When putting together a strategic marketing plan, what’s your first step? Marketers often fall into one of two scenarios—either you’re digging into data, or you’re relying on guesswork and researched best practices. But as we all know, guesswork and so-called best practices won’t get you very far, especially during economic downturns where there is limited time, resources, and funding. It’s crucial to make sure you’re maximizing and optimizing what you do have, through a data-driven, conscientious approach. So without data, where do you really start?
Leverage full-funnel visibility to hit revenue targets
Limited data restricts your ability to know what’s working and what’s not. Which leads are converting and at what rate? What are your best performing channels and sources? Where are there bottlenecks or leakages occurring in the funnel?
You may have a good understanding of what’s happening at the top of the funnel with form fills and overall lead numbers, but do you have insight into what’s happening once those leads hit the MQL stage and beyond? Understanding what’s happening at every single touchpoint can help you make decisions and pivot your strategy in real-time, instead of waiting until the end of the quarter.
By having full-funnel visibility, you’re able to hone-in on the best performing lead channels and sources, and fix any bottlenecks or areas of leakage. With full-funnel visibility across teams, you can also unite on a single view of the business, and more accurately predict pipeline and revenue—multiple quarters out. Your time will be used more wisely in meetings when you’re aligned on funnel metrics, and no longer need to dig into or dissect the data that each person is bringing to the table.
Metrics to track at each stage of the funnel
Now that you understand the importance of having full-funnel visibility and how it can help you hit your revenue targets, what metrics should you be tracking at each stage of the funnel?
We all track the most common high-level metrics, like total leads and revenue, but what are the metrics that really matter and will help push things forward for your business? Leading indicators can often be more important to understand compared to lagging indicators. Your leading indicators will help you understand if you’re on track, or need to pivot, in order to hit your lagging revenue goal.
Conversion rates, at each stage of the funnel, are the most significant metric to understand when it comes to your funnel data. Dig into each incremental move through the funnel so you can identify your best-fit channels, sources, personas, bottlenecks, leakages and more.
Here are a few other metrics to consider tracking through the funnel:
Unique website visitors
Are you focused on your organic and paid search efforts? Your website is often the first touchpoint or experience a prospect has with your business. If your unique website visitors aren’t increasing each quarter, that’s a sign your leads, and future revenue are on a downswing
Raw leads
How many raw or net new leads are you generating? Based on average conversion rates, is this enough to hit your pipeline and revenue goals?
MQLs
Are your leads converting to the MQL stage? If your raw leads aren’t turning into MQLs, you need to understand why. Are they an ICP and persona fit? Where are they dropping off? Are certain channels performing better than others?
SALs
Is there a large gap between MQLs and SALs? If sales doesn’t deem your MQLs to be sales-ready, that’s an issue. Perhaps you need to rethink your lead scoring. Or maybe sales is finding certain personas aren’t as qualified or ready as others. Whatever the reason may be, this is a critical stage to understand, so you can maintain a level of trust with sales that the leads you are sending over are in fact qualified and ready for sales
Your pipeline shouldn’t be a source of concern. By ensuring you have full-funnel visibility across teams, and an understanding of the metrics you need to measure to hit your revenue targets, you’ll be able to accurately predict pipeline and pivot your strategy in real-time. Interested in diving deeper into conversations around revenue drivers? Make sure to watch our on-demand webinar, Revenue Drivers Debate: Who owns them, what levers can teams pull, who can push?
