A big question for many brands and their marketing automation strategy is, “Why your scoring model is causing friction with sales, and what you can do about it?” Our team recently held a virtual discussion on how to deploy a scoring model for the first time, tips and tricks on optimization, and how you can better work with the sales team to increase the quality of the people you are sending to the sales team.
From that informal discussion, I have pulled together what I consider the top three takeaways. Check out the full recording and the brief overview below.
Top Three Take-Aways
- No-one gets a scoring model perfect on the first try: A well thought out plan for iteration is key to success. Plan regular check-ins on intervals that make sense for your sales cycle AND leave you enough time to gather meaningful data, which is typically 3-6 months. Communicate to both Marketing and Sales stakeholders what the schedule for improvements is and be sure to lay out clear expectations for what kind of feedback you are looking to receive.
- Look at the good and the bad. Both give you really meaningful data on ways you can improve. With both the good and the not so good I recommend looking at three things.
- Anecdotal evidence – what does the sales team tell you about their interactions with both groups?
- Behavioral evidence – what are these records doing (or not doing)? Are there any commonalities within each cohort? Think big picture here!
- Demographic evidence – maybe you thought a certain industry or job role was an indication of your target buyer (and thus gave it more demographic points) but you actually only ever see it on the “bad” records. This would be a perfect time to dial back the points for that demographic attribute.
- With a robust scoring model – you have a lot of “levers.” Think the minimum thresholds for person score, behavior score, and demographic score, not to mention the values you assign specific actions; when possible, adjust the ‘bigger’ levers for more impact. If all of your MQLs are too early in their journey with you, think about adjusting your person score or behavior score thresholds.
How will my team see an impact?
When adjusting a scoring model, it is really easy to get hung up on the details, spending a lot of time worrying if an email click should be 3 points or 5. Or, wondering if a certain industry should be 5 points or 10. While the values are important as a component of the whole, the real benefit is the increased collaboration you can get between marketing and sales. Teams that commit to a regular schedule of improvements make it clear that they are committed to helping the teams work better together. This also shows that they aren’t afraid to update what the definition of success is, which demonstrates a commitment to being successful.
Getting Started
Be sure to check out the full recording for all of our thoughts on scoring and how it can improve your marketing automation strategy. If you have any questions, feel free to get in touch with us here, check out our marketing automation page, or leave a comment below.
