Actions may speak louder than words, however they don't replace them. In the world of Lead Scoring, you need both. The actions of your lead become the validating component of a balanced scoring model, which includes what your lead tells you. For instance, if a lead says he has budget and is the director of sales, that's a fantastic start, but only half the battle is won. Your lead scoring model needs to take into account lead activity as well. Are they downloading two white papers and visiting your company's Website three times in one week?
When activity is absent from the Lead Score Model, the data will not have any correlation with relevancy. So a hot lead based on BANT (Budget, Authority, Need and Timeline) + demographic scores will continue to appear hot three years from now. By including activity in your lead score model, you can determine the current relevancy of the score -- yes, the lead was hot and still is, or it was hot a long time ago but not anymore.
Monitoring activity allows for ongoing changes of a lead scoring even when that lead is not explicitly telling you something has changed. In essence, activity enlightens your static data, making it timely and relevant.
Typical scenario:
Sales..."Do you know why this lead was scored so high?"
Marketing... "We scored that lead two years ago so I'm not sure."
To avoid that scenario make sure your lead score model is balanced by activity. Here's how it's done!
Basic Lead Scoring formula
Total Lead Score = BANT score + Demographics score + Behavior score
Advanced Lead Scoring formula (activity is made up of 3 components measured over time)
Total Lead Score = BANT score + Demographics score + Activity score
Activity score = (recency + Frequency + Behaviors) - time decay algorithms)
Go forth and score!
