Blueprint Patterns. Revenue Funnel CHEATSHEET: DEFINING YOUR SWIM LANES. What is a Revenue Funnel Blueprint Pattern?

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1 Revenue Funnel Blueprint Patterns CHEATSHEET: DEFINING YOUR SWIM LANES A REVENUE FUNNEL is designed to save you from RANDOM ACTS of marketing and FLY BY THE SEAT of your pants sales. What is a Revenue Funnel Blueprint Pattern? For competitive swimmers, staying in their lane is rule number one. The key to winning is moving in a linear, forward motion and doing it faster than the rest. It would be nice if all potential buyers naturally stayed in their lanes as well. In order to create successful "swim lanes" to revenue, organizations can design and follow revenue funnel blueprint patterns. Definition of a Revenue Funnel Before diving into funnel patterns, it's relevant to define the revenue funnel. It is the business process that your organization uses to generate, transition and nurture prospects from marketing through sales on the journey to becoming a customer. Using a blueprint pattern to define that process allows marketing and sales teams to replicate past successes. As they evolve into experts, they can fine-tune the pattern based on issues or challenges that occur in the buyer s journey. Importance of Having a Pattern This cheatsheet will address how companies can understand funnel blueprint patterns that map out the various ways potential buyers move through the revenue funnel (forward, backward, skip ahead or fall out). It also identifies three common patterns and provides best practices for managing and refining them as companies grow and evolve. funnelwise.com info@funnelwise.com

2 s & Swim Lanes of the Funnel Blueprint Having a funnel blueprint is critical to keep potential buyers moving forward successfully in the revenue funnel. The blueprint defines the various stages a potential buyer takes and should also specify which department owns the stage, or in other words, whose swim lane that stage falls in. s are commonly owned or shared by marketing, sales and a customer success team. Below are common stages and swim lanes that most businesses use. However, stages and their names can vary from business to business. KNOWN A prospect becomes known to a company. ENGAGED A prospect engages with the company (downloads content, signs up for or any activity specific to that business). & QUALIFIED A prospect shows or expresses interest in learning more and meets the qualification criteria of the company. OPPORTUNITY A prospect is accepted by sales and a value is applied to a future sale. & Customer Success CLOSED WON A prospect signs a contract and becomes a customer. Customer Success RETENTION A customer continues to be educated and ideally becomes an advocate for the company s product or service. 2

3 VISITS WEBSITE DOWNLOADS EBOOK CLICKS ON AN AD Why a Funnel Blueprint is Critical Seamless Handoff Having a blueprint in place ensures the right activities occur at the right time based on the possible patterns prospects take. When both marketing and sales define and agree upon the blueprint, it helps ensure more prospects make it through the revenue funnel and become customers. For example, potential customers visit your website and download an ebook or other useful content. then sets up a process to reach out to the prospect in a variety of ways (such as s, social media posts or Google AdWords) to keep them aware of the company's product or service. The funnel pattern is directing marketing to keep this potential customer engaged. SALES OUTREACH QUALIFIES If prospects click on promoted posts or online ads, the funnel blueprint now qualifies them. The prospects are now in a stage owned by sales, who is now responsible for a more direct type of outreach, such as making calls or sending s since these prospects have shown a more active interest in the product or service. While this example is simple, if the proper activities are not taken by marketing and sales, potential customers could slip out of the funnel. The handoff between marketing activities (ad click-through rates, website visits, content downloads) to sales activities (direct s or phone calls) can be seamless when they work from the same funnel blueprint. OPPORTUNITY CREATED NEW CUSTOMER Blueprint is for People & Technology It s important to note that the funnel blueprint serves two purposes: It aligns people and it aligns technology around the revenue funnel process. The stage definitions are defined, agreed upon, documented and shared companywide. This must occur for a blueprint to be effective. Technical definitions must also be defined if a company uses a customer relationship management (CRM) tool and marketing automation platform (MAP). These definitions track the movement of prospects in both forms of software commonly used by sales and marketing, respectively. If a company also uses a funnel software, such as FunnelWise, the metrics from both the CRM and MAP tools are pulled into one platform. This allows marketing and sales to access, share and report on the same key revenue funnel metrics and track the movement of prospects. 3

4 Three Common Patterns While every company has its own unique revenue funnel, there are three common patterns that can describe the processes they might have in place. This section covers those common patterns and helps define the swim lanes for the teams who are responsible for those areas. 1. Only This is the simplest pattern to manage since there is no handoff stage. All prospects are generated and closed by a sales team. While it appears simple, it does require tracking activities and managing data. This pattern could include several stages, all owned by sales, based on the business processes. Qualification Working Proposal Finalization 2. + This pattern becomes more complex because a swim lane has been added. owns and is responsible for its stages, but now a handoff stage between marketing and sales exists and must be managed by the documented blueprint. Owned Qualified Nurture Ideally, the prospect flows through each stage in a linear fashion, but that is far from reality. Prospects may skip a stage, move backward or fall out. Some even enter mid-funnel. and sales must be ready to address all movement and the pattern can help track that movement for them. At the handoff stage, marketing determines that a lead is qualified, and they are ready to hand the prospect over to sales. If sales agrees, they will accept that prospect and it converts into an opportunity. However, if they don t agree the prospect is qualified, the pattern must have this flexibility. Often marketing and sales agree to one of these three options: 1. Disqualified: The prospect will never be the right fit for the product or service being sold. 2. Nurture: The prospect may be qualified but is not ready to buy. However, they would like to continue to stay engaged. 3. Lost: The prospect completed the sales cycle and said, No. However, marketing may want to continue outreach for when prospects possibly return to review your solution. Funnel leakage is a common term to describe these options. It is critical for the pattern to track when and where prospects move out of the funnel. 4

5 3. + BDR + The last common pattern is one with three swim lanes. Tucked in between marketing and sales is the business or sales development reps, often known as BDR or SDR teams. This can complicate the buyer s journey because there are now two critical handoff stages. However, with a pattern in place, these teams can work together in a seamless fashion providing the right touch at the right time. Owned Qualified Nurture BDR Working BDR Meeting Scheduled More and more companies are adding a BDR team to help qualify and accept leads. They serve as the linchpin in the revenue funnel. Typically, they work closely with marketing to provide feedback on lead quality. BDR teams also work to determine the pain points and challenges prospects are having to assist sales in making sure the next steps address those aspects. Many companies use BDR teams to hold discovery calls, where they ask those qualifying questions and get to the problems that lead them to learn about the company s product or service in the first place. While adding this swim lane may make the process (and the pattern) more complex, successful BDR teams are focused on these handoff stages and can speed up the buyer s journey. Here are two common issues companies need to address when using this third type of funnel pattern: 1. Prospects getting lost or forgotten: No one clearly understands how, when or why certain activities should be occurring. This can happen between marketing and BDR or BDR and sales. 2. Feedback not provided: BDR and marketing teams do not discuss the quality of prospects and gain insight on which ones convert forward in the funnel. Or sales and BDRs teams do not discuss the type of information that is important to address pain points. Organization who have designed funnel patterns ensure processes are aligned and in place for when prospects move into handoff stages or take a non-linear path through the revenue funnel. 5

6 Pro-Tip: Example of Non-Linear Movement Known Engaged Qualified BDR Working Accepted Disqualified Nurture/ Recycle Lost Best Practices Once a company has defined its blueprint and designed its pattern, the next step is to manage it and here are some best practices to keep in mind: Refine + Repeat A funnel blueprint pattern is never perfect. Businesses evolve and grow and so must the pattern. It is important to make adjustments and when that happens, the changes must be documented and shared, as well as updated in the CRM and MAP criteria. Ideal vs. Current State As mentioned, prospects do not move in a linear pattern. They hop in mid-funnel, move backward, skip stages and, sadly, they leak out. The pattern must account for the current state, or reality, and allow sales, marketing and BDR teams to track this non-linear movement (see workflow above). Scalability As companies grow, they need to ensure their processes and tools have scalability. While the funnel blueprint can be created without having CRM or MAP tools, automating the efforts of marketing, BDR and sales teams can help companies create efficiencies. Beyond the Blueprint Pattern The Revenue Funnel Science Maturity Model outlines other incremental steps companies take when using this type of framework. Building a funnel blueprint pattern is one of those steps and ideally occurs when a company integrates CRM and MAP tools. Learn more about the Revenue Funnel Science Maturity Model to determine which step your organization is on and what steps to take next to create a streamlined buyer's journey. DOWNLOAD EBOOK funnelwise.com info@funnelwise.com