets. Differentiate high scoring activities like clicking on contact us or how we help tabs from low scoring activities such as clicking on about us. This will ensure that the target lead is filtered from all visitors on the web page. If large numbers of hits are recorded from a single company, then it should be given bonus points in lead scoring. Add Sales Intelligence criteria to your scoring for added insight. Give leads higher priority and scores if they are connected to one of your reps through personal and professional networks.
Separate Implicit and Explicit Information
Though both are equally important for effective lead qualification, it is important to separate and prioritize them. Explicit information includes hard data, such as job title, company name, size of the company, location of the lead and the budget, etc. Explicit data is crucial, but may not result in lead conversion. Too many job titles can dilute and even ruin the lead qualification process. On the other hand, implicit information, which includes details about how a lead interacted with your brand (the particular web page a lead has visited, the frequency of visit, response behavior to initiated communications, presence and frequency on social sites like LinkedIn and recent downloads, etc.) can offer the insight you need to move leads through the funnel faster.
Evaluate Intermittently
Remember, the market is constantly changing. For a balanced marketing and sales alignment, it is essential that you are ready for change. Evaluate your lead scoring process intermittently. Determine if it results in appropriate lead qualification and higher lead conversion rates. For example, if a lead downloads a specific research paper, it may not mean that it is ready for sales, but may need further nurturing, in which case the score will change. Additionally, a lead’s inactivity may elicit a negative score.
As the world of sales and marketing continues to spin towards new angles, and as new trends push old ones out the door, some fundamentals will always remain important. Keep them in mind when you design a sales process, and you won’t lose sight of what sales is really about: winning.