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Research Report                                            Contents
                                                       2   So, what’s different now?
                                                       3   Feeding the top of the funnel
                                                       4   Turning inquiries into qualified leads
                                                       5   Getting qualified leads to the right sales
                                                           resource with the right information
                                                       6   Identifying and nurturing qualified
                                                           opportunities
                                                       7   Increasing sales effectiveness




  The Springboard Effect:


                  5 STRATEGIES THAT WILL HELP
                  YOUR BUSINESS EMERGE STRONGER
                  AFTER A RECESSION
                  Authored by Andrew Gaffney, Editor & Publisher of DemandGen Report,
                  the Scorecard for Sales & Marketing Performance




                                                  THE POWER TO SUCCEED.
Whitepaper: The Springboard Effect          2




                                                     During economic downturns, far too many organizations
                                                     spend time agonizing over where to cut back in order to
                                                     recession-proof their business. Often, the budget axe strikes
                                                     hardest in marketing because of its perceived function as a
                                                     pure cost center.
                                                     Not so in 2009. Despite concerns about a recession, a recent poll by Demand-
                                                     GenReport found that over 66 percent of companies indicate they will either
                                                     hold or increase their marketing budgets during 2009 and 81.6 percent indi-
                                                     cated their budget for lead generation would be flat or increase in 2009. i




                                                     So what’s different now?
                                                     Marketing departments are now intimately involved in revenue creation. Not only
                                                     do they drive leads at the top of the sales funnel, they also provide content and
                                                     market intelligence to keep prospects warm as they advance through the middle
                                                     and later phases of the funnel. Because of this shifting role, most high growth
                                                     companies now view their marketing organization as essential to achieving their
                                                     top line goals.

                                                     Unsurprisingly, truly innovative businesses aren’t simply seeking to ‘weather
“The measurement of demand creation and the
                                                     the storm.’ In fact, many are re-tooling their marketing and sales processes to
 sales pipeline begins the process of co-            emerge from the current downturn with an even stronger brand and share of the
 ownership of the funnel by both marketing and       market. They are intently studying the economics of the sales and marketing
 sales; clearly identifies the role that both play   funnel and meticulously pinpointing where improvements in conversion rates can
                                                     reap the greatest payoff in top-line revenue growth.
 in the health of an organization’s new busi-
 ness pursuits; and systematizes the fact that       Marketers at these companies have long since abandoned the email clickthrough
                                                     and website visit as the measure of marketing effectiveness. Their focus is
 quality activity at the funnel top will result in   beyond the click, where leads turned over to sales pass through a series of gates
 a healthier funnel bottom.” ii                      on their road to becoming closed business. Optimizing the conversion rates –
                                                     the rate at which sales leads pass through the gates from one stage to another –
                        — SiriusDecisions analysts
                                                     can have an enormous impact on the resulting revenue.

                                                     Simply increasing the flow of leads into the top of the funnel is not enough –
                                                     and in fact may be unachievable in a down economy. Improving the rate at which
                                                     current leads are qualified, correctly routed, accepted by sales, included in
                                                     forecasts and ultimately closed becomes the new battleground in a business
                                                     climate that forces organizations to do more with less.

                                                     SiriusDecisions, a research firm focused on the intersection of sales and market-
                                                     ing recommends that marketers focus on building the pipeline to avoid budget
                                                     cuts and layoffs. “Many BtoB organizations have begun to track an overall
                                                     demand funnel from cold to close, incorporating both demand creation and sales
                                                     pipeline metrics,” said the analysts at SiriusDecisions.




                                                                                                                   © 2009 ELOQUA CORPORATION
Whitepaper: The Springboard Effect          3




                                                                      “The measurement of demand creation and the sales pipeline begins the process
                                                                      of co-ownership of the funnel by both marketing and sales; clearly identifies
                                                                      the role that both play in the health of an organization’s new business pursuits;
                                                                      and systematizes the fact that quality activity at the funnel top will result in a
                                                                      healthier funnel bottom.” ii

                                                                      By focusing on the funnel, these businesses are creating a springboard effect
                                                                      that will help them emerge from the current economic crisis in a stronger
                                                                      competitive position. This white paper examines 5 key areas of funnel economics,
                                                                      providing best practice examples of how businesses can strategically optimize
                                                                      their marketing and sales funnel to create a springboard for their organizations.




The Business Case:                                                    Feeding The Top Of The Funnel
The elegant economics of the
marketing and sales funnel.                                           According to Michael Gerard, VP and Research Director for IDC’s CMO Advisory
                                                                      Service, the emphasis on lead generation is now coming from the top of most
                                                                      organizations.
Life Beyond the Click
                        Volume Required            Conversion Rates
                                                                      “With aversion to risk by C-level executives, the slight down-
 Inquiries                 20,000                             2%      turn and concern for growth in the next year, folks are shifting
 Marketing
 Qualified
                             400                              2%      more to lead-generation programs,” said Gerard. iii
 Sales
                             100                              25%
 Accepted
                                                                      Generating a high volume of inquiries or responses is a key goal for marketing
 Sales                                                        50%
 Qualified
                              50
                                                                      teams. Those marketing departments that have optimized the top of the funnel
 Wins                         10                              20%     have seen the results correlate to closed business at the bottom of the funnel.
                                     $2M revenue
                                                                      But in an economic environment that has taken many potential buyers out of
                                                                      the market, how can marketers hope to get more responses from their existing
                                                                      database instead of chasing new lists of prospects?
Life Beyond the Click
                        Volume Required            Conversion Rates
                                                                      By applying advanced marketing techniques such as segmentation, personaliza-
 Inquiries                 20,000                             2%      tion, A/B testing, multi-channel campaigns and event-triggered automation to
 Marketing
                                                                      their lead generation efforts, many high growth organizations have shown dramat-
 Qualified
                             600                              3%
                                                                      ic improvement in their campaign inquiry rate. According to a recent report from
 Sales
 Accepted
                             150                              25%     Jupiter Research, marketers employing these tactics “are almost twice as likely
 Sales                        75                              50%     to attain conversion rates of more than three percent, compared with others that
 Qualified
                                                                      do not.” i v
 Wins                         15                              20%

                                     $3M revenue            +50%      Jaap Favier, Vice President and Research Director for Forrester Research,
                                                                      emphasized that intelligence will be a key differentiator in the way companies
                                                                      survive a downturn. “The name of the new marketing game: targeting. Market-
An increase in marketing response rate from an industry
standard 2 percent to 3 percent can have a significant                ing leaders have voted with their wallets to reduce the two large budget items
impact on revenue at the bottom of the funnel. The                    that show the biggest waste,” Favier said. “To get the most from their reduced
example below used an example lead generation campaign                budgets, they need to understand their clients better - their (media) behaviors,
targeting an audience of 20,000 and average selling price
                                                                      attitudes, needs, and social connections. This requires investments in marketing
of $200,000 to demonstrate how this slight improvement
at the top of the funnel equates to an additional 200                 technology like CRM, in analytics, and in training. We are glad to see that CMOs
responses and $1M in incremental revenue.                             kept these line items intact.” v




                                                                                                                                     © 2009 ELOQUA CORPORATION
Whitepaper: The Springboard Effect            4




                                                     The difference is clear – all things being equal, even slight increases in response
                                                     rates – such as moving from two to three percent, ultimately translates into a
                                                     significant contribution to revenue.


                                                     BUSINESS CASE

                                                     Kofax, a leading provider of document automation solutions, achieved a 9.5 per-
                                                     cent response rate using sophisticated content management on industry-specific
                                                     microsites. They built an industry-specific microsite tied to the ongoing auto-
                                                     mated email communications. By routing some 23,000 leads into a targeted and
                                                     personalized marketing experience, the company achieved a 9.5 percent visitor
                                                     rate to the site and a 10.3 percent conversion rate via form submissions.

What is the business impact for optimizing your
marketing and sales funnel?

Each business develops its marketing and
sales processes to meet its unique needs. But        Turning Inquiries Into Qualified Leads
the steps a buyer goes through for most BtoB
purchases are strikingly similar. So, how do you     After driving inquiries into the top of the funnel, the next key conversion phase
know if your marketing and sales process             in the marketing and sales funnel is converting an inquiry into a qualified lead.
performs better or worse than your peers’?
                                                     Even with high response rates, industry statistics suggest that less than 10 per-
Find Out Now:                                        cent of campaign inquiries come from qualified prospects shopping for solutions.
                                                     Despite increasingly sophisticated response capture mechanisms like landing
Contact demand@eloqua.com to benchmark
your funnel performance against industry aver-       pages and website forms, it is often difficult to get prospects to provide detailed
ages. Eloqua’s funnel calculator tool is proven to   contact info as well as insights into their business needs, priorities and challenges.
accurately pinpoint where your processes stand
up – or fall down – and help your organization       As a result, this kind of qualification cannot be automated – it must come from
discern which best practices in lead manage-         a human, usually in the form of an inside sales or teleprospecting team. Industry
ment can have the greatest revenue impact.           analysts point out that having a process in place to deliver prospects’ “Digital
                                                     Body Language” - activity data indicative of buying behavior like website visits,
                                                     email response, form registrations and downloads - is critical for these telepro-
                                                     specting organizations to target the right inquiries and convert suspects into
                                                     qualified sales leads.

                                                     By building a process to manage and automate leads, many advanced marketing
                                                     organizations have seen a significant impact on their sales funnel. For example,
                                                     by implementing lead profiling and scoring systems that automatically capture
                                                     prospects’ Digital Body Language and rank respondents according to their
                                                     interest, businesses can significantly increase the number of qualified leads that
                                                     are sent on to the sales team. Sophisticated businesses score their leads using
                                                     BANT criteria (budget, authority, need and timing) scores, as well as the activity
                                                     and engagement indicators (email responses, Website visits and form submis-
                                                     sions), to help the sales team prioritize their efforts.

                                                     According to industry research firm Aberdeen Group, companies with best-in-
                                                     class lead prioritization and scoring systems have a 192 percent higher average
                                                     lead qualification rate than those that do not.vi That’s why SiriusDecisions found




                                                                                                                      © 2009 ELOQUA CORPORATION
Whitepaper: The Springboard Effect           5




                                                      that 52 percent of BtoB companies with sales over $100 million already have
                                                      some kind of lead scoring system in place, with another 26 percent in develop-
                                                      ment. vii Case studies have consistently shown that the use of lead scoring has
                                                      driven improved conversion rates, win rates, increased average revenue per deal
                                                      and shortened sales cycles.

                                                      The industry benchmark for moving a response to a lead qualified by marketing
The Business Case                                     is typically between four percent and 10 percent. Once again, even small
                                                      improvements in conversion rates at this phase of the funnel can have a big
According to SiriusDecisions, “while an average       impact on deal close rates and top line revenue for any business.
B2B organization reports a 58 percent conver-
sion rate from qualified leads to sales accepted
leads, the number jumps to 66 percent for             BUSINESS CASE
organizations with strong processes and nearly
75 percent for those that are best-in-class.          InQuira, a provider of online interactive marketing and customer self-service
When marketing and sales work collaboratively         strategies, had a lead management challenge. The inside sales team had limited
to set proper expectations for what a Marketing
                                                      time and resources and needed to optimize results when following up with leads.
Qualified Lead can/should be, and create basic
service-level agreements and handoff processes,       Because qualified leads were not culled from longer term prospects, only eight
conversion rates at this stage will improve           percent of leads from marketing reached the qualified opportunity stage. To fix
dramatically. Building efficient routing and          this, InQuira implemented lead profiling and scoring solutions that used
distribution practices drive these rates to even      customer data to facilitate sales rather than depending on traditional inside sales
greater heights.”*                                    scripts. For example, InQuira shifted the focus of its communications to
As shown in the example below, simply passing         prospects based on the data it received at different points in the buying cycle.
critical marketing response information to sales      These communications were always relevant to particular areas of need or
along with a lead’s demographic information
                                                      challenges that individual prospects faced. This type of focused effort sparked
can have a huge impact on conversion rates at
the Sales Accepted Lead stage of the funnel.          interest and made prospects feel that InQuira inside sales reps understood those
Visibility into prospect activity from within the     needs and challenges. As a result, InQuira doubled the number of qualified leads
salesperson’s Sales Force Automation system           sent to sales from marketing with zero increase in marketing staff. Today,
drives increased sales effectiveness and a richer     80 percent of sales leads are generated by marketing not because InQuira’s team
understanding of the prospects’ wants, needs
                                                      works harder, but because they work smarter.
and desires.


Hot Lead

 Date                    Activity
                                                      Getting Qualified Leads To The Right Sales
 10.25.08                Call: Left Voice Mail
                                                      Resource With The Right Information
 10.17.08, 9:15am        Website visit: 2 pages
                                                      In a tight economy, it is critical that sales teams operate as lean and efficiently
 10.15.08                Call: Left Voice Mail        as possible. At the same time, as competition heats up, it is also essential
 10.11.08, 9:00am        Website visit: 10 pages      that all qualified leads are pursued in a timely manner. These often conflicting
                                                      requirements only increase the need for lead management and routing systems
 10.10.08                Email Response
                                                      that ensure the smooth hand-off of leads from marketing to sales.
 10.7.08, 8:45am         Website visit: 4 pages
                                                      Industry statistics show the average BtoB organizations convert fewer than 60
 10.5.08                 Call: Left Voice Mail        percent of their marketing qualified leads into sales accepted leads. By simply
                                                      integrating sales and marketing systems and employing lead management
* Field Marketing 2.0: The Heart of Growing           and routing processes to improve lead handoff, businesses can boost this
  Conversion Rates, SiriusDecisions, October, 2008.   rate significantly.




                                                                                                                       © 2009 ELOQUA CORPORATION
Whitepaper: The Springboard Effect          6




                                                    At this phase of the funnel, it is critical that organizations have established an
                                                    integrated approach throughout their sales and marketing teams. The concept of
                                                    marketing and sales working together as a team might have seemed far-fetched a
                                                    few years ago but in the current economic climate, leaving the two departments
                                                    to operate in silos with disjointed processes and strategies is a recipe for disas-
                                                    ter. Co-ownership of the sales funnel is now a competitive necessity.

                                                    In most successful organizations, the shift away from silos has been driven
                                                    by the establishment of clearly defined goals and measurements for success
                                                    between marketing and sales. For example, most leading BTOB companies now
                                                    bring together their chief sales & marketing officers to set service-level agree-
                                                    ments regarding the volume and quality of sales leads needed to reach revenue
                                                    targets. This includes agreement on the definition of a qualified lead, as well
                                                    as a process defining how and when the sales team will respond to those
The Business Case                                   qualified leads.
CastIron Systems had a problem that impacts
                                                    Fundamental to ensuring that these agreements and processes are carried
many businesses. They had a high rate of deals
leaking out of the sales funnel, a lack of timely   through is an underlying integration of marketing and sales databases for lead
follow up, and the presence of many ‘zombie         management and routing. According to Aberdeen Group, two-thirds of compa-
deals’ – big deals that were getting stuck in the   nies currently using an automated lead management solution have seen a 10
Marketing and sales teams worked collabora-         percent improvement in lead to sales conversion rates.viii Gartner Group is even
tively to put in place a comprehensive lead         more bullish on the impact of lead management, concluding that companies that
nurturing program that would help move these        automate lead management as a business process between sales and marketing
deals along or disqualify them from the ac-
                                                    will increase conversion rates by at least 50 percent. i x
tive pipeline. By simply targeting half of their
pipeline prospects with timed communications
                                                    Research has shown that organizations that automatically route leads with the
tailored to their needs and interests, CastIron
                                                    detailed data sales requires in order to close deals have improved their lead flow
realized the following benefits:
                                                    and win rates.
  Increase sales velocity – the average sales
  cycle was cut in half.
  Improved opportunity retention – in the           BUSINESS CASE
  quarter following CastIron’s launch of lead
  nurturing, 57 percent more deals stayed in        Sourcefire is a world leader in providing security for computer networks. The
  the funnel.                                       marketing team at Sourcefire was challenged with aligning prospect interest to
  Improved close rates – the number of closed       relevant content and ensuring that campaign responses were delivered quickly to
  deals doubled.                                    sales through a multi-tiered lead distribution mechanism. After developing a lead
                                                    routing program based on named account rules and prospect response data, the
                                                    marketing team was able to accurately deliver more than 98 percent of leads on
                                                    time, to the right sales rep.




                                                    Identifying & Nurturing Qualified Opportunities
                                                    Just because a lead is accepted by sales doesn’t mean that it will become part
                                                    of the pipeline. The difference between an active revenue opportunity and a
                                                    ‘zombie deal’ is often dependent upon how familiar that prospect is with the
                                                    core offerings and value proposition a business offers.




                                                                                                                   © 2009 ELOQUA CORPORATION
Whitepaper: The Springboard Effect          7




                                                Industry averages for conversion rates at this phase of the funnel are less than
                                                50 percent, but jump to more than 60 percent for best-in-class firms. For an
                                                average size company, that kind of increase can mean almost 200 more opportu-
                                                nities in the final stage of the buying process.

                                                Recognizing this, advanced marketing organizations have made great strides in
                                                their conversion of leads to opportunities by adopting lead nurturing programs
                                                to keep prospects interested and educated until they are ready for sales engage-
                                                ment. According to Forrester Research, marketers who switch from focusing
                                                simply on demand generation to closed-loop nurturing are twice as productive. x
                                                Sophisticated lead nurturing programs that utilize intelligent offer and content
                                                management capabilities to match prospect interest with relevant information
                                                can drive these rates even higher.

                                                Conversely, those firms that have not adopted any process for nurturing leads are
                                                likely suffering from a lead leakage problem which ultimately hurts the overall
                                                ROI for marketing and sales. According to research from SiriusDecisions, 79
                                                percent of leads generated by marketing are not followed up on by sales teams.
                                                Of the remaining, 70 percent of leads are disqualified by sales because of lack
                                                of budget, timing, or other reasons. However, the same data from SiriusDecisions
                                                found that 70 percent of those disqualified leads go on to purchase the product
                                                or service from another vendor. xi




                                                Increasing Sales Effectiveness
                                                The most dramatic example of the economics of the sales and marketing funnel
                                                comes when you look at the close rates of different organizations. The
                                                average close rate for BtoB organizations is less than 25 percent, according
                                                to SiriusDecisions.
“ Following improvements in lead, content and
                                                Sales close rates can be affected by a number of factors – many of which cannot
  proposal management, close rates could be     be influenced by marketing. But that does not mean that marketing cannot
  expected to increase, on average, by ap-      increase sales effectiveness. Gartner found that “following improvements in lead,
  proximately 5 percent to 20 percent           content and proposal management, close rates could be expected to increase, on
                                                average, by approximately five percent to 20 percent per salesperson.” xii
  per salesperson.”
                                                One of the biggest challenges of a soft economy is that sales cycles are stretched
                                  — Gartner
                                                as buyers look to delay purchases until they are absolutely necessary. To avoid
                                                already long sales cycles being stretched even further, smart marketing execu-
                                                tives are focusing on providing more sales tools and detailed analytics to the
                                                sales team to help close deals at the bottom of the funnel.

                                                Some organizations with smaller marketing departments have focused on sales
                                                enablement, allowing the sales team to build their own automated campaigns
                                                and emails through the use of pre-created email templates and programs.
                                                Another example of feeding the bottom of the funnel is the use of notifications,
                                                where marketing can give sales reps instant visibility into website activity via
                                                email alerts.



                                                                                                              © 2009 ELOQUA CORPORATION
Whitepaper: The Springboard Effect           8




                                                   Conclusion

                                                   It is increasingly apparent that the reporting methodologies of the past decade
                                                   – prominently displaying the number of clicks from a campaign or names from a
                                                   tradeshow – are no longer sufficient to methodically drive business through the
                                                   marketing and sales pipeline. The current market downturn has only heightened
                                                   the need for new marketing tactics, tools and processes that help sales teams
  What’s the difference between good marketing     identify, prioritize and respond to revenue opportunities.
  and great marketing?
                                                   This means that marketing and sales need to work together more collaboratively
  Accountability and Measurability.                than at any time in the past to ensure that the right information is in front of the
                                                   right teams at the right time. “This is a tell-tale time for dashboards and other
  Watch this short video to see how innovative
                                                   ROI measurement applications, because the smart marketers are going to adapt
  marketers elevate their performance.
                                                   quickly if there are major shifts in the buying cycle,” said Rich Eldh, Co-Founder
                                                   of SiriusDecisions. xii SiriusDecisions points out that increased investments in the
                                                   pipeline should help to forecast slowdowns by seeing declines in inquiry rates
                                                   ‘long before deals stall or turn into losses in the historically sales-dominated
                                                   portion of the pipeline.’

                                                   Today’s buyers not only expect their vendors to understand their wants and
                                                   needs, but demand this level of personalization. To cope, businesses must retool
                                                   their revenue-generating organizations. In times of economic uncertainty, the
                                                   need for marketing programs that facilitate the frictionless progress of deals
                                                   through the pipeline becomes a necessity. Intelligent organizations will use this
                                                   opportunity to their advantage, building the springboard that will give them a
                                                   distinct competitive advantage in slow times and launch them into a market
                                                   leadership position when the market rebounds.




“ A good marketer is one that can work with
  the brand fairly well. The difference
  between good versus great is being able
  to measure the activities you are applying
  against that brand.”                             About Eloqua
                       — Ian Brown, Sr. Internet   Eloqua is the category creator and leading provider of demand generation
                       Marketing Manager, TriNet   applications and best-practice expertise for business marketers around the world.
                                                   Thousands of customers rely on the power of Eloqua’s products and services to
                                                   execute, automate and measure programs that generate revenue. Eloqua is
                                                   headquartered in Vienna, Virginia, with offices in Toronto, London, Singapore
                                                   and throughout North America.

                                                   For more information, visit www.eloqua.com or
                                                   email demand@eloqua.com.


                                                   Eloqua Limited
                                                   1921 Gallows Road
                                                   Suite 250
                                                   Vienna, VA 22182-3900
                                                                                                                   © 2009 ELOQUA CORPORATION
                                                   T 866.327.8764
Whitepaper: The Springboard Effect              9




References




i      DemandGenReport Survey, December, 2008.

ii     Marketing In A Down Economy, SiriusDecisions, March 2008.

iii    2008 Tech Marketing Barometer study, IDC, March 2008.

iv     E-mail Marketing Measurement - Making Metrics Meaningful, Jupiter Research, March 2007.

v      Marketing Cuts Budgets By 3 percent in a Downturn, Forrester Research, April, 9, 2008.

vi     Lead Prioritization and Scoring: The Path to Higher Conversion, Aberdeen Group, May, 2008.

vii    2007 Demand Creation Tactics Survey, SiriusDecisions, April 2007.

viii   Automating Leads to Sales, Aberdeen Group, March 2007.

ix     Eight Best Practices in Lead Management, Gartner, July 2008.

x      B2B Marketers Lack Lead Management Maturity, Forrester Research teleconference,
       October 2006

xi     What a Waste, SiriusDecisions, 2004.

xii    Investigate Sales Effectiveness Applications to Boost Sales Execution, Gartner, March 2008.

xiii   Experts Forecast Impact of Soft Economy On Marketing, Demand Gen Strategies,
       DemandGen Report, Feb. 2008




                                                                               © 2009 ELOQUA CORPORATION

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Eloqua The Springboard Effect

  • 1. Research Report Contents 2 So, what’s different now? 3 Feeding the top of the funnel 4 Turning inquiries into qualified leads 5 Getting qualified leads to the right sales resource with the right information 6 Identifying and nurturing qualified opportunities 7 Increasing sales effectiveness The Springboard Effect: 5 STRATEGIES THAT WILL HELP YOUR BUSINESS EMERGE STRONGER AFTER A RECESSION Authored by Andrew Gaffney, Editor & Publisher of DemandGen Report, the Scorecard for Sales & Marketing Performance THE POWER TO SUCCEED.
  • 2. Whitepaper: The Springboard Effect 2 During economic downturns, far too many organizations spend time agonizing over where to cut back in order to recession-proof their business. Often, the budget axe strikes hardest in marketing because of its perceived function as a pure cost center. Not so in 2009. Despite concerns about a recession, a recent poll by Demand- GenReport found that over 66 percent of companies indicate they will either hold or increase their marketing budgets during 2009 and 81.6 percent indi- cated their budget for lead generation would be flat or increase in 2009. i So what’s different now? Marketing departments are now intimately involved in revenue creation. Not only do they drive leads at the top of the sales funnel, they also provide content and market intelligence to keep prospects warm as they advance through the middle and later phases of the funnel. Because of this shifting role, most high growth companies now view their marketing organization as essential to achieving their top line goals. Unsurprisingly, truly innovative businesses aren’t simply seeking to ‘weather “The measurement of demand creation and the the storm.’ In fact, many are re-tooling their marketing and sales processes to sales pipeline begins the process of co- emerge from the current downturn with an even stronger brand and share of the ownership of the funnel by both marketing and market. They are intently studying the economics of the sales and marketing sales; clearly identifies the role that both play funnel and meticulously pinpointing where improvements in conversion rates can reap the greatest payoff in top-line revenue growth. in the health of an organization’s new busi- ness pursuits; and systematizes the fact that Marketers at these companies have long since abandoned the email clickthrough and website visit as the measure of marketing effectiveness. Their focus is quality activity at the funnel top will result in beyond the click, where leads turned over to sales pass through a series of gates a healthier funnel bottom.” ii on their road to becoming closed business. Optimizing the conversion rates – the rate at which sales leads pass through the gates from one stage to another – — SiriusDecisions analysts can have an enormous impact on the resulting revenue. Simply increasing the flow of leads into the top of the funnel is not enough – and in fact may be unachievable in a down economy. Improving the rate at which current leads are qualified, correctly routed, accepted by sales, included in forecasts and ultimately closed becomes the new battleground in a business climate that forces organizations to do more with less. SiriusDecisions, a research firm focused on the intersection of sales and market- ing recommends that marketers focus on building the pipeline to avoid budget cuts and layoffs. “Many BtoB organizations have begun to track an overall demand funnel from cold to close, incorporating both demand creation and sales pipeline metrics,” said the analysts at SiriusDecisions. © 2009 ELOQUA CORPORATION
  • 3. Whitepaper: The Springboard Effect 3 “The measurement of demand creation and the sales pipeline begins the process of co-ownership of the funnel by both marketing and sales; clearly identifies the role that both play in the health of an organization’s new business pursuits; and systematizes the fact that quality activity at the funnel top will result in a healthier funnel bottom.” ii By focusing on the funnel, these businesses are creating a springboard effect that will help them emerge from the current economic crisis in a stronger competitive position. This white paper examines 5 key areas of funnel economics, providing best practice examples of how businesses can strategically optimize their marketing and sales funnel to create a springboard for their organizations. The Business Case: Feeding The Top Of The Funnel The elegant economics of the marketing and sales funnel. According to Michael Gerard, VP and Research Director for IDC’s CMO Advisory Service, the emphasis on lead generation is now coming from the top of most organizations. Life Beyond the Click Volume Required Conversion Rates “With aversion to risk by C-level executives, the slight down- Inquiries 20,000 2% turn and concern for growth in the next year, folks are shifting Marketing Qualified 400 2% more to lead-generation programs,” said Gerard. iii Sales 100 25% Accepted Generating a high volume of inquiries or responses is a key goal for marketing Sales 50% Qualified 50 teams. Those marketing departments that have optimized the top of the funnel Wins 10 20% have seen the results correlate to closed business at the bottom of the funnel. $2M revenue But in an economic environment that has taken many potential buyers out of the market, how can marketers hope to get more responses from their existing database instead of chasing new lists of prospects? Life Beyond the Click Volume Required Conversion Rates By applying advanced marketing techniques such as segmentation, personaliza- Inquiries 20,000 2% tion, A/B testing, multi-channel campaigns and event-triggered automation to Marketing their lead generation efforts, many high growth organizations have shown dramat- Qualified 600 3% ic improvement in their campaign inquiry rate. According to a recent report from Sales Accepted 150 25% Jupiter Research, marketers employing these tactics “are almost twice as likely Sales 75 50% to attain conversion rates of more than three percent, compared with others that Qualified do not.” i v Wins 15 20% $3M revenue +50% Jaap Favier, Vice President and Research Director for Forrester Research, emphasized that intelligence will be a key differentiator in the way companies survive a downturn. “The name of the new marketing game: targeting. Market- An increase in marketing response rate from an industry standard 2 percent to 3 percent can have a significant ing leaders have voted with their wallets to reduce the two large budget items impact on revenue at the bottom of the funnel. The that show the biggest waste,” Favier said. “To get the most from their reduced example below used an example lead generation campaign budgets, they need to understand their clients better - their (media) behaviors, targeting an audience of 20,000 and average selling price attitudes, needs, and social connections. This requires investments in marketing of $200,000 to demonstrate how this slight improvement at the top of the funnel equates to an additional 200 technology like CRM, in analytics, and in training. We are glad to see that CMOs responses and $1M in incremental revenue. kept these line items intact.” v © 2009 ELOQUA CORPORATION
  • 4. Whitepaper: The Springboard Effect 4 The difference is clear – all things being equal, even slight increases in response rates – such as moving from two to three percent, ultimately translates into a significant contribution to revenue. BUSINESS CASE Kofax, a leading provider of document automation solutions, achieved a 9.5 per- cent response rate using sophisticated content management on industry-specific microsites. They built an industry-specific microsite tied to the ongoing auto- mated email communications. By routing some 23,000 leads into a targeted and personalized marketing experience, the company achieved a 9.5 percent visitor rate to the site and a 10.3 percent conversion rate via form submissions. What is the business impact for optimizing your marketing and sales funnel? Each business develops its marketing and sales processes to meet its unique needs. But Turning Inquiries Into Qualified Leads the steps a buyer goes through for most BtoB purchases are strikingly similar. So, how do you After driving inquiries into the top of the funnel, the next key conversion phase know if your marketing and sales process in the marketing and sales funnel is converting an inquiry into a qualified lead. performs better or worse than your peers’? Even with high response rates, industry statistics suggest that less than 10 per- Find Out Now: cent of campaign inquiries come from qualified prospects shopping for solutions. Despite increasingly sophisticated response capture mechanisms like landing Contact demand@eloqua.com to benchmark your funnel performance against industry aver- pages and website forms, it is often difficult to get prospects to provide detailed ages. Eloqua’s funnel calculator tool is proven to contact info as well as insights into their business needs, priorities and challenges. accurately pinpoint where your processes stand up – or fall down – and help your organization As a result, this kind of qualification cannot be automated – it must come from discern which best practices in lead manage- a human, usually in the form of an inside sales or teleprospecting team. Industry ment can have the greatest revenue impact. analysts point out that having a process in place to deliver prospects’ “Digital Body Language” - activity data indicative of buying behavior like website visits, email response, form registrations and downloads - is critical for these telepro- specting organizations to target the right inquiries and convert suspects into qualified sales leads. By building a process to manage and automate leads, many advanced marketing organizations have seen a significant impact on their sales funnel. For example, by implementing lead profiling and scoring systems that automatically capture prospects’ Digital Body Language and rank respondents according to their interest, businesses can significantly increase the number of qualified leads that are sent on to the sales team. Sophisticated businesses score their leads using BANT criteria (budget, authority, need and timing) scores, as well as the activity and engagement indicators (email responses, Website visits and form submis- sions), to help the sales team prioritize their efforts. According to industry research firm Aberdeen Group, companies with best-in- class lead prioritization and scoring systems have a 192 percent higher average lead qualification rate than those that do not.vi That’s why SiriusDecisions found © 2009 ELOQUA CORPORATION
  • 5. Whitepaper: The Springboard Effect 5 that 52 percent of BtoB companies with sales over $100 million already have some kind of lead scoring system in place, with another 26 percent in develop- ment. vii Case studies have consistently shown that the use of lead scoring has driven improved conversion rates, win rates, increased average revenue per deal and shortened sales cycles. The industry benchmark for moving a response to a lead qualified by marketing The Business Case is typically between four percent and 10 percent. Once again, even small improvements in conversion rates at this phase of the funnel can have a big According to SiriusDecisions, “while an average impact on deal close rates and top line revenue for any business. B2B organization reports a 58 percent conver- sion rate from qualified leads to sales accepted leads, the number jumps to 66 percent for BUSINESS CASE organizations with strong processes and nearly 75 percent for those that are best-in-class. InQuira, a provider of online interactive marketing and customer self-service When marketing and sales work collaboratively strategies, had a lead management challenge. The inside sales team had limited to set proper expectations for what a Marketing time and resources and needed to optimize results when following up with leads. Qualified Lead can/should be, and create basic service-level agreements and handoff processes, Because qualified leads were not culled from longer term prospects, only eight conversion rates at this stage will improve percent of leads from marketing reached the qualified opportunity stage. To fix dramatically. Building efficient routing and this, InQuira implemented lead profiling and scoring solutions that used distribution practices drive these rates to even customer data to facilitate sales rather than depending on traditional inside sales greater heights.”* scripts. For example, InQuira shifted the focus of its communications to As shown in the example below, simply passing prospects based on the data it received at different points in the buying cycle. critical marketing response information to sales These communications were always relevant to particular areas of need or along with a lead’s demographic information challenges that individual prospects faced. This type of focused effort sparked can have a huge impact on conversion rates at the Sales Accepted Lead stage of the funnel. interest and made prospects feel that InQuira inside sales reps understood those Visibility into prospect activity from within the needs and challenges. As a result, InQuira doubled the number of qualified leads salesperson’s Sales Force Automation system sent to sales from marketing with zero increase in marketing staff. Today, drives increased sales effectiveness and a richer 80 percent of sales leads are generated by marketing not because InQuira’s team understanding of the prospects’ wants, needs works harder, but because they work smarter. and desires. Hot Lead Date Activity Getting Qualified Leads To The Right Sales 10.25.08 Call: Left Voice Mail Resource With The Right Information 10.17.08, 9:15am Website visit: 2 pages In a tight economy, it is critical that sales teams operate as lean and efficiently 10.15.08 Call: Left Voice Mail as possible. At the same time, as competition heats up, it is also essential 10.11.08, 9:00am Website visit: 10 pages that all qualified leads are pursued in a timely manner. These often conflicting requirements only increase the need for lead management and routing systems 10.10.08 Email Response that ensure the smooth hand-off of leads from marketing to sales. 10.7.08, 8:45am Website visit: 4 pages Industry statistics show the average BtoB organizations convert fewer than 60 10.5.08 Call: Left Voice Mail percent of their marketing qualified leads into sales accepted leads. By simply integrating sales and marketing systems and employing lead management * Field Marketing 2.0: The Heart of Growing and routing processes to improve lead handoff, businesses can boost this Conversion Rates, SiriusDecisions, October, 2008. rate significantly. © 2009 ELOQUA CORPORATION
  • 6. Whitepaper: The Springboard Effect 6 At this phase of the funnel, it is critical that organizations have established an integrated approach throughout their sales and marketing teams. The concept of marketing and sales working together as a team might have seemed far-fetched a few years ago but in the current economic climate, leaving the two departments to operate in silos with disjointed processes and strategies is a recipe for disas- ter. Co-ownership of the sales funnel is now a competitive necessity. In most successful organizations, the shift away from silos has been driven by the establishment of clearly defined goals and measurements for success between marketing and sales. For example, most leading BTOB companies now bring together their chief sales & marketing officers to set service-level agree- ments regarding the volume and quality of sales leads needed to reach revenue targets. This includes agreement on the definition of a qualified lead, as well as a process defining how and when the sales team will respond to those The Business Case qualified leads. CastIron Systems had a problem that impacts Fundamental to ensuring that these agreements and processes are carried many businesses. They had a high rate of deals leaking out of the sales funnel, a lack of timely through is an underlying integration of marketing and sales databases for lead follow up, and the presence of many ‘zombie management and routing. According to Aberdeen Group, two-thirds of compa- deals’ – big deals that were getting stuck in the nies currently using an automated lead management solution have seen a 10 Marketing and sales teams worked collabora- percent improvement in lead to sales conversion rates.viii Gartner Group is even tively to put in place a comprehensive lead more bullish on the impact of lead management, concluding that companies that nurturing program that would help move these automate lead management as a business process between sales and marketing deals along or disqualify them from the ac- will increase conversion rates by at least 50 percent. i x tive pipeline. By simply targeting half of their pipeline prospects with timed communications Research has shown that organizations that automatically route leads with the tailored to their needs and interests, CastIron detailed data sales requires in order to close deals have improved their lead flow realized the following benefits: and win rates. Increase sales velocity – the average sales cycle was cut in half. Improved opportunity retention – in the BUSINESS CASE quarter following CastIron’s launch of lead nurturing, 57 percent more deals stayed in Sourcefire is a world leader in providing security for computer networks. The the funnel. marketing team at Sourcefire was challenged with aligning prospect interest to Improved close rates – the number of closed relevant content and ensuring that campaign responses were delivered quickly to deals doubled. sales through a multi-tiered lead distribution mechanism. After developing a lead routing program based on named account rules and prospect response data, the marketing team was able to accurately deliver more than 98 percent of leads on time, to the right sales rep. Identifying & Nurturing Qualified Opportunities Just because a lead is accepted by sales doesn’t mean that it will become part of the pipeline. The difference between an active revenue opportunity and a ‘zombie deal’ is often dependent upon how familiar that prospect is with the core offerings and value proposition a business offers. © 2009 ELOQUA CORPORATION
  • 7. Whitepaper: The Springboard Effect 7 Industry averages for conversion rates at this phase of the funnel are less than 50 percent, but jump to more than 60 percent for best-in-class firms. For an average size company, that kind of increase can mean almost 200 more opportu- nities in the final stage of the buying process. Recognizing this, advanced marketing organizations have made great strides in their conversion of leads to opportunities by adopting lead nurturing programs to keep prospects interested and educated until they are ready for sales engage- ment. According to Forrester Research, marketers who switch from focusing simply on demand generation to closed-loop nurturing are twice as productive. x Sophisticated lead nurturing programs that utilize intelligent offer and content management capabilities to match prospect interest with relevant information can drive these rates even higher. Conversely, those firms that have not adopted any process for nurturing leads are likely suffering from a lead leakage problem which ultimately hurts the overall ROI for marketing and sales. According to research from SiriusDecisions, 79 percent of leads generated by marketing are not followed up on by sales teams. Of the remaining, 70 percent of leads are disqualified by sales because of lack of budget, timing, or other reasons. However, the same data from SiriusDecisions found that 70 percent of those disqualified leads go on to purchase the product or service from another vendor. xi Increasing Sales Effectiveness The most dramatic example of the economics of the sales and marketing funnel comes when you look at the close rates of different organizations. The average close rate for BtoB organizations is less than 25 percent, according to SiriusDecisions. “ Following improvements in lead, content and Sales close rates can be affected by a number of factors – many of which cannot proposal management, close rates could be be influenced by marketing. But that does not mean that marketing cannot expected to increase, on average, by ap- increase sales effectiveness. Gartner found that “following improvements in lead, proximately 5 percent to 20 percent content and proposal management, close rates could be expected to increase, on average, by approximately five percent to 20 percent per salesperson.” xii per salesperson.” One of the biggest challenges of a soft economy is that sales cycles are stretched — Gartner as buyers look to delay purchases until they are absolutely necessary. To avoid already long sales cycles being stretched even further, smart marketing execu- tives are focusing on providing more sales tools and detailed analytics to the sales team to help close deals at the bottom of the funnel. Some organizations with smaller marketing departments have focused on sales enablement, allowing the sales team to build their own automated campaigns and emails through the use of pre-created email templates and programs. Another example of feeding the bottom of the funnel is the use of notifications, where marketing can give sales reps instant visibility into website activity via email alerts. © 2009 ELOQUA CORPORATION
  • 8. Whitepaper: The Springboard Effect 8 Conclusion It is increasingly apparent that the reporting methodologies of the past decade – prominently displaying the number of clicks from a campaign or names from a tradeshow – are no longer sufficient to methodically drive business through the marketing and sales pipeline. The current market downturn has only heightened the need for new marketing tactics, tools and processes that help sales teams What’s the difference between good marketing identify, prioritize and respond to revenue opportunities. and great marketing? This means that marketing and sales need to work together more collaboratively Accountability and Measurability. than at any time in the past to ensure that the right information is in front of the right teams at the right time. “This is a tell-tale time for dashboards and other Watch this short video to see how innovative ROI measurement applications, because the smart marketers are going to adapt marketers elevate their performance. quickly if there are major shifts in the buying cycle,” said Rich Eldh, Co-Founder of SiriusDecisions. xii SiriusDecisions points out that increased investments in the pipeline should help to forecast slowdowns by seeing declines in inquiry rates ‘long before deals stall or turn into losses in the historically sales-dominated portion of the pipeline.’ Today’s buyers not only expect their vendors to understand their wants and needs, but demand this level of personalization. To cope, businesses must retool their revenue-generating organizations. In times of economic uncertainty, the need for marketing programs that facilitate the frictionless progress of deals through the pipeline becomes a necessity. Intelligent organizations will use this opportunity to their advantage, building the springboard that will give them a distinct competitive advantage in slow times and launch them into a market leadership position when the market rebounds. “ A good marketer is one that can work with the brand fairly well. The difference between good versus great is being able to measure the activities you are applying against that brand.” About Eloqua — Ian Brown, Sr. Internet Eloqua is the category creator and leading provider of demand generation Marketing Manager, TriNet applications and best-practice expertise for business marketers around the world. Thousands of customers rely on the power of Eloqua’s products and services to execute, automate and measure programs that generate revenue. Eloqua is headquartered in Vienna, Virginia, with offices in Toronto, London, Singapore and throughout North America. For more information, visit www.eloqua.com or email demand@eloqua.com. Eloqua Limited 1921 Gallows Road Suite 250 Vienna, VA 22182-3900 © 2009 ELOQUA CORPORATION T 866.327.8764
  • 9. Whitepaper: The Springboard Effect 9 References i DemandGenReport Survey, December, 2008. ii Marketing In A Down Economy, SiriusDecisions, March 2008. iii 2008 Tech Marketing Barometer study, IDC, March 2008. iv E-mail Marketing Measurement - Making Metrics Meaningful, Jupiter Research, March 2007. v Marketing Cuts Budgets By 3 percent in a Downturn, Forrester Research, April, 9, 2008. vi Lead Prioritization and Scoring: The Path to Higher Conversion, Aberdeen Group, May, 2008. vii 2007 Demand Creation Tactics Survey, SiriusDecisions, April 2007. viii Automating Leads to Sales, Aberdeen Group, March 2007. ix Eight Best Practices in Lead Management, Gartner, July 2008. x B2B Marketers Lack Lead Management Maturity, Forrester Research teleconference, October 2006 xi What a Waste, SiriusDecisions, 2004. xii Investigate Sales Effectiveness Applications to Boost Sales Execution, Gartner, March 2008. xiii Experts Forecast Impact of Soft Economy On Marketing, Demand Gen Strategies, DemandGen Report, Feb. 2008 © 2009 ELOQUA CORPORATION