Lead Scoring Help

[Anonymous]

Our lead scoring is pretty much worthless at this point due to the following issues:

1)  Inbound Leads inflate the scores and immediatly consume the spots for the "best bets". They are scored based on filling out a form, visiting key web pages, and then scored for responding to emails.  We want best bets to also show leads that pop up on their own based on other engagement. Since inbound leads from a form (automatically marketing qualified) are already alerting the bus dev rep, we don't need best bets or lead scoring to be the sales trigger for outreach to occur. 

2) The Marketo Tab and best bets view in Salesforce seems pretty limited in regards to creating custom views, filters, and reports. Is it possible to use a filter to isolate which leads went through a specific campaign? Or do we have to create a SFDC campaign for each marketing email nurturing campaign, and run reports that way?

3) Do you remove scores when a status is changed, for example (sales qualified to recycled)

4) Random question.  When your sales team changes a status to recycle, do they still create a task for follow-up in the future? 

5) Did you end up using an outside consultant for deployment of Marketo? We haven't been too pleased with the onboarding experience. 

Thanks.

[Anonymous]

Hi Ron-
Do you have any other scoring mechanism in place than just web traffic (behavior trends, demographics, etc) - these can be run as systematic batches that can help score people that are not just filling out forms.  Do you have a scoring model document to quantify what justifies the inflation or decrease of a score and how it is viewed by sales?

The Marketo Tab and Best Bets are pretty limited - I would assume since it is a plug-in, they want to limit the ways it can break.  To isolate specific leads to a specific campaign, you could use SFDC views or reports to generate this - or even a MKTO based RCA/Analytics report that would be sent to a list of email recipients for their review.

You can absoutely change scores based on a criteria like changing of lead status - but keep in mind that score is controlled by the score updates that you put into place as well as the overall algorithm that takes those scores and adjusts them based on how they are in reference to the other people in the database (for the flames and stars).

For your sales team, you have a couple of options - you could put into place an SFDC workflow that would automate a task follow up once the lead status is changed or you could have MKTO watch for that and set the task.  Additionally, depending on what "recycle" means to your org, you could have MKTO pick the lead back up, nurture it and depending on if they action against the nurture plan, decide whether or not to kick off a follow up for the sales team to do.

Lastly, I've used a couple of different outside consultants - and it is a mixed bag.  Marketo is tremendously flexible - so depending on your org's goals, business practice, customization etc - your Marketo enivornment and/or how it used could widely vary (no matter if you do it in-house, use MKTO consultants, or 3rd party consultants).

Hope this helps!

[Anonymous]

1)  The beauty of lead scores is that you get to customize the formula based on what you're trying to accomplish - ie why you set up the lead scoring in the first place. Often companies are using lead scoring to find the needle in the haystack, ie otherwise unwieldingly long lists of people who are in your database, and not fillingout forms or replying - but still clicking away at your website. I think that's who you're trying to get to.

2) I would recommend shifting your thinking to using the Customer Engagement Module in terms of the nurture campaigns (vs ad hoc blasts), and then yes, syncing the SFDC campaign to those programs (and then use 1 to find engaged audience).

3) Yes - zeroing out a score is a very common part of a lead scoring formula

4) No - that's a bad practice. That's why you bought Marketo, so that you can nurture them automatically.

5) It depends on how big you are, and how experienced your team is with marketing automation. I've seen it go both ways.

[Anonymous]

Customer Engagement Module? Never heard of it. 

[Dan_Stevens_]

Here are some related links: http://www.marketo.com/small-medium-business/marketing-automation-software/customer-engagement.php http://www.marketingrockstarguides.com/category/marketo-user-guide/ http://community.marketo.com/Marketodeepdive?id=kA5500000008QlPCAU

[Anonymous]

1) Inbound lead scoring: a common problem is the implementation of a lead scoring model without reviewing unintended consequences like this.  A good practice is to aggressively refine your scoring model until problems like this are eliminated.

3) removing scores: it depends on your model, but typically I see clients remove the behavior score but keep the demographic score.  This way a perfect prospect will get more attention when they raise their hand.

4) If you have an average volume of leads, creating a task for follow up on all recycled leads will result in your sales team throwing out Marketo and Salesforce.  

5) Sorry to hear you had a bad experience with the onboarding.  Certainly there are some capable consultants who can help you in the community.  Based on your questions here, I'd recommend qualifying them based on their knowledge of Salesforce as well as Marketo, because deep knowledge of just one can create a bigger mess.