One of the biggest benefits of the Revenue Cycle Modeler in Marketo is its ability to align marketing and sales. When both teams have a shared view of the customer journey, they can work together more effectively to move leads forward, ultimately increasing conversion rates and driving more revenue. This tool helps you gain insights into lead behavior, optimize engagement strategies, and ensure that your efforts produce meaningful results.
What is the Revenue Cycle Modeler?
The Revenue Cycle Modeler in Marketo helps businesses visualize and manage the journey that leads go through on their way to becoming customers. In simple terms, it maps out each stage of the buyer’s journey, from first contact to final sale, allowing you to see where leads are in the process and how they’re progressing.
Purpose:
The primary purpose of the Revenue Cycle Modeler is to make it easy to track and optimize each stage in the customer journey. By breaking down this journey into clear stages, businesses can see how leads move forward, identify any stages where leads are getting “stuck,” and adjust to improve flow and conversions.
Importance:
This tool is essential for building a consistent and measurable lead lifecycle. It enables marketing and sales teams to share an accurate view of the customer journey. This consistency helps teams work together more effectively, ensuring leads are managed efficiently so more leads convert into customers over time.
Key Features of Revenue Cycle Modeler:
• Lead Lifecycle Stages:
The Revenue Cycle Modeler helps you define each stage in the lead journey, from the moment a lead is acquired to when it becomes a customer. These stages might include steps like “New Lead,” “Engaged,” “Qualified,” and “Customer.” By clearly outlining each part of the journey, teams can understand where leads stand and know what actions are needed to move them forward.
• Customizable Stages and Paths:
Every business has a unique customer journey, and the Revenue Cycle Modeler is designed to fit that. You can customize the stages and paths based on your business’s needs, adding stages or adjusting paths to match how your customers move through the funnel. This flexibility helps ensure that your model truly reflects your sales process.
• Automatic Movement through Stages:
With Revenue Cycle Modeler, leads can automatically move from one stage to the next based on specific actions or scores. For example, if a lead reaches a certain score or interacts with key content, they can automatically progress to the next stage. This automation saves time and ensures that leads move through the journey quickly and smoothly.
• Insights and Reporting:
The modeler provides useful insights and reports, allowing you to track conversion rates at each stage and see where leads might get stuck. These reports help you pinpoint any bottlenecks so you can adjust to keep leads moving forward.
• Integration with Lead Scoring:
Revenue Cycle Modeler works with lead scoring, giving a more complete view of the customer journey. By combining lifecycle stages with lead scores, you can better decide when to nurture a lead further and when to pass it to sales. This integrated approach helps teams focus on the right leads at the right time, improving the overall success of the sales process.
Understanding the Main Stages in Revenue Cycle Models:
The Revenue Cycle Modeler organizes leads into specific stages, helping teams understand where leads are in the journey and what actions to take next. Let’s look at three key stages: Inventory, SLA (Service Level Agreement), and Gate.
1. Inventory:
The Inventory stage is where leads first enter the model. Leads are collected and categorized based on criteria like their interests, actions, or source. This is an important step because it’s where leads are initially segmented, allowing teams to focus on high-quality leads and organize them for future steps. By assessing lead quality early on, marketing teams can prioritize the most promising leads, setting the foundation for a smoother journey through the sales funnel.
2. SLA (Service Level Agreement):
An SLA, or Service Level Agreement, is an agreement between marketing and sales that defines how leads should be handled and at what speed. This agreement comes into play in the SLA stage, setting clear expectations for both teams. For example, marketing might agree to nurture leads until they reach a certain score before handing them to sales, and sales might agree to contact qualified leads within a specific timeframe. By aligning these expectations, SLAs help reduce delays and create a smooth, predictable handoff between marketing and sales.
3. Gate:
Gates are like checkpoints in the revenue model, ensuring leads meet specific criteria before they move forward. A gate could require that a lead reach a certain score, interact with certain content, or complete an action before they progress to the next stage. Gates helps maintain the quality and readiness of leads as they advance so that only the most qualified leads move closer to a sales conversation. This quality control reduces wasted time and ensures leads are ready for the next step.
Practical Tips for Getting Started:
Having clear and effective stages, SLAs, and gates is essential when setting up your Revenue Cycle Model in Marketo. Here are some practical tips to help you get started.
a. Defining Lifecycle Stages:
To create lifecycle stages that fit your business, identify the key steps in your customer journey. Common stages might include “New Lead,” “Engaged,” “Marketing Qualified Lead,” “Sales Qualified Lead,” and “Customer.” Ensure each stage name is clear and easy to understand so both marketing and sales teams know what each step means. Consider what actions or behaviors define each stage and use these as a guide when setting up your model. Customizing the stages to match your unique sales process will help keep the journey consistent and focused.
b. Setting Realistic SLAs:
An SLA (Service Level Agreement) should be realistic and manageable for both marketing and sales teams. When setting SLAs, talk to both teams about what is achievable. For example, marketing might agree to nurture a lead until they reach a certain score, and sales might agree to contact a qualified lead within a specific timeframe, like 24 hours. Aim for clear, measurable goals that both teams feel confident they can meet. Setting realistic SLAs improves accountability and ensures leads are moved along efficiently.
c. Customizing Gates:
Gates are checkpoints that ensure leads meet certain criteria before moving forward. To set up effective gates, consider key behaviors or scores indicating a lead is ready for the next stage. For example, you might set a gate requiring a lead to open a certain number of emails or view a specific page on your website. Common gate criteria include lead score thresholds, specific interactions with content, or filling out a form. When configuring gates, focus on actions that show true engagement and interest. This way, only the most qualified leads will progress to sales, helping both teams stay focused on the best opportunities.
Conculsion:
Marketo’s Revenue Cycle Modeler is a valuable tool for guiding leads through the customer journey in a clear, organized way. By mapping out each stage, setting up realistic SLAs, and using gates to ensure quality, the Revenue Cycle Modeler helps marketing and sales teams work together more smoothly. It gives a shared view of where each lead stands, helping teams focus their efforts on the leads most likely to convert. This streamlined approach saves time and boosts conversions, making the entire process more efficient and effective for generating revenue.
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