ABM Scoring Guide: The New Way to Score Accounts Built on the Customer Journey

Posted June 4, 2024
abm scoring guide

Table of Contents

Traditional lead scoring is failing. Account-based scoring changes everything. So, we built a new account scoring guide and model to help B2B marketers tackle the challenge of account engagement head-on. Check out our Account-Based Marketing Scoring Guide below.

 

What to Expect in the ABM Scoring Guide

Here is a brief overview of what you can expect in our New Way to Score Accounts Based on the B2B Sales Cycle guide:

  • Traditional Lead Scoring is Half the Battle: B2B sales aren’t linear, and it doesn’t make sense to focus on a single point of contact when selling to a buyer committee.
  • We Need the Full Picture: B2B sales require engaging campaigns, content strategies, and sales training for multiple people at an account. We can help you figure out this full picture.
  • So, Let’s Get to it. What’s Better?: CaliberMind connects systems to record activity, attach it to the right people and companies, and calculate scores at interaction, person, and company levels.
  • Fit: Your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) needs correct filters to identify healthy customers and opportunities.
  • Intent: Learn about how intent data reveals the online activities of companies beyond their website.
  • Engagement: Analyze activities to identify readiness signals for sales engagement.

 

To get a comprehensive understanding of ABM scoring, check out our ABM scoring guide.

Traditional Lead Scoring is Failing

Traditional lead scoring takes into account a variety of predetermined factors that help in qualifying a lead’s propensity to purchase. Savvy businesses will likely have established scoring criteria that include a combination of demographic attributes, lead source, and estimated budget.

Popular marketing automation tools such as Marketo and Hubspot, may also complement this data with what they call “behavioral attributes,” which by their definition include online activity such as page views, email engagement, or content downloads.
So, what’s wrong with this strategy? The “behavioral attributes” used by traditional lead scoring models are focused on the top of the funnel. But, today’s B2B buyer journey is more complex, non-linear, and circular than ever before.

Account-Based Scoring Changes Everything

Just when you thought you had arrived at lead scoring nirvana, in came Account-Based Marketing and changed everything. Now, instead of scoring individual leads, you need to score entire accounts, but traditional CRM & Marketing Automation systems were never built to handle accounts. Without account scoring (as well as Leads to Account Matching which is table stakes in today’s ABM world), your inside sales rep can be qualifying John, your marketing team can be emailing Jennifer, and your outside sales rep can be showing demos to Kevin, all without knowing that they all belong to the same company.

This creates confusion not only for your buyers who may find themselves in different sales cycles, but also for your marketing team who are wasting resources that could lead to potential delay or loss of the sales opportunity.

For lead or account scoring technology to provide value, it has to be smarter. According to Gartner, 70% of leads are lost from poor follow-up. But, with hundreds of leads coming in, how do you prioritize? Organizations need a full-time, intelligent system for monitoring successes and failures.

One that automatically adjusts the scoring based on real-time data and results.

View Our Other Thought Leadership