Incomplete data is one of the common reasons for long sales cycles and fewer closed deals.

Many sales teams and individual sales representatives slow down prospect research when they miss critical prospect data, spending their time on monitoring and fulfilling the data instead of moving one step closer to a deal. 

Sounds familiar?

If you or your team have encountered the issue of missing important prospect data or starting conversations with leads that are unlikely to convert, then it’s time to explore lead enrichment and lead scoring.

In this article, you will learn how to enrich, score, and prioritize leads automatically and turn more leads into customers.

What Is Lead Enrichment And Why Does It Matter?

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Lead enrichment is the process of collecting, organising, and inspecting prospect and customer data. The goal of lead enrichment is to collect information that creates more personalized messaging and improves the sales and marketing efforts of a company. 

Lead enrichment may seem similar to lead generation. However, these are two different terms. Lead generation involves the initial collection of prospect data, including contact details, company information, and more. Lead enrichment involves adding valuable information to existing data, including company size, technology used, and similar. 

Lead enrichment is a key step in the sales cycle as it makes it easier to target decision-makers, close deals, and increase conversion rates.

Companies and individuals often make changes to their accounts and contact information. These changes happen when they switch roles, move to new places, and in other similar cases.  Regular CRM lead enrichment lets you capture the changed data in time and not miss out on important updates. 

However, manual lead enrichment is a time-consuming process that requires a lot of attention and is vulnerable to human errors, which can result in lost deals.

Today, real-time lead enrichment is achievable with software that can automatically gather all prospect information, providing a complete profile of the prospect or customer in minutes.

Additionally, an advanced automatic lead enrichment tool will keep your data fresh, reach out to the right people, and gain insights for more personalized and meaningful conversations with prospects.

What Is Lead Scoring and Why Automate It?

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Lead scoring is the categorization of prospects by assessing their potential to convert, focusing on the most valuable ones who are most likely to convert. Lead scoring is done by giving points to prospect actions like visiting the website, requesting a demo, and similar. The higher the score, the more likely the lead will convert. 

Lead scoring is a critical step in the sales cycle. Not every prospect is ready to turn into a customer, and the sooner you detect the most promising leads, the higher the chances of closing more deals and increasing conversion rates.

Missing this step in your sales cycle will lead to chasing unqualified leads, missing out on high-potential leads, and experiencing misalignment between marketing and sales teams.

Automatic lead scoring is an integral part of any modern and advanced CRM system. It allows for evaluation and scoring to lead automatically in real-time, ensuring you move forward with the most promising ones and shortening the sales cycle. 

AI lead scoring is a common practice for most successful businesses, helping sales teams to know which leads to prioritize, providing a common language and direction for sales and marketing teams.   

How Can Sales Teams Enrich, Score, and Prioritize Leads Automatically?  

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For sales teams, having a rich profile of each prospect is a basis for personalized conversations and successful deals. 

Today, automation software helps sales teams enrich, score, and prioritize lead information beyond basic contact details, saving time and enhancing accuracy.

No need for manual research and copy-pasting prospect details. 

How To Enrich CRM Leads Automatically

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To avoid manual monitoring and copy-pasting prospect data, you can use software to detect changes and perform lead enrichment automatically. 

One of the most effective and user-friendly software tools to perform lead enrichment is Apollo. 

Apollo.io is a powerful solution for both sales and marketing teams. Apollo can automatically pull data, including demographics, firmographics, and behavior patterns, from various sources and enrich leads.

Steps to Enrich CRM Data with Apollo

Here are the main steps you can take for automatic lead enrichment using Apollo:

• Log in to your Apollo.io account or create an account.
• Import leads from a CSV file or connect your CRM system.
• Map all the key fields, including name, company title, email address, and more.
• Run lead enrichment to enrich data with fresh information such as company size, tech stack used, and social media links.
• Check the results to ensure accuracy.
• Sync to your CRM system to make the updates automatically.

This is a simple and fast way to enrich your leads with updated and missing data effectively without spending hours on monitoring and data migration. 

How To Score and Prioritize Leads Automatically
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Only having the updated information about prospects and leads is not enough for closing deals. Sales teams need to score the leads accordingly to find the ones that are more likely to convert. 

The scoring and prioritization process can also be automated with Apollo and similar software. 

With Apollo’s AI-powered scoring models, sales teams can analyze different dimensions of a lead’s profile and activity. Those dimensions include email open rates, website visits, social media signals, and more. The data-driven scoring assists in surfacing the leads most likely to close deals with. This lets salespeople switch their attention to the most valuable prospects.

Steps To Score and Prioritize Leads Using Apollo

Here is how to score and prioritize CRM leads with Apollo. 

• Sign in to your Apollo account or create an account. 
• In Settings, go to Lead Scoring.
• Set criteria for scoring (for example, website visits)
• Assign points based on importance.
• Allow tracking for behaviors (for example, clicks, email opens, and more)
• Apply scoring rules to the leads’ list.
• Review the scores.
• Prioritize outreach communication based on the scores, starting from the ones with the highest score.
• Sync results to your CRM system. 

If you combine automated lead enrichment, scoring, and prioritization, you can create a smart sales engine driving growth and revenue with less manual effort.

Conclusion

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Lead enrichment, scoring, and prioritization are key processes in the sales cycle, turning simple contact details into sales intelligence that helps convert more prospects and close more deals. 

Using the right automation tools will benefit both the company, leading to high revenue, and motivate the sales team, making it easier for them to detect and contact the right leads. 

FAQ

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What is automated lead enrichment?

Automated lead enrichment is the process of enhancing lead records with additional data, such as company size, industry, technology stack, and recent activities, without manual research.

How does automated lead scoring work?

Lead scoring assigns points to leads based on factors like demographic fit, engagement behavior, and purchase intent. AI-driven models can predict which leads are most likely to convert.

What is lead prioritization in sales?

Lead prioritization ranks leads by quality and readiness so sales teams can focus on the most promising opportunities first.

How does Apollo automatically enrich leads?

Apollo enriches data with real-time firmographic, technographic, and behavioral data. It keeps lead profiles accurate and complete without manual research.

What is automated lead scoring in Apollo?

Apollo assigns predictive lead scores based on firmographic fit, engagement signals, and historical win and loss data, updating in real time.

Can Apollo integrate with my CRM?

Yes. Apollo syncs with Pipedrive, Salesforce, HubSpot, and other major CRM software, ensuring enriched and scored leads flow seamlessly into sales workflows.