WINNING PLAYBOOKS for Revenue Funnel Success

Transcription

1 WINNING PLAYBOOKS for Revenue Funnel Success

2 INTRODUCTION Hut, Hut, Hike! Take Revenue to the End Zone with Data-Designed Actions Marketing and sales teams have to be ready to call the right plays at every stage of the revenue funnel. Just like football teams, companies need to create playbooks, or a series of actions driven by data, that make certain each potential customer receives the right touch at the right time. This ebook will help companies prepare at every line of scrimmage in the revenue funnel, moving prospects from the top of the funnel to the bottom, allowing as many as possible to reach the end zone. Table of Contents I. Secret Sauce for Getting More From Your Funnel II. Playbook Huddle III. Measuring Playbook Performance & Results IV. Review Results & Iterate Processes 2

3 I. Secret Sauce for Getting More From Your Funnel A playbook is the key to a football team s success or failure. It is highly-protected in order to keep next week s competitor in the dark. In the world of marketing and sales, the playbook is the secret sauce for getting more from your revenue funnel. Four Playbooks for Every Area of Funnel Playbooks provide specific actions that are proven to help get more revenue out the marketing and sales funnel. Those actions should be designed using past performance data, which create predictable results for each stage of the funnel. Here are playbook summaries for the top, middle and bottom of the funnel, as well as for customer success teams who you might not think of being on the active roster but should. Customers must continue to see the value after the sale, or they won t be customers for long. At the top of the funnel, Marketing Playbooks identify which actions are proven to generate quality leads that are more likely to convert forward in the funnel to become customers. Hand-Off Playbooks, in the middle of the funnel, answer what actions the sales development reps (SDRs) or salespeople must take to confirm each lead s viability, as well as which actions the company should continue to invest time and resources in order to create more opportunities. How to Determine Proven Actions? Effective playbooks must be based on past successes. This requires analyzing historic CRM and marketing automation data from the past to benchmark funnel performance. Marketing and sales professionals are able to identify below and above-average performance through benchmarking. Examining this past data allows them to create the right plays for each stage. Sales Playbooks address the opportunity stages at the bottom of the funnel. These actions address what steps are proven to close deals and what actions are needed in each of the opportunity stages leading up to closed won. Customer Success Playbooks address how the customer success team can retain, upsell and reduce client churn rate. Benchmarking Report Request a complimentary Benchmark Funnel Report that compares your data against FunnelWise research, to determine how your company stacks up and to discover where you are leaving money in the funnel. BENCH YOUR DATA! 3

4 II. Playbook Huddle Just as a football team huddles before each play, let's dive deeper and review examples of actions that marketing, SDR teams, salespeople and customer success teams can use in their playbooks. Marketing Playbooks These playbooks address actions that marketing can take at the top of the funnel, often within the Known and Engaged stages. Marketing would determine which past efforts led to qualifying leads that eventually became closed-won deals. Below are examples of data, proposed playbook actions and expected results. Campaign Membership If marketing measures campaign membership, past performance can give insight on how ready leads were before being passed to sales based on the number of campaigns the leads joined. In the chart to the right, this company's data analysis indicates that the more campaigns a record is added to increases the likelihood of it becoming an MQL. CAMPAIGN MEMBERSHIP PLAYBOOK 55% of records have responded to 1 campaign 25% of records have responded to 2-3 campaigns Actions Add records to 4 campaigns Add records to 3 campaigns Expected Results 20x increase in conversions 13.x increase in conversions PROBABILITY FOR BECOMING AN MQL 60% 40% 11% 3% No. of Campaigns 4

5 Event Leads Knowing exactly what actions to take after events or tradeshows (which are often a major budget item) can help marketing validate and improve its ROI on events. The charts indicate that the time to first activity completed post-event and the number of activities completed within 21 days can affect the probability of the record converting. EVENT PLAYBOOK 75% of tradeshow leads are contacted 5 days post-event 50% receive 1-2 activities within 21 days Actions Contact tradeshow leads within 24 hours post-event Complete a total of 6+ activities within 21 days Expected Results 8x increase in conversions 3.5x increase in conversions 40% PROBABILITY FOR CONVERTING BASED ON TIME TO FIRST ACTIVITY 30% 20% 5% 24 Hours 1-2 Day 3-4 Days 5+ Days Time to First Activity Post-Event PROBABILITY FOR CONVERTING BASED ON NO. OF ACTIVITIES WITHIN 21 DAYS 12% 14% 9% 4% No. of Followup Activities with 21 days PRO-TIP If a company is using a marketing automation platform (MAP) and/or CRM, they can leverage automation rules to create follow-up tasks or alerts for SDR and sales teams to streamline communication and increase accountability. Using the tradeshow example above, a marketing team would import the records acquired from the tradeshow into their MAP and automatically create tasks or alerts in the CRM for sales to reach out to the leads within three days 24 hours after the event. 5

6 Hand-Off Playbooks DEMO REQUEST PROBABILITY FOR CONVERTING These playbooks are for the most critical stage, where marketing hands qualified leads off to SDRs and/or sales teams. This stage requires a high level of communication that can be automated, but both teams must provide continual feedback to create and improve upon the actions. 60% 40% SDRs or sales reps may already have service-level agreements (SLAs) that they are instructed to follow based on lead source or how the leads qualified. Some may follow the SLAs, while others might disregard them and do what has been proven to work for them individually. Knowing what they should do versus discovering which actions are most successful is why Hand-Off Playbooks are invaluable. Topperforming actions are discovered and can be included in the playbook to follow. Demo Requests Leads who complete a demo request form are much warmer than leads who qualify through other activities. In the charts the right, data analysis reveals that following up within 24 hours and completing a certain number of activities can dramatically increase the odds of the record converting to an opportunity stage. PRO-TIP SDRs and sales reps are often required to complete activities on records within a certain timeframe. The Hand-Off and Sales Playbook actions often address these aspects based on data segment performance: What: Number of activities When: Frequency/timeframe Who: Specific types of records 10% 3% 24 Hours 2 Days 3 Days 4+ Days Time to First Activity DEMO REQUEST PROBABILITY FOR CONVERTING 2% 4% 9% 12% No. of Followup Activities Within 30 Days REQUEST DEMO PLAYBOOK 50% of records are contacted within 3 days 45% of records have less 4 activities completed within 30 days Actions Complete initial activity within 24 hours Complete a total of 7+ activities within 30 days Expected Results 6x increase in conversions 3x increase in conversions 6

7 Title Keywords In this next examples, data on "request for demo" leads can also be improved by factoring in title with certain keywords. So in addition to completing the initial activity within 24 hours and completing a total of 7 activities within 30 days, SDRs could also improve conversions by tarting titles with certain keywords. Data analysis suggests that scheduling an initial meeting is more likely to occur with records with lower level titles; however, the win rate increases if the title is a manager level or above. PROBABILITY FOR WIN RATE INCREASES WITH THESE KEYWORDS IN THE TITLE 6.5% 7% 2% 3% Entry Level Mid Level Manager Level Executive Level or Above TITLE KEYWORDS PLAYBOOK 20% of leads are entry level titles Action Schedule meetings with manager level titles or above Expected Results 3.25x increase in win rates 7

8 Sales Playbooks These playbooks focus on the opportunity stages of the funnel, which can vary for each organization and even by product/ service type, account size (SMB vs. Enterprise) or region. Much like SDRs, some sales reps may not be following processes. The reps with more experience may just know what works and ignore SLAs. Having data-designed playbooks allow sales managers to determine the most effective actions by top-performers and scale that success to the under-performers. Opportunities Overall Data analysis demonstrates that overall number of activities completed with an opportunity, as well as the number of contacts associated with the opportunity, increases its odds of advancing to the next stage as well as the odds for winning the opportunity. TOTAL NO. OF SALES ACTIVITIES ON EACH OPPORTUNITY OVERALL 35% 13% 23% 8% 4% 2% 1 to Probability of Advancing Probability of Closed Won NO. OF CONTACTS ON EACH OPPORTUNITY 42% 30% 33% 24% 15% 8% 1 Contact 2 Contacts 3+ Contacts Probability of Advancing Probability of Closed Won OPPORTUNITIES OVERALL PLAYBOOK 65% of records have less than 9 activities 75% of records have only 1 contact Actions Complete 17+ activities throughout all opportunity stages Identify and work at least 3+ contacts on every opportunity Expected Results 8.75x increase in advancing 11.5x increase in win rate 2.8x increase in advancing 4.1x increase in win rate 8

9 Contact in Pursuit Stage Playbook In this example, data analysis indicates that the more contacts a sales rep is working on an opportunity in the Pursuit stage, the better the odds of it converting. It increases even more if one of the contacts is an executive-level decision-maker. PROBABILITY OF CONVERTING IN PURSUIT STAGE 30% 35% 22% 24% 8% 10% 2 Contact 3 Contacts 4+ Contacts No. of Contacts One is Executive-Level Decision-maker CONTACTS IN PURSUIT STAGE PLAYBOOK 40% of opportunities in this stage have 2 or less contacts 35% of opportunities in this stage have an executive-level decision-maker identified Actions Identify and work 4+ contacts/opportunity Identify at least one executive-level decision-maker/opportunity Expected Results 3.75x increase in conversions 3.5x increase in conversions 9

10 Customer Success Playbooks Once the contract is signed, the customer success team is responsible for retaining clients and keeping the churn to a minimum. Some companies track retention clients in the revenue funnel just like they track brand new leads and opportunities. Having the customer success team track activities and meetings with clients can also provide insight into what activities (and the number of activities) are taking place for the most successful and longstanding clients. Having a playbook for the customer success team makes certain customer success team members plan, complete and track activities to assist the clients and ensure their product or service remains valuable and provides a return on investment for them. Client Activities Data analysis on existing customers who have continued to renew services uncovers that the customer success managers who complete five activities/month and hold one quarterly meeting with an executive-level decision-maker achieve higher renewals. PROBABILITY OF RENEWALS 34% 40% 25% 5% 10% 15% No. of Monthly Meetings 0 1+ No. of Quarterly Meetings CLIENT PLAYBOOK 35% of customers have 3 or less activities/month 25% of customers have quarterly meetings with an executive-level decision-maker Actions Complete 5+ activities/month with contacts Hold quarterly reviews with an executive-level decision-maker Expected Results 3.4x increase in renewals 2.6x increase in renewals 10

11 III. Measuring Playbook Performance & Results Once playbooks have been created for the stages or areas of the funnel, it is time to measure performance to make sure marketing, sales and customer success teams are winning deals and keeping new clients week after week, month after month and year after year. Tracking Playbooks Depending on your company s technology stack, you may have a funnel reporting tool that tracks key funnel metrics, such as conversions, net new movement and velocity. Ideally, it also tracks activities. FunnelWise provides these features, as well as Playbook functionality that allows marketing and sales managers to create and track against the playbooks developed for their respective stages. High Level Within FunnelWise, executives and managers can view any data segment, such as lead source, product line, region, sales reps or SDRs, and determine at each stage if playbooks are being followed. In the example to the right, this company is viewing playbook compliance by region and can see which stages are following the playbooks in green and which are not in blue. This provides a high level view into if playbooks are being followed and which stages are the worst offenders. The Playbook functionality in FunnelWise allows clients to view by data segments by stage and quickly view which ones are following the playbooks. In the example above, it shows which records are compliant for the East and West regions. Diving Deeper Next, companies can drill down into the data segments and determine where required playbook actions are occurring and where they are not. In FunnelWise, teams can create more than one playbook for funnel stages. Managers can easily see how many records are following the playbooks and the ones that are not. They can also view their contribution to pipeline and revenue. This allows managers to help their team members before leads and opportunities slip out of the funnel. Managers or sales reps can also view more than one playbook for a specific stage and determine the status of various records. 11

12 IV. Review Results & Iterate Processes Just as football teams review game tape, marketing and sales teams need to analyze their performance after implementing new playbooks. Once your company creates and tracks the plays, you need to review the plays and ask, Did the playbooks work and where can we improve? Marketing and sales teams can continually raise the bar when they use data-designed playbooks, then check and adjust their actions as needed. Small, incremental improvements will always uncover the actions that drive big revenue results. PLAYBOOKS IN ACTION Interested in how your marketing automation and CRM data can help you design playbooks to get more out of your marketing and sales funnel? SEE PLAYBOOKS IN ACTION 2017 FunnelWise. All Rights Reserved. Patent Pending FunnelWise is a registered trademark of 100INSIGHTS, Inc. dba FunnelWise