How to Engineer a High-Performing Pipeline

Transcription

1 SMART MARKETING for ENGINEERS How to Engineer a High-Performing Pipeline

2 2 How to Engineer a High-Performing Pipeline Table of Contents Ineffectiveness Gives Marketing a Bad Rap... 3 Step 1. Identify and Define Lead Lifecycle Stages...4 Step 2: Identify and Agree on Opportunity Stages...5 Step 3: Create Prospect Rating Criteria...6 Step 4: Develop Pipeline Conversion Model...7 Step 5: Document the Lead Management Process...8 Step 6: Break Down and Improve Sales Prospecting...9 Step 7: Break Down and Improve Sales Outreach Step 8: Develop Your Buyer Personas and Content Plan Together Step 9: Onboarding an Integrated Customer Relationship Management (CRM) System Step 10: Sales and Marketing Alignment Smart Pipeline Management Strategy for Engineers Questionnaire:... 16

3 3 How to Engineer a High-Performing Pipeline Ineffectiveness Gives Marketing a Bad Rap Buyer behavior in technical fields has drastically changed. Industry research, including findings from TREW surveys of engineers globally, has shown engineers are conducting research and evaluating vendors online, delaying their engagement with sales until they are well down the path in their buying process. This shift presents an enormous challenge to companies whose marketing and sales teams are not working together as a team within a clear, defined framework. Talented salespeople are highly valuable resources for your company, and you want to ensure that every hour they spend is applied in the most impactful way possible. A strong pipeline management strategy sets your sales people up to consistently sell more effectively. The foundation of smart pipeline management is to successfully engage the buyer during each stage of their buying journey, a process that begins with their first interaction with your company well before sales enters the picture. This is why sales and marketing alignment and teamwork are critical. Together they can craft messaging, content and a methodology for communication that meets the prospect where they are Nearly 60% of the engineer s buyer journey from early research to the final purchase decision occurs online before they speak directly to the company. Source: 2017 Smart Marketing for Engineers Global Research Report, IEEE GlobalSpec and TREW Marketing To get the full report, including data broken out by respondent age and region, go to bit.ly/2liook4 in their process in a helpful manner all while avoiding overlaps and gaps. Supporting technology provides critical buyer behavior information, manages handoffs and tasks, provides shortcuts for repetitive tasks, and supports shared KPIs. In the following Smart Pipeline Management Strategy for Engineers white paper, you will learn key steps to shorten your sales cycle, scale your sales organization, improve sales/marketing teamwork, and increase sales ROI at your technical company. This white paper is based on the full-day Smart Pipeline Management for Engineers Workshop that TREW leads for clients leadership, sales and marketing teams. Organizations with strong marketing and sales alignment increase organization-wide quota attainment at a 97% higher rate, year-over-year. Source: Foster Marketing and Sales Alignment, or Forget About Hitting Your Goals, Aberdeen Group

4 4 How to Engineer a High-Performing Pipeline Step 1. Identify and Define Lead Lifecycle Stages Lifecycle stages indicate the progress your contact has made through your marketing and sales funnel. These stages are used to trigger actions, and measure progress and ROI of marketing and sales efforts. Typical lifecycle stages include the following: Lifecycle Stage Visits Contacts Leads Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL) Definition Website Traffic Net new names and contact information New/returning contacts from a marketing activity where information is captured A lead that is more likely to become a customer, based on intelligence (best practice: Lead Scoring) Sales Qualified Lead (SQL) Opportunity Customer Sales accepted, pursuing Contacts who have become a tangible sales opportunity Paying customer Typical Lifecycle Stages and Definitions Each company is different, so these may not be the exact stages for your team. Sales and marketing should work together to agree on the stages and define what they are. For example, the definition of a lead stage may be new/returning contacts from a marketing activity where information is captured or the definition of an SQL may be sales accepted. Be cautious about adding too many lifecycle stages as this will become unwieldy when setting and tracking KPIs. With most CRMs, you can set more granular task-based stages based on role to guide lead outreach status and trigger alerts.

5 5 How to Engineer a High-Performing Pipeline Step 2: Identify and Agree on Opportunity Stages Opportunity stages allow you to categorize and track the progress of the specific deals that you are working. Each stage has a probability associated that indicates the likelihood of closing deals, which may be used for forecasting and prioritization purposes. Typical opportunity stages include: Stage Probability to Close Opportunity 10% Discovery/RFQ 10% Demonstrated Value 30% Quote Presented 50% Business Buy-In 80% Closed - Won 100% Closed Lost 0% On Hold 10% Typical Opportunity/Deal Stages with Example Close Probability As with lead lifecycle stages, each company is different, so these may not be the exact opportunity stages for your team. Work together to agree on the stage definitions as well as the probability to close.

6 6 How to Engineer a High-Performing Pipeline Step 3: Create Prospect Rating Criteria A Prospect Rating Criteria tool is useful during the qualifying stage of the sales process. Sales should seek answers both in preliminary research and during the first connect call in order to quickly assess potential fit. For example, at TREW, our prospect rating criteria include industry, persona, and annual revenue. To do this, identify the top attributes of a qualified lead and determine a simple scoring methodology. At TREW, we simply give a prospect a 1 or a 0 for each criteria: if they meet the criteria, they get a 1; if they don t, they get a 0. We have 19 criteria we use in our prospect-rating tool, so if a company is a perfect match, they would have a score of 19. You could also consider weighting certain criteria more than others in your scoring model. Once the scoring is in place, then to determine if a prospect is, for example, a Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL), sales and marketing have to agree on what score and/or what mix of criteria must be met for a lead to become an MQL. You follow this scoring step for each of your lifecycle stages (ie, lead, MQL, SQL, etc). Once this is determined, you can then build this into your marketing automation system, such as HubSpot, so leads are automatically promoted through lifecycle stages based on your agreed-upon rating criteria. Prospect Attributes Score: 0-1 Budget meets company model 1 In target industry 1 Has clear timing 0 Positive persona 1 Company (revenue) size meets target 0 Likely to be repeat customer 1 Interested in core products/services 1 Leadership invested in buying process 1 Total 6 Example Prospect Rating Criteria Table

7 7 How to Engineer a High-Performing Pipeline Step 4: Develop Pipeline Conversion Model By creating a pipeline conversion model, you can more accurately predict how many leads you will need to support your revenue goals. Tracking this model will also help you trouble-shoot lead conversion issues. Work backwards using your company s historical conversion rates for each stage to ascertain target numbers. For instance, answer questions such as the following: What is your revenue quota? What is your total number of required deals to hit your revenue target? What is your average sales cycle? What is your average sales price (ASP)? What is your conversion from opportunity to closed-won? Stage Conversion Target Visit:Lead 1.5% Lead:MQL 20% MQL:SQL 30% SQL:Opportunity 40% Opportunity:Proposal 70% Proposal:Closed Won 50% ASP (average sales price) $100,000 Keep going up the funnel, documenting conversion rates all the way to traffic:lead, until you ve completed your funnel. When you first do this, you may have gaps in your data. That is normal. It s best to make an educated guess, put in place the mechanisms to track it, and then make tweaks to improve the accuracy of your conversion model over time. Don t wait to do this until you have every single number perfectly tracked start from where you are, and build it out over time. Number of deals required 25 Average sales cycle 90 days Recommended Pipeline Metrics to Track in Your Pipeline Conversion Model

8 8 How to Engineer a High-Performing Pipeline Step 5: Document the Lead Management Process It is critical to have a documented process for how a lead flows from marketing to sales. This process puts your lead lifecycle and opportunity stage definitions into action. Start by creating a flowchart of how leads flow from marketing > sales > closure. Identify each stage and who is responsible. Keep these questions in mind as you complete this exercise: Is it clear who is responsible for leads? What is the process for lead prioritization/fast tracking? How do you re-engage aged leads? Here is a high-level example of what a final lead flow process may look like: Example Lead Flow Process Once you ve created a flowchart of how leads flow and stage owners, assign Service Level Agreements (SLAs) to each handoff. Keep these questions in mind as you complete this exercise: How quickly should outbound leads (e.g., from trade shows) be entered, assigned to sales, and followedup on? How quickly should leads be first contacted by sales based on source (e.g., contact us form, phone call, etc)? When leads are demoted, is it clear what/when actions should be taken and by whom?

9 9 How to Engineer a High-Performing Pipeline Step 6: Break Down and Improve Sales Prospecting It is not realistic for sales to rely solely on farming i.e., waiting for marketing to serve up enough volume of qualified leads to sort through in order to meet your conversion goals. Prospecting, or hunting, is a key sales function, but it can also be quite time consuming. The good news is that there are many forums and tools to hunt efficiently. Start by taking a look back at lead source. What percentage of sourced leads come from sales hunting as opposed to referrals and marketing activities? Particularly if you have a lead gap, set a quota for the volume of leads you expect sales to generate. Next, brainstorm existing and new methods for sales prospecting. Here are a few we recommend including in your mix: Industry events: presenting, walking the expo floor, networking functions LinkedIn: profiling, sharing, InMail Company website: chat moderation or chat bots Existing customers: Ask for referrals into other divisions or other companies Ecosystem partner collaboration and lead sharing Company database: Mine for overlooked or aged leads with new signs of interest

10 10 How to Engineer a High-Performing Pipeline Step 7: Break Down and Improve Sales Outreach In this step, identify the top ways sales is conducting outreach today and assess the effectiveness and efficiency of these efforts. Start by documenting the current method and cadence used for an individual s sales outreach series. Keep these questions in mind as you complete this step: How will phone, , online chat, and other communication tools be utilized? How many attempts will be made before a lead is closed out? How much time will pass between each attempt? What tools and technology are used/could be used within the series? What is your past success rate (analyzed by each of these factors)? When TREW s Pipeline Specialists analyze sales outreach performance for our clients, there are a few common issues that bubble up. These center upon technology (manual steps where technology can be applied to save time), quality of communication (poor content, lack of scripting leading to knowledge gaps), and tenacity (salesperson giving up a bit too soon in the outreach process). With data in hand, you are prepared to tackle revamping your lead outreach process.

11 11 How to Engineer a High-Performing Pipeline Step 8: Develop Your Buyer Personas and Content Plan Together Personas are fictional representations of your target customers based on insights gathered from your actual customer base. Sales can use these to efficiently personalize their approach, messages, even pricing where appropriate. Example Persona Definition Each persona has unique challenges and pressures driving them to seek your solution. In a sales engagement, you have the opportunity to customize your communication to address this in a much more personal manner. Start by walking through one of your persona s major challenges or needs, and map key messages/benefits. Once you ve done this, then identify topics and/or key pieces of content to address each stage in the persona s buyer s journey, such as at the awareness stage in early research or during the consideration phase when requirements have been narrowed down. B2P or business-topeople marketing...it s not companies [but people] that buy things...suppliers have to understand those people today far better and get in front of them far earlier than ever before with content... that...specifically speaks to each of their unique needs and priorities... More advanced marketing teams [are] building ever more accurate customer personas... and building more targeted content...at each stage of the purchase journey. The Challenger Customer by Brent Adamson, et al. Finally, list top existing sales assets, and a wish list for the future.

12 12 How to Engineer a High-Performing Pipeline These assets may include recorded demos, ROI calculators, templates, presentations, competitive research, comparison tables, and more. Through these collaborative discussions, marketing has a rich list of content ideas to serve the needs of both the buyer and the salesperson. Want to learn more about developing personas? CLICK HERE to download our ebook: Smart Marketing for Engineers: Build Your Foundation Loosening Status Quo & Committing to Change Exploring Possible Solutions Committing to Solution Decision Maker/ Securing Approval SUD5/Open Forum workshops and user group meetings Joint webinars with Open Forum/SUD5 Hubforum opensource scripts and blogging about them Pre-built presentations with typical questions and proof points Search Terms: open source design analysis; open source free computation; free computation generator Case studies, white papers Evaluations Short-term licensing option Cost benefit analysis: Commercial DA vs. Open Source/ Build vs. Buy ROI calculator Web Page Hub for all related content: quotes, links to additional resources Tutorial Videos (to demonstrate support and training); share training schedule Why design analysis tools aren t free blog Guest blog post from open foam/sud5 DA Computation online

13 13 How to Engineer a High-Performing Pipeline Step 9: Onboarding an Integrated Customer Relationship Management (CRM) System Your CRM serves as the central repository for every contact that interacts with your company. When implemented with integrated sales and marketing technology, CRMs become a highly valuable asset for both teams. The word integrated is important the power of the CRM comes from marketing and sales sharing information to better understand their prospects and measure the ROI of their activities. If you are a small- to medium-sized business, we recommend evaluating the HubSpot platform as they are uniquely focused in serving this market with powerful, intuitive tools. When sales and marketing technology is integrated, such as the image above with HubSpot Sales and HubSpot Marketing, CRMs become a highly valuable asset for both teams.

14 14 How to Engineer a High-Performing Pipeline Here are some of the features we find tremendously valuable in HubSpot: HubSpot Feature Timeline Notifications Workflows Calendar Reporting Content development Content Management System (CMS) Benefit/What it Does See what actions your contacts have taken Know when the timing is right to reach out Automate prospect s and internal actions Allow contacts to schedule sales rep meetings Track leads from first engagement to closed:won Create and execute content clustering Manage your website with a simple inline editor Use the calendar feature in HubSpot to streamline meeting scheduling. For a comprehensive overview of marketing automation, how it differs from and integrates with CRM software, read chapter 11 of TREW CEO, Rebecca Geier s book, Smart Marketing for Engineers: An Inbound Marketing Guide to Reaching Technical Audiences

15 15 How to Engineer a High-Performing Pipeline Step 10: Sales and Marketing Alignment In its purest form, marketing generates demand and sales fulfills it. The buyer, meanwhile, has numerous interactions with your company along their journey, and they expect to have a consistent experience from their first interaction to final purchase. With each interaction you have the opportunity to build trust and preference, or cause confusion and doubt. This is one of many reasons why sales and marketing alignment is so critical. Sales and marketing synergy is not easy to achieve, since both departments often have different goals, strategies, metrics, and motivators. High performing teams come from a shared perspective of the buyer first, and combine their diverse strengths to achieve shared goals. What are the strengths of your individual sales and marketing team members, and how can they be better put to work? Here are some examples: Sales is closest to the customer = give input to crafting value proposition Sales focuses on lead quality in real-time = provide feedback to reinforce or improve marketing ROI Marketing has excellent writing skills = provide sales with templates and presentation material Marketing has levers to increase lead flow = raise the alert when the pipeline is getting thin To work toward alignment, start with agreeing on things such as: KPIs both teams can share Top ways marketing can help sales Top ways sales can help marketing Sync-up meetings (how often, key topics, who leads the meeting, etc.)

16 16 How to Engineer a High-Performing Pipeline Pipeline Management Strategy Assessment Now that we ve walked through the basics of creating a Smart Pipeline Management Strategy, it is time to get started. To help you identify where you ll need the most work, use the following questionnaire to identify strengths and gaps. Smart Pipeline Management Strategy for Engineers Questionnaire: Do we have clear definitions for lead and opportunity stages across sales and marketing? Are these useful and easy to report on? Have we mapped out our lead flow, from origination through closure? Who owns leads at which stage? How are leads handed off from one stage to the next? Do we have service level agreements (SLAs) in place for each lead handoff? Have we defined audience personas, and mapped content topics along their buyers journey? Does sales have the right content assets to make an impact when engaging with prospects? (e.g. presentation deck, templates, ROI calculator, customer case studies, etc.) Do we have a CRM system in place, and if so, is it adding value or creating busy work for sales? Do we have the ability for sales to easily see what actions a prospect has taken with our company so they can have a contextual conversation with prospects? (e.g. web pages visits, s opened, past opportunities, etc.) Do we have a formal process for sales and marketing to regularly share progress and feedback? Do marketing and sales have shared KPIs related to pipeline health? Let Us Help You Get Started Did you find yourself with considerably more gaps than strengths? If so, TREW Marketing s Smart Pipeline for Engineers Workshop may be the best next step to drive alignment with your internal teams. During this workshop, we take a multi-faceted approach to build your pipeline management strategy, including processes, content, tools, and teamwork. Key participants typically include company, sales, and marketing leadership. Depending upon the company size, inside and field sales may also be included. For more information or to discuss your specific needs, info@trewmarketing.com to request a meeting with a TREW workshop instructor about the workshop curriculum and expected outcomes.

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