Assigning a dynamic score to leads and accounts helps you identify who is ready to buy—and when. But scoring is only half the battle. The real game-changer is knowing what to do once someone crosses a threshold. Enter score-driven touch points: the targeted outreaches you deploy based on each lead’s current intent level.

Why does this matter? Because without a systematic approach, it’s easy to shower every prospect with the same emails or calls. That wastes precious Marketing and Sales resources—and risks annoying leads who aren’t ready. With well-timed touch points, you build trust, move leads forward more efficiently, and get the most out of your team’s limited bandwidth.

Quick Recap of ABM Orchestration

• What Scoring Is: A numeric measure of each lead’s or account’s readiness to buy, factoring in email clicks, LinkedIn messages, website visits, job postings at the account level, and more.

• Why It Matters: A higher score usually indicates stronger intent—meaning your next interaction has a better chance of resonating and eventually converting.

• Link to Touch Points: Once a lead’s score hits (or exceeds) a certain threshold, it triggers the next level of outreach. This ensures you’re not randomly guessing who to engage or how.

(If you want a deeper dive into how ABM scoring works, check out the previous blog post on “From Random Leads to Targeted Wins: How ABM Scoring Unites Marketing and Sales.”)

Defining Touch Points

What They Are

Touch points are intentional interactions with a prospect or account—emails, calls, ads, LinkedIn messages, direct mail, etc.—designed to move them closer to a sale.

Why They Exist

Rather than a blanket “spray and pray” approach, touch points allow you to nurture leads according to their stage in the buying journey. Each interaction aims to educate, engage, and build trust.

Relationship to Scores

When your ABM scoring system flags a certain level of intent, you respond with the appropriate touch point. Score too low? Automate a light email campaign. Medium range? Send a personalized LinkedIn invite. High score? Time for a call, a custom video, or a personal note from an executive.

Why the Right Touch Point at the Right Time Matters

1. Efficiency

   Don’t have your Sales team calling every lead who just opened one email. Reserve real one-on-one conversations for leads showing real buying signals.

2. Personalization

   Matching the communication style to the prospect’s engagement level increases your relevance—and your conversion odds.

3. Conversion Impact

   Prospects are far more likely to respond positively when the outreach aligns with their mindset. If they’re just exploring, a light touch is best. If they’re showing serious intent, a call or customized demo might clinch the deal.

The Real Bottleneck: Limited Marketing & Sales Bandwidth

• Limited Human Capacity

  Sales reps can only make so many calls and send so many personalized messages per day. Marketing budgets can only fund so many ad impressions and content pieces.

• Why It’s a Problem

  Spending time on the wrong leads means missing out on golden opportunities with your true high-intent prospects.

• Maximizing Bandwidth

  • Automate simple or repetitive tasks (like initial cold emails or basic LinkedIn connections).

  • Focus human attention where it matters most—customized calls, personalized emails, or VIP event invites for your top-scoring leads.

Low-Touch Actions (Fully Automated, Budget-Friendly)

Leads in the low-score range (e.g., 0–29) are early-stage. They might’ve visited your site, seen an ad, or opened an email—but they’re not ready for high-effort outreach. That’s exactly why low-touch actions are built to be fully automated, cost-controlled, and scalable.

Common Low-Touch Tactics

1. Automated Cold Emails – Pre-built sequences sent at scale to introduce your brand and educate leads. Include links with lead-specific UTM tags to track intent and engagement in real time.

2. Awareness & Retargeting Ads – Smart campaigns on LinkedIn or Google that run continuously within your set daily budget.

3. Auto-Scheduled Event Invites – Webinars or virtual events promoted through your CRM or email automation tools.

4. On-Demand Direct Mail – Lightweight physical assets like postcards, auto-triggered for specific geos (optional, based on budget).

Why It Works So Well

• Zero Sales Involvement – All actions happen in the background without human input.

• Budget Flexibility – Ad spends, email volume, and event invites can all be capped or scaled to fit your available marketing budget.

• Smart Warming – These leads may not convert today—but when they do engage, your system auto-adjusts their score and escalates the next touch point.

(Tools to Consider: HubSpot, Customer.io, Mailmodo for emails; LinkedIn Campaign Manager, Google Ads; Sendoso or PostGrid for automated direct mail.)

Medium-Touch Actions (Semi-Automated, Higher Engagement, Limited Scale)

Leads with moderate scores (e.g., 30–59) are starting to show intent—but not quite ready for full-blown sales attention. This is where you begin to invest more strategically. These actions are semi-automated, take a bit more setup, and aren’t easily scalable—but they’re less noisy than low-touch tactics and typically drive much stronger engagement.

Common Medium-Touch Tactics

1. LinkedIn Connection Requests – Personalized or AI-assisted invites that reference mutual connections, company news, or job roles.

2. Automated LinkedIn DMs – Follow-ups sent after connection, lightly tailored and including trackable links with UTM tags to reinforce your scoring models.

3. Virtual Roundtable Invites – Exclusive, topic-focused discussions that spark interaction and position your brand as a peer among peers.

4. Track LinkedIn Activity – Use AI to surface relevant posts to your Slack channel, giving your team deep context to slide into DMs and get that meeting.

Why It’s Effective

• Higher Signal, Less Noise – More thoughtful than low-touch outreach, without demanding full sales effort.

• Smart Use of Bandwidth – Keeps human effort minimal while still driving qualified engagement.

• Contextual Entry Points – LinkedIn posts give you the insight needed to reach out meaningfully, not randomly.

(Tools to Consider: Expandi or PhantomBuster for LinkedIn; Slack + GPT integrations for post tracking; Zoom or Butter for roundtables.)

High-Touch Actions (High Spend, High Stakes, Human-Led)

Leads with high scores (e.g., 60+) are your prime real estate—they’ve shown clear, repeated signals of buying intent. Maybe they’ve visited your pricing page multiple times, engaged with deep-funnel content, or interacted across multiple channels. This is where you go all-in: nearly 100% of your human bandwidth and per-lead spend is concentrated here to maximize conversion odds.

Common High-Touch Tactics

1. LinkedIn Audio Notes – Personalized voice messages that feel warm and human—perfect for breaking through digital noise.

2. Handcrafted DMs or Emails – Deeply researched, tailored messages based on the lead’s company, role, previous engagement, and intent signals. This is about showing up with something so relevant, it couldn’t have been written for anyone else.

3. Cold Call or Personalized Video – Direct, high-effort outreach like a phone call or a custom video walkthrough of how your solution solves their exact problem.

4. CEO Outreach or VIP Event Invitations – Reserved for senior decision-makers or enterprise accounts. A personal note from your CEO or a seat at a high-touch event can fast-track the relationship.

Why It’s Effective

• Premium Effort for Premium Leads – These prospects have earned your time and attention. Every touchpoint should reflect that.

• Conversion Catalyst – Personal, well-timed outreach can turn a hot lead into a closed deal—fast.

• No Guesswork – You’re engaging based on strong, validated signals—this is high-precision sales.

(Tools to Consider: Loom, Vidyard, or Tolstoy for personalized video; manual LinkedIn/email outreach; CRM notes to review historical engagement before reaching out.)

How to Implement Score-Driven Touch Points

1. Define Score Thresholds

   Decide how you’ll categorize low, medium, and high intent (e.g., 0–29, 30–59, 60+). Adjust based on your organization’s unique funnel metrics.

2. Automate Where You Can

   • Low-scoring leads automatically enter an email drip campaign.

   • LinkedIn connection requests are queued for your top 20 leads per day.

3. Sync with CRM & Dialers

   Integrate your scoring engine with the tools your reps use daily—no manual exporting or guesswork.

4. Assign Clear Responsibilities

   • Marketing typically manages low-touch and some medium-touch automation.

   • Sales invests time in high-touch outreach once the scoring indicates strong intent.

5. Monitor & Refine

   Watch open rates, response rates, and conversion metrics at each touch level. If you’re getting an influx of non-responsive leads at the high-touch stage, your thresholds might need adjusting.

Conclusion

Are you ready to stop blanket-spraying every lead and start matching your outreach to actual buying intent?

Book a Demo with Side Kick or download our “Score-Driven Touch Points Checklist” to see how a fully orchestrated ABM strategy can level up your pipeline—and let your team focus on high-value conversations instead of guesswork.