Lead Scoring Made Better Through Predictive Analytics

So you need some leads. There are a lot of “how-to” guides out there that offer loads of information on gathering leads and selling effectively. There are “rules” that a lot of pros go by to ensure their sales efforts are nothing but successful. Rules like engagement, lead nurturing, lead scoring, and handing off the sales all help in ensuring a prosperous relationship with customers. Of course, leads are only as good when they’re solid, qualified leads. Approaching prospects that are in no way going to lead to a sale might be wasted effort, and so predictive analytics can help score leads better.

Lead generation is the discipline of proactively creating, nurturing and discovering interest among prospective buyers for the solutions you offer, but sometimes getting leads isn’t something that needs to be a specific set of processes.

Maybe you’ve accumulated a lot of names, but those names won’t do you any good if they’re not qualified. Qualifying is all about gathering insights necessary to make a good judgment. Should you sell to a given prospect? What is the best course of action to close a deal? Is this prospect a good fit for your offer? Is it a viable sales opportunity? Consider predictive analytics to help qualify your leads; get better profiles, find out the customer’s needs or, find out about the competition. Consider it your solution to closing a sale.

According to Shari Johnston, VP of Demand Generation at Radius, writing for The Internet Marketing Association, predictive analytics “can improve upon many of the challenges that plague marketing and sales leaders,” such as lowering costs associated with customer acquisition, and making outbound efforts a priority.

While it might seem counter-productive to get on the horn when social media is all the buzz in terms of ales, the truth of the matter is, telemarketing is still a tried and true method of garnering leads. When it comes to telemarketing specifically, predictive analytics allow companies to be more efficient when calling prospective clients and leads. The data taken from these numbers serve to maximize sales, and offer the ability to ramp up sales and hit the ground running. Predictive analytics means you get more information on a prospect right, scoring leads that will improve sale possibilities.

Today, predictive lead scoring is helping marketers understand which prospects are most likely to become customers. By looking at a combination of a company’s native data via CRM and other tools, predictive solutions can identify the digital characteristics of your ideal customer.

Your sales will benefit from higher quality leads and improved efficiency, your marketing team will reap a better ROI from their efforts, and you’ll be left with quality, solid prospects.