• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • contact
Marketri

Marketri

  • Strategic Marketing Consulting
    • Marketing Plans
    • Outsourced Marketing
    • Marketing Department Structure
    • Branding & Messaging
    • Lead Generation
  • Our Approach
    • Profit Center Marketing
    • Fractional Chief Growth Officers
    • Fractional Chief Marketing Officers
  • Industries
    • High-Growth Companies
    • Professional Services Marketing
    • Private Equity Firms
    • Investment Banks
    • Management Consulting
    • Engineering Firms
    • Technology Companies
    • Manufacturing Companies
  • About
    • Our Team
    • Careers
  • Resources
    • Resources
    • Blog

Get a Competitive Edge in 2018 With the Revenue Funnel

Marketri Guest Writer

Topics: Marketing Plans & Strategy, Profit Center Marketing

 

I’d like to suggest a New Year’s resolution. And I know it’s a little ahead of schedule. But I was hoping to catch your attention before it slips fully into the holiday season.

This year, I think it’s time to give up the sales and marketing silos. It’s time you align your sales and marketing teams around the revenue funnel.

revenue funnel and leverage

 

What is the Revenue Funnel?

The revenue funnel is a combination of the marketing and sales funnels. It helps companies understand how their efforts turn leads into closed business. By focusing on revenue as their collaborative goal, marketing and sales can increase communication, remove silos, and improve their effectiveness.

But not every company sees revenue growth as a team effort. These companies instead view growth through siloed, sepia-toned glasses. They see revenue as a sales goal, demanding costly cold-calling, referral-chomping sales teams. And they see marketing as an amorphous set of line items adding up to a catch-all administrative total. Neither talks to the other much beyond to-do’s.

Companies that want to remain relevant in today’s B2B landscape must embrace the revenue funnel. Here are five reasons why it can help you gain an edge over the competition.

 

1.  Focusing on the revenue funnel makes ROI clearer across sales and marketing.

Teams dialed into the revenue funnel can track their leads from marketing tactic to purchase. That means they can better determine which tactics are working, and then adjust their sales and B2B marketing budgets accordingly. Discussing leads in real-world scenarios also helps marketing and sales tactics improve over time. For example, debriefing after leads become Closed Won or Closed Lost deals can help reveal content gaps, process problems, or opportunities to scale using marketing automation.

 

2.  It brings more purpose to the marketing roles in your company.

Viewing revenue as an outcome helps marketers focus their energy on:

  • Attracting the right leads,
  • Supporting them with helpful content as they learn about solutions, and
  • Emphasizing the company’s competitive strengths.

Through those actions, they’ll put their salespeople in a better position for success. And by collaborating further with salespeople—working as a unified revenue team—marketers can also help improve sales conversations. For example, if a sudden piece of information derails a deal, marketers can create content to introduce that information earlier in the funnel.

 

3.  It emphasizes the buyer’s journey.

The revenue funnel reflects the buyer’s journey as a continuum from awareness to purchase. Solutions providers focused on that continuum gain an advantage by creating a context for every action they take. Every action is focused on helping buyers identify problems, teaching them about solutions, and positioning their offering for purchase.

revenue funnel and the buyer's journey slash fox hunt

 

4.  It helps prioritize leads in the pipeline.

As your company matures in its understanding, your staff will become more aware of what buyers need at different stages in their buying journey. That leads to better lead-nurturing automation and more focused marketing materials. As you begin to close business, you can also score leads based on identified buying behaviors. This can help you fast-track the warmest leads in your entire pipeline.

 

5.  The revenue funnel is a necessity.

Viewing marketing and sales as a collaborative effort isn’t just a nice idea—it’s critical for any business that wants to stay relevant. In the modern B2B landscape, companies that expect to survive on referrals and existing business are merely kidding themselves. It takes a concerted, unified marketing and sales effort to generate new business and achieve sustainable growth.

So while my New Year’s resolution idea might be a little early, I hope you consider it before it’s too late. I hope you can use the revenue funnel to focus your energy. I hope you can break down silos and work together for growth.

And here’s wishing you a very productive new year.

 

Interested in learning more?

If this type of blog post is up your alley, then we invite you to subscribe to our growth marketing blog. It features unique perspectives on marketing strategy! Thanks for reading, and we hope to see you soon.

Subscribe to Our Blog

Image Credits:

Check out these recent insights from our subject matter experts.

You Might Also Be Interested In...

investment bank marketing graphic

It’s Time for Investment Banking Marketing to Step Up its Game

October 28, 2020

In the professional services world, lots of industries have adopted modern marketing principles—and they’re achieving measurable, predictable results, including increased revenue. It started with CPA firms in the late 1990s…

private equity blog featured image

Marketing for Private Equity Firms in Low-Tech Industries: What’s the Draw?

October 19, 2020

When you think of private equity firms, what kind of companies do you envision in their portfolios? Most people picture the high-tech companies of Silicon Valley, SaaS startups, and life…

Is Your Middle Market Marketing Philosophy “More Of” or “Better Than”?

August 7, 2020

Math is part of modern-day marketing. How that math is applied makes a measurable difference in the ability of a marketing function to drive positive outcomes such as accelerated lead…

return on investment for marketing activities - blog hero image

Shouldn’t all Marketing Programs Generate a Return? From Cost to Profit Center Marketing

August 6, 2020

Making the move from cost to profit center marketing is not an overnight switch, it’s a journey. In this post I’ll define the various stages of a typical B2B marketing…

Should My Organization Outsource Marketing?

April 28, 2020

This is a big question a lot of CEOs face when growing their company. As a business owner or leader, deciding to outsource marketing is probably something you need an…

building blocks stacked

How to Build A Strategic Marketing Plan. Part 2: Focusing Your Marketing Approach

April 16, 2020

Motivational speakers often tell us to “Think Big.” The same mantra can be useful in successful marketing. You may be surprised, however, that this second blog on strategic marketing planning…

Subscribe to Our Newsletter

Marketri
Strategic Marketing Consulting
  • Marketing Plans
  • Marketing Department Structure
  • Branding & Messaging
  • Outsourced Marketing
  • Lead Generation
Approach
  • Profit Center Marketing
  • Fractional Chief Marketing Officers
  • Fractional CGO Services
Industries We Serve
  • High-Growth Companies
  • Professional Services Marketing
  • Private Equity Firms
  • Investment Banks
  • Management Consulting Firms
  • Engineering Firms
  • Technology Companies
  • Manufacturing Companies
About Us
  • Our Team
  • Resources
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy
Locations
 

Philadelphia - Main Office

1700 Market Street

Suite 1005

Philadelphia, PA 19103

866-303-6999

Dallas

3838 Oak Lawn Avenue

Suite 1000

Dallas, TX 75219

866-303-6999

San Francisco

388 Market Street

Suite 1300

San Francisco, CA 94111

866-303-6999

Chicago

180 N. LaSalle Street

Suite 3700

Chicago, IL 60601

866-303-6999

Tell us a little more about your needs and how we can help!



Tell us a little more about your needs and how we can help!

Test Form for Lighbox

Testing for Development

This is just a test!