As marketers, revenue generation is probably the top-tier goal for your business.
Your task towards success entails generating and nurturing leads to go about the sales funnel and creating strategies that shape how campaigns that are run are anchored to the business’s revenue and revenue management.
And one of the ways that marketers can effectively carry out the end-to-end sales funnel process is through Lead-to Revenue Management L2RM.
In this article, you will understand Lead to Revenue Management, its scope, goals, and how it benefits sales and marketing teams.
What is Lead to Revenue Management?
The Lead to Revenue Management (L2RM) is a type of business engagement model that incorporates key metrics, processes, and goals that help in creating strong marketing practices observed throughout the whole sales process.
In utilizing lead to revenue management, the sales team is primarily focused on generating revenue all through the customer life cycle. This approach is more apparent in business-to-business (B2B) marketing and sales which starts off with the lead generation stage and continues through the other stages of the buyer’s journey to evaluate and analyze how much money customers bring in each stage of the sales process.
The main purpose of Lead to Revenue Management is not just to optimize customer engagement and metrics to maximize an organization’s income. Companies practice the use of customer journey mapping and the calculation of customer lifetime value (CLV) to help sales teams identify what practices need improvement for lead generation and revenue growth.
The L2RM requires the use of information technology systems that work together. Some of these systems include customer relationship management (CRM), marketing automation platforms, sales enablement and management tools, content management systems, and business intelligence technologies.
When these systems work together, marketing and sales departments use the same data that is focused on customer engagement as the primary and key metric which is shown through deals and sales.
The Life Cycle of Lead to Revenue Management
Lead to revenue management is an approach widely used in designing marketing programs that are mainly anchored on their revenue. However, it takes a great deal of understanding of this framework before implementing it. For companies to implement this effectively, it is important to have a grasp on the concepts that go along with it.
Below is the life cycle of lead to revenue management:
Marketing
In this part, the sales team is on raising brand and product awareness among the customers. Through different sales and marketing strategies, companies can generate and find leads or clients and nurture relationships to eventually build trust to purchase. Successful marketing strategies not only generate revenue but also create brand loyalty.
Sales
Sales is the part of the life cycle where the generating revenue begins. In this process, qualified leads or nurtured leads are expected to go through the sales process. This means that they have already decided to purchase the product or service.
Services
In services, the sales team reaches out to buyers and tries to bridge customer connection and retention with the goal of increasing the value of each customer.
Lead to Revenue Management Models
There are a number of different marketing practices that have long existed. In this article, we focus on two models that are heavily associated with two critical models in the sales process.
First is when the prospect reaches out and engages with your business, and when a prospect decides to enter the sales funnel by giving their contact information.
Here are the two most basic L2RM models that every team should know!
First-Touch Attribution Model
In this model, it can be expected that the prospect is already interested in the brand. This could be a product of organic search, advertising, paid media, and social media, among others. In this model, the measure of the model relies on the different marketing tactics and strategies that were used in raising awareness among the qualified leads.
Although it may come off as simple, it can be challenging for a company to execute without integrating pricey, and purposeful marketing automation platforms. Without marketing automation platforms, a gap in your data between the prospect’s engagement to them becoming a qualified lead.
Thus, you may be prone to losing track of these customers. Therefore, this model is highly suggested to be used as a supporting lead to revenue management.
MQL Attribution
MQL lead attribution takes the different factors that made prospects convert the moment they become a lead as its key metric. It is much simpler without utilizing complex technology as it draws leads directly to the sales funnel. Building an MQL primarily focuses on turning an interest into buying which shapes the most vital transformation in B2B marketing. This becomes the core of tracking leads to revenue management in a company.
Data Transfer for Lead to Revenue Generation
Now that the two basic marketing lead attribution models have been discussed, let us see them in action!
The most important part of executing lead to revenue tracking is to establish a single origin of truth in terms of all your sales and marketing data. Therefore, for a lot of companies, using a marketing automation platform is just a matter of establishing the truth.
Thus, whatever marketing platform you are going to use, should have the capacity to accept data encoded from both your sales team and your marketing strategies. The primary goal here is that you can combine data from the lead’s end and the sales data which consists of the revenue.
If you are not hitting these touchpoints, then you may experience problems in the long run.
When asked, the main pain point for many to lead to revenue tracking efforts is to combine data inputs, storing, and analyzing them. However, sending the data that you need should not be overdone. You may find yourself going overboard with integration efforts. But do not lose yourself by focusing on the wrong things.
Instead, focus on the most important concept which is to look at how clients got a hold of you and what let them trust your organization to give out their contact information.
If your CRM can do this, then you are on the right track.
MQL Attribution
In MQL attribution, employees send form data to the system through API, webhook, or prebuilt integration.
Every company may apply different form builders and systems to keep records of contact information. This is why plug-and-play systems in page builders are vital to any sales company as they can carry more than enough lead data to accomplish the MQL attribution model.
A company would typically want to use the Lead Source field in their respective CRM or MAP for collecting data. However, if it does not go well with the current workflow as every company executes sales processes differently, then they can create a custom field for their “Conversion Point”.
First-Touch Attribution
Data preservation on a prospect who got a hold of your brand without leaving any contact information may be more difficult. Although there are available marketing automation platforms in the market for lead and revenue generation, without using forms that can be easily processed, you may just lose all your data.
For example, a lead can be seen from those who have viewed your social media post but you did not directly get in touch with you.
In this sense, despite their initial interest, they may still not be converted as their way to get a hold of their information. Without having a reliable marketing automation platform, revenue performance may be difficult to achieve as capturing data and tracking more leads may be much more challenging.
Tips for Implementing an Effective L2RM Solution every Sales and Marketing Teams Should Know
Implementing an L2RM model into action for any business can be a very challenging move. Here are some tips that every marketer can apply to have a smooth-sailing implementation process.
Foster strong departmental relationships
L2RM systems are reliant on seamless collaborations between sales, marketing, and services. When you have weak relationships, you may experience constraints to implement effective lead-to-revenue management processes and achieve success in your marketing efforts. In fact, research suggests that only 12% of marketers experience strong sales relationships while 46% reported weak or mixed relationships.
Take it slowly but surely
Although there are a lot of marketing automation tools available in the market today, implementing an L2RM system is a complete shift in the way marketers approach sales, lead scoring, and other marketing practices. Therefore, you have to observe your current marketing strategy, have everything automated, and implement the model slowly.
Define your L2RM process
Leading to revenue management and revenue generation, in a nutshell, requires gathering and utilizing the right metrics from different sales touch points. Having a seamless process in place can help you avoid unnecessary costs and maximize sales and marketing methods for higher income and business value.
Understand your buyer’s journey
In order to effectively nurture leads and effectively implement the L2RM system for your business, you have to fully understand the processes that are involved in your buyer’s journey. You may find yourself having multiple inbound funnels or funnels that overlap at a single customer engagement. Understanding these processes can help you implement the system at the right time for your business. Check out some sales-related guides, Churn rate, sales analysis report, SaaS sales and tech sales.
Why Marketing Automation Platforms Important for L2RM Model
Perhaps the most important way to show that your marketing team is completely aware of their actions is by attributing it to successful marketing campaigns through different channels or otherwise known as lead attribution.
Generating a marketing qualified lead can be a real challenge but it is just a matter of looking and finding the right marketing automation platform to change the game for you.
Marketing automation platforms have a lot of resources that help support the successful implementation of the L2RM attribution model. Whatever industry your business is in, its features can simply help you sell, generate reports, measure the right key metric, and support your revenue performance.
However, relying on their default process without personalization can lead to shortcomings in terms of customer engagement and lead generation processes. In order to increase income and revenue performance, lead sources should also fit your marketing methods and sales model.
Utilizing marketing automation platforms such as CRM can help your business focus on the goal and expect better business value. Think about streamlining all the processes that draw the line in closing more deals that bring more revenue in the company and learn how to maximize them.
Often this will include understanding your leads, identifying opportunities, and other milestones that ensure your organization is on the right track.
The right marketing automation platform will help you create successful channels and campaigns that will nurture leads to becoming a customer.
Therefore, as your business embodies the customer-first approach, so should your marketing practices and automation platform!