By Paul McConville, TARGUSinfo
For all that you invest in online lead generation, you still may not be able to answer four crucial questions:
° Who’s “knocking” (i.e., who liked your offer enough to give up contact information)?
° Can you actually reach the people who come knocking?
° And at what cost?
° Which ones should be your priority because they have the most potential return?
When consumers respond to your marketing efforts, today you may be treating them all the same. But what if you could know which of your leads are more likely to convert, place higher-value orders or become loyal customers?
You’d want to call them before the rest of your leads and you’d probably want to adjust your messages and offers to them. You might even want to make sure that you send them to your best salespeople, right?
All it takes is the right knowledge at the right moment through an instant, automated approach called on-demand lead scoring. By combining your customer information with consumer data and predictive analytics, lead scoring can tell you how to prioritize and treat each incoming lead to increase your sales conversions and customer value.
So where do you start? The predictive power of your lead scoring will depend upon how much it is tailored to your specific business, your objectives and your existing knowledge of your customers.
Depending on your needs, you can develop scores with detailed household information including demographics, lifestyle and behavioral information. Then incorporate your own data, including sales history, product and channel usage. This blend of information provides you with razor-sharp insight on which leads are most likely to convert and which are potentially most valuable.
There are two keys here. First, you have to be able to access and leverage this insight on-demand, at the moment when you’re interacting with leads. In the past, custom-made customer insight platforms haven’t easily afforded this capability.
Second, you wouldn’t put dirty gasoline in your Rolls Royce so why would you want dirty data in your lead-scoring solution? Your lead scoring is only as good as the information that drives it. If your scoring doesn’t include verification of contact information, then you won’t even know which leads can be reached, making the effort worthless. And if your scoring solution doesn’t include up-to-date consumer contact information, then you’re slashing your ability to assign scores to your leads.
A full-featured system could work something like this: An auto dealer receives names and phone numbers of active car shoppers within minutes of their filling out forms on auto-related Web sites. In a split second before the dealer’s sales team receives the lead, it’s automatically scored based on the individual’s verified contact information, household demographics and the dealer’s experience with customers fitting that demographic profile.
The sales team is now fully equipped to prioritize the leads that are most valuable to them, rushing the most promising ones to the top of the queue for an immediate outbound call. The sales team begins each call with a huge head start: as each lead arrives, its score triggers a customized script. While the top leads get first attention, others are prioritized for follow up. In other words, this on-demand lead prioritization solution helps the dealer be first, not to mention the smartest, to approach consumers who are ready to buy.
Bottom line, with on-demand lead scoring you can focus on the leads that are important to you and get more results from your marketing dollar.
Paul McConville is Director of Consumer-Facing Services for TARGUSinfo.
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