Marketing best practices differ based on a company's stage of growth. Early-stage companies focus on developing initial spend strategies and content creation. Mid-stage companies refine messaging, build lead generation motions, and improve sales efficiency. Later-stage companies optimize onboarding, balance product requests with roadmaps, and consider M&A opportunities. Companies should evaluate strategies like account-based marketing based on their sales models and ideal customer profiles.

1. www.sorensoncapital.com
THE BEST BOD DECKS
Chapter 3: Marketing Best Practices
June 2023

2. Proprietary and Confidential
Early-Stage (<$5M ARR) Mid-Stage ($5-30M ARR) Later-Stage (>$30M ARR)
Marketing
• Develop initial spend allocation strategy
• Establish metrics / methods to measure the efficiency of
marketing organization
• Content creation / customer education strategy
• Understand ideal customer profile
• Develop lead qualification method / criteria
• Build data infrastructure to measure ROI on marketing
spend
‒ E.g., $1 of marketing spend today results in $X of
sales-qualified opportunities in X months
• Budget for ample pipeline coverage to support sales
• Refine messaging v. competitors
• Develop and refine predictable lead gen motion
• Build attribution model (multi-touch, last touch, etc.)
• Enhance efficiency on spend
• Improve benchmarking for IPO/exit
Sales
• Hire initial sales team; replace CEO-led motion
• Determine and shape sales strategy (inbound / outbound
/ channel)
• Define pricing and packaging and ideal customer profile
• Build programmatic motion (predictable quota attainment,
limited CEO-led deals)
• Optimize sales compensation model
• Formalize lead conversion & handoff processes
• Measure and enhance sales efficiency by rep
• Build customer success team to manage renewals and
upsells
• Refine pricing and packaging and ideal customer profile
• Budget next fiscal year and hiring plan
• Manage to quota capacity v. plan
• Refine training / sales enablement infrastructure to
optimize productivity by rep
• Manage internal promotions and build career paths
• Manage total addressable market and potential market
penetration
Product &
Engineering
• Build initial product (core modules / features)
• Validate product-market fit
• Build scalable long-term infrastructure
• Embed scalable processes
• Build add-on products (supplemental modules / features)
• Optimize onboarding experience
• Measure resource allocation by workstream (new product
builds, remediation of bugs)
• Balance customer product requests v. internal product
roadmap initiatives
• Manage multi-team structure
• Build for greater product and data security, particularly for
global operations
• Identify ancillary areas for product expansion (new
industries)
• Breakout of product team by product or initiative
(maintenance, new product build, verticalization)
G&A
• Build hiring capabilities; focus on finding core contributors
in the earlier days
• Implement basic operations processes and systems
(finance, legal, HR, etc.)
• Build out formal HR practice and expand talent
development team
• Establish firm culture and formalize employee handbooks
• Improve operations processes to be scalable as
organization grows
• Cultivate onboarding and customer support model
• Build intentional culture
• Review M&A opportunities for product additions,
acquihires, or customer synergies
• Develop compliance standards and practices
• Build teams and systems in place for global hiring
• Evaluate management changes / adjustments for IPO
Illustrative Topics by Department and Stage of Business

3. Proprietary and Confidential
Marketing Strategy Best Practices
Individual
ABM
Highly Targeted
Group ABM
Large-scale
ABM
Inbound / SEO
Resource allocation
per account
High
Low
Example Strategy:
• Comprehensive research of target profile
• Deep sales and marketing team collaboration to penetrate logo
• Omni-channel targeting over extended time period to close
Example Strategy:
• Define groups with commonalities (sector, size, etc.)
• Moderate sales and marketing team collaboration
(e.g., basic SDR outreach and targeted ads)
• Omni-channel targeting for limited time period
Example Strategy:
• Larger groups within broader ICP
• Less robust personalized targeting
• Occasional targeted marketing outreach
Example Strategy:
• SEO / web optimization
• Can be tied to whitepapers /
content generation / events
• Leverage multiple strategies (e.g., inbound, events, ABM, etc.) to generate leads / manage pipeline
• Determine ideal targeting for each strategy based on:
− ideal customer profiles and buying committee personas
− prioritized accounts lists based on target fit within ICP
− sales and marketing alignment on playbooks to target different customer segments / types
Marketing Strategies
Sorenson Notes
• Best Practices:
‒ Develop internal targets on the
desired number of accounts per
strategy
‒ Measure and evaluate the cost
and related effectiveness of
each individual strategy as it
pertains to your business
‒ Don’t spread yourself too thin;
design a gameplan for how to
roll out these strategies over
time in a realistic manner
• Key Questions:
‒ What combination of strategies
makes the most sense for our
business and sales model?
‒ Which KPIs do we want to use
to measure each individual
strategy?
‒ How can we sustainably
incorporate targeted ABM into
our mass outreach initiatives?

4. Proprietary and Confidential
● Lead Volume insights
❑ Lead volume over time by program
❑ Spend and cost per lead by program
❑ Content creation strategy
❑ Online presence strategy (Gartner, G2, etc.)
❑ MQL to SQL conversion rates over time
● Pipeline coverage
❑ Pipeline coverage vs. plan over time
❑ Pipeline attribution by sales vs. marketing
❑ Pipeline aging (typical time from lead to close)
● Other
❑ Pricing and packaging
Marketing Analyses Checklist

5. Proprietary and Confidential
Lead Generation Volume
Key Questions and Considerations
● Has overall lead volume been increasing?
● Is a disproportionate number of leads generated from sales vs.
marketing?
● Are we generating enough leads to sustain future growth budget?
● How does our monthly lead volume compare to competitors?
● Why are marketing-generated leads increasing faster or slower
than sales generated?
● What percentage of leads convert into customers each month?
● How does our lead volume relate to industry trends or external
events?
● Is overall lead generation sufficient to drive future budget
bookings?
Monthly Lead Volume
233
268
302
337
372
407
442
477
513
549
585
621
658
694
731
768
806
843
881
919
958
996
1035
1074
0
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
Sales Generated Leads Marketing Generated Leads
Note: all metrics and commentary are illustrative examples

6. Proprietary and Confidential
Lead Generation Cost
Key Questions and Considerations
● How does our cost per lead compare to industry benchmarks?
● Are there any opportunities to reduce our cost per lead without
decreasing SQL volume?
● Are we targeting new profiles or higher-value leads?
● How does our cost per lead correlate with the quality of the leads?
● Is new SQL lead volume trending upwards or downwards?
● Is cost per lead trending upwards or downwards?
Broader Considerations
● Are we spending more over time to acquire new leads?
● Are the leads we acquire lower quality? Are they struggling to
make it through the sales funnel?
● Should we be spending more or less on lead-gen?
Cost per Lead
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
400
450
–
$0.10
$0.20
$0.30
$0.40
$0.50
$0.60
$0.70
Cost Per Lead New SQL Lead Volume
Note: all metrics and commentary are illustrative examples

7. Proprietary and Confidential
Lead Funnel by Stage
Key Questions and Considerations
● How do our stage-to-stage conversion rates compare with industry
benchmarks?
● Have our success rates changed over time?
● Are there any common characteristics among the leads that
successfully move through the entire funnel?
● What strategies have we implemented recently, and how have
these impacted our stage-to-stage success rates?
○ How are we driving visitor traffic? How can we improve
this?
○ How can we improve opportunity-to-customer
conversion?
Broader Considerations
● At what stages do we need to improve conversion?
● What current marketing and sales efforts are effective/ineffective at
each stage?
● How will improved success rates at earlier stages affect success
rates in later stages?
Current Quarter Lead Funnel
Note: all metrics and commentary are illustrative examples
Website Visitors
8550
Leads Generated
3235
MQLs
1660
SQLs
710
Closed
Won
65
Conversion
Rates
From Prior Stage: 38%
Overall: 38%
From Prior Stage: 51%
Overall: 19%
From Prior Stage: 43%
Overall: 8%
From Prior Stage: 9%
Overall: 1%

8. Proprietary and Confidential
Lead Trends Over Time
Key Questions and Considerations
● Are we consistently generating leads from a wide variety of
sources?
● Have we maintained benchmarks and targets for leads generated
by source?
● Are any lead generation sources being under-utilized?
○ How can we allocate efforts to generating the lowest cost
leads?
● Is the quality of leads from different sources variable?
● Are leads generated being quickly filtered out by ICP?
● Is there an easily identifiable bottleneck in the lead lifecycle?
Lead Trends Over Time
Lead Conversion History
Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 LTM Avg.
Leads > MQLs 67% 80% 70% 66% 71%
MQL > SQL 20% 18% 25% 31% 24%
SQL > Pilot 94% 86% 78% 87% 86%
Pilot > Closed Won 83% 91% 89% 73% 84%
228
285
302309
277
314
395
316
254
187
348
306
267
308
332
215
317
372
271
294
264
194
402
176
143
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
400
450
BDR Outbound Trade Shows Customer / Investor Referral
Channel Partner Referral SEO Whitepaper Inbound
Note: all metrics and commentary are illustrative examples

9. Proprietary and Confidential
Trended Pipeline
Key Questions and Considerations
● Is the rate of pipeline generation accelerating?
● Are too many leads stuck at the bottom of the funnel?
● Are we weighing pipeline leads appropriately?
● How does the pipeline volume correlate with our sales results?
● Are we meeting our targets for pipeline growth?
● What factors or actions have contributed to significant increases or
decreases in our pipeline?
● How has the composition of our pipeline changed?
Broader Considerations
● Are our marketing efforts resulting in increased pipeline over time?
● How has new pipeline generated trended?
● Are we over-indexed on the near-term or later-stage pipeline?
Pipeline Value Over Time
$37
$38
$38
$39
$39
$40
$40
$41
–
$200
$400
$600
$800
$1,000
$1,200
$1,400
$1,600
Dec-20
Jan-21
Feb-21
Mar-21
Apr-21
May-21
Jun-21
Jul-21
Aug-21
Sep-21
Oct-21
Nov-21
Dec-21
Jan-22
Feb-22
Mar-22
Apr-22
May-22
Jun-22
Jul-22
Aug-22
Sep-22
Oct-22
Nov-22
Dec-22
Stage 1 Unweighted Stage 2 Unweighted Stage 3 Unweighted
Stage 4 Unweighted New Pipeline Generated Total Weighted Pipeline
Note: all metrics and commentary are illustrative examples

10. Proprietary and Confidential
Pipeline Coverage
Key Questions and Considerations
● Is pipeline the bottleneck in new bookings?
● How does our current pipeline coverage compare to our target or
ideal coverage?
● Are we consistently generating new pipeline?
○ How are we generating new pipeline?
● What does conversion from early to later stage pipeline look like?
Broader Considerations
● Are we building enough pipeline to sustain future growth?
● Is current pipeline sufficient for next quarter’s bookings?
Unweighted Pipeline Coverage
Note: all metrics and commentary are illustrative examples
115%
120%
125%
130%
135%
140%
145%
–
$100
$200
$300
$400
$500
$600
$700
Jan-21
Feb-21
Mar-21
Apr-21
May-21
Jun-21
Jul-21
Aug-21
Sep-21
Oct-21
Nov-21
Dec-21
Jan-22
Feb-22
Mar-22
Apr-22
May-22
Jun-22
Jul-22
Aug-22
Sep-22
Oct-22
Nov-22
Dec-22
Stage 1 Unweighted Stage 2 Unweighted
% Unweighted Coverage to Hit ARR Plan

11. Proprietary and Confidential
Pipeline Conversion
Key Questions and Considerations
● How accurate have our past weighted pipeline coverage forecasts
been?
● Is net new ARR trending upwards?
○ Do we see any trends in expansion ARR or churned
ARR?
Broader Considerations
● How has net new ARR grown relative to pipeline coverage
● Is pipeline the bottleneck in growth?
Historical Pipeline to Bookings Ratio
–
$200
$400
$600
$800
$1,000
$1,200
$1,400
Jan-21
Feb-21
Mar-21
Apr-21
May-21
Jun-21
Jul-21
Aug-21
Sep-21
Oct-21
Nov-21
Dec-21
Jan-22
Feb-22
Mar-22
Apr-22
May-22
Jun-22
Jul-22
Aug-22
Sep-22
Oct-22
Nov-22
Dec-22
Total Unweighted Pipeline Total Weighted Pipeline Net New ARR
Note: all metrics and commentary are illustrative examples

12. Proprietary and Confidential
Pipeline Summary
Example Sorenson Notes
Overall look into pipeline history and pipeline:bookings ratio
• Is our pipeline coverage
consistent with our sales
cycle? Do we need to invest
additional resources to grow
top of the funnel to support
planned growth?
• General rule of thumb for
pipeline coverage is targeting
>2x on a weighted basis,
depending on pipeline
conversion rates
Note: all metrics and commentary are illustrative examples