Every interaction with a potential customer or lead is a “touch.” Your strategy for following up on engagement is a matter of knowing how many touches are necessary to move your prospects through the funnel. After the proper number of the right touches, you can expect that the customer is ready to buy. Lead scoring is really all about knowing how to keep track of all these touches so that you can know just how ready the customer is.
But before you can score, you’ve got to be one step ahead of your leads. You need to know just what path they can take to tell you how committed they really are.
Don’t let version one become version none
Here’s the caveat: A sales and marketing map can get really complicated. When you see a beautifully mapped process two screens wide, colored lines crossing like lasers at a Styx concert, it can be quite impressive. Maybe a little daunting, too. We work with a lot of small businesses owners who have never suited up and tried this exercise, and a lot of these businesses come to the table with the expectation that their map should be so complicated and awesome that it could be framed and hung on the wall. I’m sure you already know what I’m going to say: Keep it simple. If you try to capture every detail with a hyper-complicated map, it’s likely that you’ll burn out and not finish. You don’t need to go crazy. You just need to be realistic.
The Map
So let’s walk through the concept really quick, using our dentist friend as an example. Since lead scoring is a component of marketing automation, we assume that you’re using a CRM/ marketing automation software tool. We’re using Infusionsoft in this example.
There are two basic parts of the map:
- Activity that is driven outside the automation
- Activity that the automation software picks up This simple map strategy uses Excel to walk through your sales process. It’s a great way to start out, and will make it much easier to score your leads, which will quickly help you reap the benefits.
Section 1:
Answer each question in order and point to how it impacts the subsequent message.
- Front End Marketing (How do people know you exist?)
- Lead Generation (How can people find you?)
- Offers (How can you interact with people to get their contact information? i.e. Lead Magnets)
Here’s an example from the dentist:
(pic)
Section 2:
Your lead magnets are getting you contacts, but how are they getting into your CRM? What happens now that you have a bunch of leads? Do as you did above for the following:
- What are you using to capture the lead (from each magnet) to get the contact into the system?
- Lead nurture (How do you inform and persuade the lead to make an appointment?)
- Consult (deliver and pitch)
- More nurturing (What if something fails? How do you keep trying?)
- Sale (What products are you selling that this process will map to?)
- Follow up and upsell (How do you retain the customer once they’ve purchased from you?)
- Below is the example from the dentist.
(pic)
Your map will be customized to your specific business, but I can’t say it strongly enough: Keep it simple. Once you’ve perfected your lead scoring for a few rounds, you can add complexities and nuance. At the front end, you’ll just want it be manageable. Once you’ve put together your map, you’re ready to get up on that stage and score like a rock star!
