In many organizations the work of marketing stops after a lead is generated. Money has been invested to generate responses and marketers have a clear understanding of their Cost Per Clicks and Cost Per Leads.  Eventually, assuming attribution is properly set up, they will know their Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC), and can optimize their multi-channel marketing mix accordingly.

But frequently marketers do not have a detailed understanding of exactly what happens to their leads after they are generated – how the proverbial “sausage” is made “down funnel” in their company’s sales operation.  Without such knowledge marketers are unable to optimize their marketing efforts and maximize ROI.  

For example, one of our clients called leads after they were generated – but our analysis found three distinct marketing segments of leads that were being called only once or not at all.  After it was determined there was no reasonable justification for this unusual approach, the leads then received the normal contact strategy, which generated $3 million incremental revenue for the client. All it took was some curiosity and post-lead analysis – talk about some low hanging fruit!

Every marketer should want to have a deep understanding of down-funnel metrics at the marketing segment level – and the corresponding ability to recommend changes to improve performance.  Better down-funnel performance decreases CAC and improves ROI – which creates opportunities for marketers to expand their efforts and drive more growth.

But there are many reasons for why marketers typically don’t focus much down funnel. Maybe they are too busy – or simply consider it someone else’s job.  Perhaps the sales and operations teams discourage them from poking around their business.  It’s also possible the data and reporting doesn’t exist at the marketing segment level.

Whatever the reason(s), it’s the job of the Executive Leadership team to remove those barriers and empower marketers to fully optimize their marketing spends and drive growth. 

What are you doing to ensure that leads are optimized throughout the funnel?  What approaches have been the most successful?