Keeping track of multiple scores for multiple products. How many is too many?

[Anonymous]

Hi everyone,

I would love some advice / best practice tips on tracking multiple scores in a nurture program.

I read this article: by ​ and it's really helpful and amazing. (to summarize VERY generally: multiple scores are used to track different products, eg: MacBook score, Apple Watch Score, iPhone Score, based on what the person is interested in buying.

I'm attempting to do a scoring system like this but with even more.

For example: There are multiple products that Apple provides: iPhone, MacBook, accessories, etc... Within each product line, there are multiple product types: iPhone 6, iPhone 7, iPhone 7+, MacBook Pro, MacBook air, etc....

Lets say we know someone is interested in an iPhone, but we don't know what type: so we track an iPhone score, later we figure out that they're most likely going to buy an iPhone 7 if they commit: so we'll have iPhone score, as well as an iPhone 7 score. By utilizing multiple scores, we'd be able to personalize the content much more. We can send this lead both general iPhone information, and iPhone 7 information (but not, say iPhone 6 because they're not interested in that iPhone model).

In theory, it sounds great. It would really help personalize the content and drive the person down a very specific funnel! But if there's say, 5 product lines, and about 6 sub-products in each product line, that's a lot of scores to have to keep track of, account for, and utilize!

I guess, I was wondering, what is everyone else's scoring strategy? just one lead score? as many scores as possible similar to my example described above? or somewhere in between like Rajiv's original article (just a few scores of the high level product lines?) And if you do have many, many scores, if you have any tips for best practices on keeping them organized (and... sane?)'

Appreciate the tip everyone! (oh for reference, my team is just mapped out the nurture programs we'll be needing for all the product line and products but none has been implemented yet).

[Ryan_Benton]

I've been wondering about this strategy as well. The company I work for has four main product lines. Within that, we're divided into two divisions for the sales team.  I've thought about creating different lead scores for each - and still might some day.  But for where we are right now, we're doing a lot of manual exploration of our leads before passing them on, so we just try to qualify which division's content they have been interacting with.  If it ends up going to the wrong person, or to both, we see it as a cross-selling opportunity.  Maybe someday we'll be streamlined enough to have multiple scores, but for now, getting my head around one score is enough!

[David_Gaible · Accepted solution]

Hi Sue Liang​,

Great question, this is a scenario I've wrestled with in a few of my past instances. At one of my last firms, when we introduced marketing's plan to implement lead scoring, sales leadership quickly got to the level of requesting a specific lead score for each product type. After whiteboarding a system to accommodate this request two points were evident: that level of granularity simply wouldn't be actionable by the sales team, and we didn't have enough marketing resources to build out the system. Both of these points were show-stoppers, and we were able to agree on product-line lead scores. I don't have a definitive answer for you, but I'd encourage you to keep these considerations in mind.

[Anonymous]

This was an approach we'd considered, as our product offerings have continued to vary. A struggle (that became a show-stopper for us) that we had that may need to be considered, if applicable: is there content you have that isn't directly applicable to one product line or product? We have many thought leadership pieces that don't necessarily show direct interest in any one product.

[Amanda_Thomas6]

I think scoring should reflect quality (or sale-ability) of that lead. So, if you make more sales to those interested in the iPhone 7 those interested should have a higher score. With this strategy, you can score others, but know what takes priority when building out/adjusting your scoring model.

[Anonymous]

Hi Sue,

To be honest, I believe there's no right answer here. Since I don't have knowledge about your structure I can give you a hint about what we've decided to do.

First of all, we're working with a more comprehensive model for lead scoring, that we call lead profiling, matching demographic and behavioral data, so we can match - for instance - job title + a number of page access.

Also, we've decided to adopt a master field, that would point it up the product categories our prospects would be related to. Something like a multi select radio button with all product families we are currently working.

Once you have a clear definition of a general rule, tailor that same set of rules to each one of the product families you wanna work with. To avoid email overload, we've adopted a general nurturing program, and a few segment-related programs, instead of a product-centric approach that we send at different days and protect our stream by adding vetting rules (create a priority level to your streams).

I hope it helped.

Thanks,

[Tom_Kerlin2]

Hi Sue,

The main goal of lead scoring is to separate the leads that are ready to move to sales from the leads that require more nurturing. It's important to factor in sales input, but you don't want to set up a scoring model that will only 'cherry-pick' hot leads for sales either. It's also important to set the right expectations with your sales team. Find out if the other stakeholders are willing to put in that same level of commitment.

That being said, it sounds like you are also asking about the scalability of this approach. Has anybody else had trouble building out a scoring model that meets the needs of sales but is also scalable on the operations side?

I would think that this approach is possible, especially when scoring off of a person's BANT (Budget, Authority, Need, Time) information. How would you assign the scoring for the implicit/behavioral data though (since every touch-point would need to have a product associated)? Would there be a generic catch-all score for that?

[BenjaminJacquet]

Hi Sue,

As other had said there's no definitive answer to this, but in many cases, having products-specific scoring will likely be difficult to implement as well as leveraging for the sales team. Maintaining such system may also prove challenging depending on the lifetime of your products, what do you when one is discontinued?

Instead of product-specific scoring you might keep these to product-lines and could have "[Product line] Product of Interest" fields to stamp based on certain interactions such as page visits, form submitting etc. Score would translate sales readiness of your leads and the product of interest fields could be a more digestible way for your sales team to identify what they are after.

At the end of the day it really comes down to what's gonna serve your business better to find the right balance between level of details and usability.

Cheers,

[Andy_Caron3]

Hi Sue,

Here is I have seen that yielded great success. Create Product Score as a separate channel in your tags (depending on how many you have). Your statuses indicate the level of interest:  Low Interest, Medium Interest, High Interest, Customer

This allows for several things:

1) You can use the program status to also define the score

2) You can easily view at scale AND visualize (using RCA) where the overall interest in different products fall

3) You can use the programs to update additional fields or data points related

4) If you choose to look at product bundles, as opposed to each product (depending on your catalog of offerings), this setup will accommodate that

5) You can use simple keywords from page views to set your criteria for their score / status in the program

6) If you create SFDC campaigns using the Marketo sync, you can easily display this data on the Lead/Contact or Account (for ABM) records using the Campaign Membership in as an addition to the detail pages, providing insights to your sales people without having to create a ton of fields

7) You can scale with your top tier first and POC out the benefits, without having to build out a full product scoring model

[ChristinaZuniga]

I agree there's no right answer. I've seen one set up that seems to work reasonably well. What you can do is to have a "main product" persona - this is selected based on where they come from, or what they engage with the most. Then scoring is related to that and based on their main product persona the sales team is aware that XYZ product is their main interest. However, but looking at interesting moments they can see other products they can cross sell. Then you have 1 scoring for many products, as long as you can get agreement that all scoring thresholds, amounts are relatively the same.

Example: You are bath & body works and you have lines for fragrance, lotion, body wash and candles.

Janet Doe hits the page for fragrance and accumulates 25 points. Your MQL threshold is 40 points. Her persona would be fragrance and maybe a sub persona of Lilac preference or something.

Then she interacts with candles, but her persona doesn't change. Eventually she reaches 40 points.

Sales can see she's interested in lilac fragrance, but when they look at interesting moments they also see she likes cherry blossom candles and offer her a deal if she buys both.