In the past couple of posts, I have explained the methodology behind revenue cycle analytics, including the best practices and the importance of defining your revenue stages. In this post, I give a sample revenue stage model and dive into a more detail about the Marketo methodology.
Marketo’s revenue stage model first defines the “success path,” i.e. the traditional funnel that leads linearly from new lead to closed, won business.
| SUCCESS PATH STAGE NAME | DEFINITION |
| Anonymous | Inventory for potential leads that have not registered |
| Review New Names | Review if new names are qualified |
| Prospect | Qualified prospects who are not yet sales ready |
| Lead | Marketing qualified leads with an SLA for follow-up |
| Sales Lead | Sales qualified leads, ready for sales to engage |
| Opportunity | Sales accepted leads, actively working |
| Customer | Closed Won deals |
This sample model has few opportunity stages; many companies may want to add additional Sales stages, and even model additional stages after Closed Won, to model the customer lifecycle.
Next, recognizing that not all leads follow a linear “success path,” the model also defines “detour stages” to capture leads that are not qualified, or that require a few rounds of nurturing before becoming ready. For example:
| DETOUR STAGE NAME | DEFINITION |
| Disqualified | Names marked as not-in profile |
| Inactive | Prospects that have gone non-responsive |
| Recycled | Qualified but needs more nurturing (linked to Prospect) |
| Lost | Lost opportunities (ongoing nurturing) |
The final step in defining the revenue stage model is specifying the business rules (“transitions”) that determine when a prospect moves from one stage to the next (including how leads move from Detour Stages back to the Success Path). For example:
- A person may move from “Engaged” to “Prospect” if their company has revenue above $10 million a year and is in one of the target industries
- A “Prospect” may move to “Lead” when the lead score goes above 100 points
- A “Prospect” may move to “Inactive” if they have not responded to any campaigns or visited the website in more than six months
- Leads in “Inactive” may move back to “Prospect” if they respond to a new program
Revenue Stage Analytics: The Marketo Model was posted at Modern B2B Marketing – Marketo Best Practices Blog. | http://blog.marketo.com
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