When company-wide revenue goals rely on marketing sourcing, nurturing, and sending sales qualified leads that can convert to revenue, it only makes sense that marketing plays a larger role in pipeline and revenue creation. So then, who’s the owner? The fact is, there’s no single owner - it’s a team sport. From marketing and sales to customer success, and sometimes even product, everyone has a part in driving pipeline and revenue. And as with all team sports, it’s important that each member understands the role they play in helping the team reach its goals.
Create a Unified Funnel
Creating a unified funnel is one of the first steps a team should take to ensure alignment and collaboration when it comes to pipeline and revenue creation. Curious what a unified funnel is? A unified funnel is a single funnel that spans all the way from the visitor stage through to the contract or customer stage. In other words, the unified funnel spans across all stages that marketing, sales, and customer success would be responsible for.
With a unified funnel, all team members are able to align and have visibility into the same data and insights. Marketing, SDRs, AEs and more are able to understand the state of the funnel in real-time, including how many leads, MQLs, SQLs, and opportunities are currently active.
Define Ownership
Once you have your unified funnel in place, you need to make sure there is a clear understanding as to which part of the funnel marketing, SDRs, AEs, and so on are responsible for. In fact, without a strong understanding of the role each member plays, leads and opportunities can drop off, causing leakage that may lead to missed pipeline and revenue targets.
The key to healthy pipeline and revenue creation is transparency across each team member at every stage of the funnel. In other words, it’s important for SDRs and AEs to understand the target accounts, messaging, and campaigns marketing is running to drive and nurture leads at the top of the funnel. Likewise, it’s important that the strategy and messaging SDRs use to move leads from MQLs to SQLs, and AEs use to take opportunities across the finish line are shared with marketing. This means it’s crucial to establish a proper hand-off process from marketing to SDRs, SDRs to AEs, and even AEs to CSMs so you’re not accidentally creating any duplicate work or mixed messaging, and are helping to ensure the best prospect and customer experience.
When all team members are aware and aligned with funnel and the role they play, they’re more likely to be focused on what matters, leading to stronger pipeline and revenue creation.
Continuously Measure, Analyze, and Optimize
Now that you have your unified funnel and have defined roles and ownership for each team member and stage of the funnel, you need to make sure you’re continuously measuring, analyzing, and optimizing your funnel data. Knowing the current state and health of your pipeline, drilled down by funnel stage, is a critical factor in pipeline and revenue creation.
Here are a few key areas to consider:
Conversions by Funnel Stage
- Take a close look at each stage of the funnel to learn what is converting forward at what speed, where there is leakage, and how you can fix it.
- Which regions, job titles, or industries are converting at the highest or fastest rate?
Funnel Sources
- Analyze each of your lead sources to get an understanding of your pipeline health, so you can prioritize or pivot your targeting, time, and budget where it will produce the best outcomes.
Pipeline and Funnel Trends
- Dig into your most effective marketing channels, audiences, and tactics
- so you can optimize your marketing campaigns to drive the right leads and opportunities.
Funnel Leakage
- Where is leakage occurring in the funnel and why? Find out why your MQLs are not converting to opportunities or why accounts are stuck at different stages of the funnel.
Once you have an understanding of your funnel data and best fit leads, taking into account conversion rates, velocity, region, job title, and industry, as well as your highest performing sources, channels, and any leakage that may be occurring, you can ensure that each member of the team knows how to put their best foot forward with their role in driving pipeline and revenue creation.
Gone are the days of marketing and sales being misaligned or at war with one other. It’s time to understand that marketing and sales are part of the same team, each with their own unique role when it comes to pipeline and revenue creation. Interested in learning more about revenue drivers? Be sure to watch our on-demand webinar, Revenue Drivers Debate: Who owns them, what levers can teams pull, who can push?
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