1. The Rudder Group
Growth Strategies & Mentor Capital
12 Metrics Sales and Marketing Should
Track to Stay Accountable
Quantity Metrics
1) Reach: Reach is the total of a company's email
database, social media following, blog
subscribers -- anyone the company can reach
with content or marketing messages. This metric
is key because it measures the width at the very
top of the sales and marketing funnel.
2) Leads Generated: The most typical marketing
metric is leads, and it continues to be an
important metric. Once someone is a lead, you
have their contact information and can nurture them more effectively.
3) Revenue Pipeline: Revenue pipeline takes
the leads marketing generates and projects the
value of that lead based on lead close rates
and average revenue per sale. Revenue
pipeline is a surprisingly clarifying metric
because you can directly line up marketing's
efforts with sales' quota to make sure the
teams are aligned to reach the same end goal.
4) Revenue: The ultimate goal of the entire
sales and marketing team: revenue. Measure
this not only at the end of a quarter or month (whatever your sales cycle is) but also
throughout the month compared to your goal. That way you're not surprised on the last
day of the quarter that you haven't reached your goal.
Quality Metrics
5) Visit-to-Lead %: This metric is a measure of the effectiveness of the marketing team's
calls-to-action and offers. This metric reflects the quality of the marketing team's
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2. The Rudder Group
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content and can identify any issues at the very top of the funnel. It's also good to look at
conversion rate on offer landing pages, specifically, to understand if the problem is on
the initial CTA or the landing page.
6) Lead-to-Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL)
%: The lead-to-MQL percentage is a measure
of how effective marketing is at converting
leads beyond the stage of simply having
someone's contact information, to a stage of
qualification.
7) Leads Presented-to-Leads Worked %: The
percentage of leads worked by the sales team
is a great -- not to mention quick -- measure of
the initial quality of leads presented to your sales team. If a sales rep simply won't call or
email a lead given to them (a hot, inbound lead!) then something is wrong with the
quality of the lead, or the handoff/agreement between sales and marketing.
8) Leads Worked-to-Leads Connected %: The percentage of leads that sales is able to
connect with reflects how likely or willing a marketing-generated lead is to take the next
step to talk with sales, and/or reflects the effectiveness of the sales rep's follow up
approach.
9) MQL-to-Opportunity %: The percentage of MQLs that become opportunities is a
measure of the quality of MQLs specifically. If you see this metric going down, you may
need to reassess your criteria for a lead to be considered an MQL.
10) Opportunity-to-Customer %: Once a lead reaches the opportunity stage, it's largely
in the sales person's hands to bring it through the final stages of the sales funnel. The
Opportunity-to-Customer % is a measure of the quality of opportunities the sales team
is creating, and how effective they are at closing these opportunities.
11) Lead-to-Customer %: The final funnel metric, Lead-to-customer %, gives you one
number on the effectiveness of your sales and marketing funnel. This is a good, single
number to look at to understand how you're doing as a SMarketing team, while the
other metrics above can diagnose which stages need work.
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3. The Rudder Group
Growth Strategies & Mentor Capital
12) Average Deal Size: Since you're
concerned about revenue more than just
the number of customers, the average
revenue per customer account is a key
metric that can improve your company's
financials without changing any of the other
metrics.
Use Dashboards to Quickly Monitor These Metrics
Measuring all these metrics doesn't mean you have to sit and look at Excel all day, every
day. Using the analytics built into your marketing software and CRM system, you can
create standard reports and dashboards to automatically track all of your most
important SMarketing metrics. Plus, dashboards save you time -- you create the report
once and can stay up to date on all your metrics forever -- letting you skim all these
metrics to look for any issues as they pop up.
Here are some tips in creating your dashboard for ultimate SMarketing alignment:
• Create a shared dashboard that includes the key metrics for both teams. That
gives you one place for everyone to look for a high-level view of how you're
doing.
• Make the dashboard accessible to keep both teams accountable to their
metrics.
• Look at the metrics by short-term and long-term timeframes. Look at our
metrics by day (for the month) and by month (for the year). That gives you both
a detailed and high-level view at
the same time.
• Check the dashboard every
day. If these are your most
important metrics, you should
know how you're doing at all
times. Whether you manually
check your dashboard every day
or you have the dashboard
emailed to your inbox, make
sure you know your metrics.
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4. The Rudder Group
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How to Establish an SLA
The final piece in using metrics for better sales and marketing alignment is to establish a
service level agreement (SLA) between the two teams. This SLA defines what each team
commits to accomplishing in order to support the other. For example, an SLA may
determine that the marketing team will generate 100 inbound leads per sales rep, and
in turn, the sales team will work at least 90% of those leads and will pursue each lead at
least 5 times over a month before considering it unreachable.
To establish your own SMarketing SLA:
• Run an analysis on the close rates by type of lead (ebook vs. demo, Healthcare
segment vs. Technology segment).
• Determine the number of leads (or lead value, such as the revenue pipeline
metric mentioned above) needed per sales rep to reach his/her quota. This
becomes the Marketing SLA
• Define the number and frequency of attempts a sales rep must work the leads
generated for them. This becomes the Sales SLA.
• Include these metrics on the dashboard you look at daily.
Using data is a great way to bring sales and marketing together to align towards key
business goals and keep both teams accountable and successfully working together.
About The Rudder Group
The Rudder Groupis a Strategic Consulting Firm that provides growth strategies and
mentor capital to early and mid-stage technology companies, financial advisors, venture
capitalist, and private equity firms.
The Rudder Group team is a distinguished network of experienced partners with a
proven success record. We have founded companies; been responsible for growing
revenues; secured multiple rounds of financing; taken companies public; and, been on
both the buy and sell side of M&A activity.
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5. The Rudder Group
Growth Strategies & Mentor Capital
How We Help
The Rudder Group extends your management team by providing a strategic and tactical
approach to operational, business and executive related matters...
• Secure Capital & Work with VCs
• Develop New Routes to Market
• Globalize Solutions
• Accelerate Growth & Revenue Plan
• Implement Social Marketing Strategies
Marketing & Lead Generation Services
The best way to accelerate growth is to create a constant stream of demand and a
dynamic sales pipeline for your solution and services. The Rudder Group has an
extensive network of marketing professionals that are ready to advise you, create and
execute marketing plans, or step in as an interim Marketing Chief in times of transition
or start-up.
The Rudder Group assists technology clients with developing, implementing, and
achieving their go-to-market strategy. We assist on a project basis or on a specific
campaign. Some of the ways The Rudder Group can be of assistance are:
• Positioning, Branding and Messaging
• Integrated Marketing Plans
• Product Launch
• Product Marketing & Positioning
• Demand & Lead Generation Programs
• Social Media & Audience Development
• Website Development & Content Creation
• Trade Shows & Conferences
• Collateral & Sales Tool Development
• Webinars, Podcasts & Bloggers
• Public Relations
• Channel Development
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