Not All Leads are Created Equal
What should be measured?
Over the last years, marketing metrics have become more complex and with good reason. The days of generating 3,000 MQL’s a quarter which could realistically not be of high quality nor followed up on properly are long past. Even though this has been acknowledged there is still a lot of discussion as to what data is needed and what needs to be measured. In my experience, focus is key to generating pipeline and revenue. Before looking at outcome metrics though, we need to define who it is that we are looking to target.
Ideal Customer Profile
According to Crunchbase an Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) is defined as “type of company that would benefit the most from your product or service.”(Source)
It is important to note that this is not to be confused with the buyer/ target persona.
The ICP should focus on the relevant characteristics of your target accounts (Source)
Industry/vertical
Number of Employees
company wide
within key departments
Annual revenue
Purchasing Budgets
Geography
Technology they use
Size of their customer base
Level of organizational or technological maturity
Additional requirements or pre-requisites qualifying them as a potential user
Propensity to Buy Model
Once the target accounts (and personas) are defined, it makes sense to ascertain the chances of them becoming a customer - otherwise known as the "Propensity to buy" and defined as: “...a value which represents how likely a customer is to purchase a particular product. Successful propensity to buy models give crucial insight into how to design and distribute marketing material as well as allocate sales staff time.” (Source)
What Now
Since we now know who we are targeting and their propensity to buy we can start looking at the metrics. You can use the following as a baseline: Leads Created, Leads Engaged, Account Engagement and Share of Voice. The diagram below illustrates what to measure. Add to the mix the persona and activity scoring and you should be headed in the right direction.
Scoring
The biggest request I’ve had from Sales Leaders is that when it comes to scoring, Champions receive the highest weighting. If we keep in mind that No Champion = No Deal, then this makes absolute sense. But the Champion is not the only target persona to be weighted and the target persona is not the only thing that counts. We need to take into account the type of activity undertaken. For example, a Champion who participates at an on-site roundtable for a period of 4 hours should receive a higher weighting than one who downloads an asset or registers for a webinar.
To summarize - Focus on your target audience and their likelihood to purchase, measure lead conversion and engagement as well as soft leads and add weighting.