Every marketing and sales organization needs a framework to define and align between their organizations. The hand-off between marketing and sales is fraught with ambiguity at most companies. Even the definition of what constitutes a ‘lead’ can elicit visceral reactions between teams.
At my most recent company, we have spent considerable time gaining better alignment between the organizations. Partnering is critical in this activity. The reality is that most companies should have a custom marketing and sales process depending upon their prospect purchasing process, product offering, and market dynamics. However, my search of the web did not yield (to my surprise) richer examples of marketing funnels that integrated the funnel steps, organization roles, points of measurement, and the internal company techniques to help move a prospect to the next step in the buying process. Our team has landed close to a model that I’ve summarized below.
In future blogs I hope to explain more about each individual component in this model. Please note, however, that I don’t recommend starting with this framework. Start first with an understanding of your customer’s buying process and then map the internal activities that help move the prospect down the funnel (and yes, I know some people hate the concept of a funnel and promote an hourglass to recognize cross- and reference-selling). Then figure out how those items fit together and how to measure performance at each step in the process. The framework summarized here is a bit of the last two components. I hope it helps spur your thinking in this area.
