B2B Lead Scoring...using B.A.N.T. or other criteria

Some marketers are scoring leads based on downloads from a website – unless you're in the business of selling software and this is a free trial, I don't care what kind of content a person downloads or how many times that person comes back to the site to download other content, I'm not going to score that person as a "lead" on that basis.

Some marketers advocated a "lead" scoring system based on content downloaded, business size (revenue), industry, time to purchase. Again, scoring based on content download makes no sense. The other factors here do make sense, but you also need to know who the decision makers are, whether you're communicating with them, and do they have the budget.

Scoring leads based on type and amount of content downloaded can be a trap that leads to wrongly qualifying a prospect. Some people are information junkies and download information for the sake of collecting information. And, there are a lot of other reasons for downloading content from a website, for example competitors keeping track of each other.

B.A.N.T. is a long used method of assessing the quality of prospects and tracking them through the presale qualification and buying process. Leads are evaluated on their propensity to turn into a closed transaction. Evaluation is based on how many of the B.A.N.T. criteria a lead meets at a given point in time. B.A.N.T refers to budget, authority, need and time frame.

B.A.N.T. has survived for as long as it has because it is the most relevant and valid system of scoring. It's also flexible, because you can set the individual parameters for each factor (budget, authority, need and timeframe), for each stage in the sales process (inquiry, lead, qualified lead, opportunity, qualified opportunity, etc.; however you define the stages). If you're not satisfied with the B.A.N.T model as is, you can add other qualification factors so that it is even more relevant to your business and industry sector.

For more information on using the B.A.N.T. lead qualification model, download our white paper "Developing a Lead Management Program."  To see an example of the B.A.N.T. model, click here.

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