One of the things I love about going on the road (either speaking, working with clients or attending conferences) is the ability to test new ideas. When we began the 14-city tour on the Marketo Revenue Rockstar Roadshow, I introduced a 4-step model for moving from Traditional Marketing to Revenue Marketing. I almost didn’t do it because it seemed so simplistic but said, I’ll just give it a go and see what happens! The response has been amazing with people telling me things like “I finally get it”, “This makes so much sense”, “I can easily identify not only where I am but what I have to do to get to Revenue Marketing status”, etc. So I thought I would share this big idea in our blog. Remember, this is a MODEL!
Traditional marketing is characterized by the 4 P’s – Product, Promotion, Placement and Price. We all know what this represents and it is still how marketing is taught at the under graduate and graduate level and is a key element of many organizations.
The first big jump towards Revenue Marketing is making that transition from Traditional Marketing to Lead Generation marketing. Lead Generation is characterized by marketing providing leads to sales and typically working with an ESP. The leads are raw, not fully developed but do have a pulse. Metrics tracked at this point in the journey include # of emails sent, open rate, click through rate, # of form submits, # of leads to sales.
It’s another giant leap when moving from Lead Generation to Demand Generation. We define Demand Generation as the joint activities of both sales and marketing that does 2 things: 1. Puts high quality leads into the top of the funnel and 2. pulls opps through the funnel faster. Companies and marketers at this stage have invested in a marketing automation system and have it integrated with CRM. Key metrics at this stage of the journey include: # of scored (MQL) leads sent to sales, % conversion to opportunity, % conversion to close, % contribution to pipeline and # of days to close.
To move from the Demand Generation stage to the Revenue Marketing stage is another huge transition for companies. It includes everything you see in the Demand Generation stage BUT, and this is a big BUT, the revenue generated and attributed to marketing is now REPEATABLE, PREDICTABLE AND SUSTAINABLE (just remember RPS). Just like a VP of Sales takes a given revenue number and does backwards math to see what he/she needs to put into the top of the funnel to get to the ultimate number, the “VP of Marketing Revenue” takes a similar approach. They come to the table with a Revenue Marketing Forecast and align tightly with sales to ensure the revenue goal is reached.
The time for the Revenue Marketer has arrived. Sales is asking for better qualified leads, heads of sales are asking for help to manage the top of the funnel and CXOs are looking for new ways to create revenue. So, where are you in this marketing journey?
