No matter how good your product or service is, you're not going to sell anything if you don't know the right time to reach out to your website visitors. If you contact them too soon, you might scare them away. If you wait too long, they might go somewhere else.  

That's where lead scoring comes in. Lead scoring is  a process of assigning

 numeric values (or "scores") to leads in order to determine their likelihood of becoming paying customers and when it's the right time to contact them.

By using lead scoring, you can prioritize your marketing efforts—and your budget—in a way that's most likely to result in actual sales. In other words, lead scoring helps you close more deals and make more money. But how does it work? Let's take a closer look.

How Does Lead Scoring Work? 

Lead scoring works by taking into account both explicit and implicit factors that indicate a lead's level of interest in your product or service. Explicit factors are things like job title or company size, which can be easily determined by looking at the lead's contact information. Implicit factors are harder to pin down; they include things like the number of times the lead has visited your website or interacted with your brand on social media. 

By taking both explicit and implicit factors into account, lead scoring provides a more well-rounded picture of a lead's true level of interest. This, in turn, allows you to target your marketing efforts more effectively, resulting in more closed deals and a higher return on investment for your marketing budget. 

How Do I Implement Lead Scoring? 

The first step in implementing lead scoring is to determine which factors you're going to use—explicit, implicit, or both. Once you've done that, you need to set up a point system for each factor. For example, you might decide that leads who have visited your website 10 or more times should receive 10 points while leads who have only visited once should receive 1 point. 

If you are using a CRM tool like HubSpot, lead scoring is built into the Sales Hub. You can set up a point system that matches your sales process, whether it is simple, or a global, multi-product / service sales organization. 

Once you've established your point system, it's time to start assigning scores to individual leads based on their behaviors and contact information. There are a few different ways you can do this: manually, using marketing automation software, or hiring a third-party vendor. 

To make it easy for you, we have quite a few resources for you. 

• Download the Lead Scoring Template if you are setting up lead scoring in HubSpot from scratch. 
• Watch the Lead Scoring Made Simple Workshop where our VP of Ops, Aaron Rickard, walks you through the process. 
  
  
• If you already have lead scoring set up and it's either gotten away from you or has become so complicated you don't know what's happening anymore, download the Lead Management Audit from HubSpot. There's also a HubSpot Academy lesson on this topic that is world-class. 

Lead scoring is an essential tool for any business that wants to streamline its sales process and make the most of its marketing budget. By taking into account both explicit and implicit factors that indicate a lead's level of interest, lead scoring allows you to prioritize your marketing efforts—and your budget—in a way that's most likely to result in actual sales.

If you're not already using lead scoring as part of your sales strategy, what are you waiting for? Implement it today and see how much it can help your business grow.