Last time I spoke about how lead scoring works and how it helps triage leads. This time I want to discuss another topic, lead grading, that works along with lead scoring to make work easier for both marketing and sales departments.
As previously stated, lead scoring is an automatic tool that scores a prospect based on their activity on your website.
Lead grading is another tool within the lead nurturing process that grades a customer based on how close they are to your ideal customer profile. Lead grading is different from lead scoring because it is not based on activity, rather it is based on criteria.
Some examples of criteria used to grade a prospect include:
- industry
- location
- company size
- department
- job title
Other criteria can be added to the list as other standards for grading as well.
Lead grading can be automated, manual, or a combination of the two. Prospect grades can be automatically programmed to increase or decrease based on any criteria. Additionally, grades can be manually altered depending on the qualities of a lead.
Combined together in marketing automation these two tools make lead nurturing simple. Both lead scoring and grading compose lead qualification, which is necessary to make the nurturing process straightforward for both marketing and sales.
