If a visitor submits a contact form, that person is likely a qualified lead and will most likely receive a high score in the Lead Scorecard. A visitor who submits a contact form is a person who knows about the company, has a good understanding of its services, and is taking the initiative to seek support from the company. If the visitor fits a certain demographic and industry, that person will score even higher on the scorecard. For example, if you’re a Vancouver digital marketing agency or PR company and you receive an email from the Director of Marketing from a local retail business, you’ll likely see that person as a highly qualified lead and give him a high score.

If you’re a social media software company and an individual creates a trial account for your product, you’ll likely see that person as a qualified prospect. By setting up a trial account, the user shows that he or she needs your service and is willing to give it a try. That said, the occupation and demographic of the user plays a role in the scorecard. For instance, if a user is a student who’s just testing out different social platforms for fun, he or she probably won’t be a suitable prospect. Conversely, if the user is a Marketing Specialist at a marketing agency or a consumer goods company, that person will likely be viewed as a qualified lead and score highly in the Lead Scorecard.

By going over your services page, a visitor is showing interest in your offering. He or she is assessing the different services you offer, how your offerings fit their needs, and if they’re under his or her budget. While the assessment of your services page is a good indicator of whether a visitor is qualified or not, it isn’t as useful as the aforementioned. The reason is that checking out your services takes tremendously less effort than submitting a contact form and creating a trial account. This means that although the visitor has interest in your services, he may not need it urgently because if he did, he would contact you through contact form or create a trial account.

By downloading an eBook (i.e. P.A.C.E. eBook) or whitepaper, a visitor has interest in your content, shows trust in your credibility and expertise, and possibly shows some intention in purchasing your products or services in the future. That said, there’s no direct linkage between downloading an eBook and becoming a customer because an eBook download is merely a sign of interest in the content you’ve produced. It just means that the visitor is aware of your company and has some interest in your content. It doesn’t mean that the visitor is in the evaluating stage of the buying cycle and is ready to learn about your service. As a result, an eBook or whitepaper download weighs less in a Lead Scorecard.

Similar to an eBook download, a subscription to your newsletter is a sound indicator that a visitor is interested in your content, trusts you as an expert, and is eager to learn more about your company but doesn’t directly reflect that visitor is interested in your services. As a result, you may want to engage with the visitor more before you promote your services to him or her.

When a visitor browses through several webpages, it suggests that person is engaged in your web content, interested in your products or services, and curious on how your offerings can suit their needs. However, the visitor is most likely in the awareness stage (first stage) of the buying cycle, which means that he or she won’t likely become a qualified lead until a few more points of contact. As a result, you should only give the visitor a few score points in the Lead Scorecard because he or she doesn’t have strong purchase intention. 

Just like going over a specific amount of webpages, spending a certain amount of time on your website is a sound indicator of your visitors’ interests in your content. However, alike the number of webpages a visitor goes through, a visitor’s time duration on your website doesn’t directly reflect his or her interest in your offerings. A visitor could consume your content for his own professional sake without ever thinking about using your services. This makes time duration a weak component in the Lead Scorecard.