Lead scoring assigns a numeric value to prospects based on their website activity, but cannot differentiate between interested prospects and those just doing research. Lead grading assigns prospects a letter grade based on how well their demographics match the ideal customer profile. This better identifies truly interested prospects worth pursuing. An effective lead qualification strategy considers both the lead score and grade to determine which leads should be immediately passed to sales, placed on a nurture plan, or deleted from the database.

1. Lead Scoring vs Lead Grading
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Molly is the content marketer and blogger from Company ‘A’ who regularly visits the website of
Company ‘B’ to stay up to date about the latest trends in the industry. She regularly downloads their
various content collateral. Based on her activity, her lead score goes off the chart and she becomes
one of the hottest prospects of Company ‘B’. But in reality, she has no intention of buying anything.
This is one of the biggest flaws of lead qualification that solely depends upon lead scoring. Lead score
is a numeric value based on a prospect’s activity to determine their interest in the product/service.
The higher the lead score – the more interested they are, and vice versa. The challenge with this model
is that it gets difficult to differentiate between the leads who are actually interested in your
product/service, and who are just doing industry research in your resource centre.
This is where Lead Grading comes in picture. Lead Grading is assigning a letter grade (A-F) to your
leads. It helps in determining how interested are you in your leads? By comparing the demographic
value of your lead with your ideal prospect profile (including industries, company size, job titles, etc.),
you can determine whether or not the lead is fit for your company. With effective lead grading, your
marketing operations do not waste time on leads which have no interest in making a purchase.
So, how can you decide which lead is fit for your company? The leads with high lead grades and scores
or the leads with high lead grades or low lead scores or may be some other combination. To get your
lead qualification strategy right, there are some of the scenarios that are listed below-
1. Leads with both high score & grade: These type of leads have high interest in your
product/service. High score means high interest and high grade means highly fit for your
company. These type of leads should be immediately assigned to sales reps for further follow-
ups.

2. 2. Leads with high score but low grade: These type of leads have lot of interest in your
product/service but are not fit for your company. These types of leads may not be worth
assigning to your sales reps.
3. Leads with low score but high grade: These are the leads who may be highly fit for your
company but have not shown much interest in your product/service. Either they are not fully
aware about your product/service or presently not interested in making a purchase. You can
assign these leads to your sales reps and place them on a nurture plan so that whenever they
are in a position to make a purchase, they first consider your company.
4. Leads with both low score & grade: These are lowest-value leads which are either old leads
or no-value leads. Consider deleting these leads from your database as they have no value.
Effective lead qualification strategy is a must-have to help your marketing and sales teams work
efficiently. Among all the marketing automation platforms, Marketo lead scoring is used by most of
the small-medium sized businesses.