Go-to-market plans always include the source from where the pipeline is being generated, and most plans include multiple sources across a variety of channels.
When looking at where you are sourcing pipeline, you're analyzing several factors in combination:
- Quality of that pipeline
- Efficiency, effort, and cost to generate
- Ability to support the generation of that pipeline (people and programs)
- Timing of pipeline generated
This helps you assess where you can best drive success. The reality is that although you want to consistently and steadily generate pipeline, the pipeline and quality that you will get from various sources ebbs and flows over time.
For example, events may be a great source, but event season for your industry may be in heaviest in Q3 and Q1. Paid digital programs may have been working well in Q3, but there is a drop off in Q4 so it needs to be adjusted and optimized. In addition, many of the tactics require content, so a content strategy that aligns with and supports demand generation needs to be developed in conjunction with the overall demand generation plan.
Different Views of Pipeline Sources
There are two ways to look at where pipeline is coming from. The first is by source or team, the second is by program. Each team in GTM should have specific targets for pipeline that they are responsible for delivering. The table below shows a simple plan for how much Marketing vs Sales vs the Parter team needs to generate each month:
As with any plan, there should be constant measurement of attainment to plan. These should be forecasted and managed in the same manner as sales bookings.
The reality is that for each of the teams to achieve their pipeline targets above, marketing needs to support the effort with specific programs. Marketing will develop, based on their budgets, capacity and success of each, a plan for each program over the course of the year along with targets for each. The execution of the below programs takes planning and effort, therefore this is the most important aspect of planning for demand generation.
Although, there is opportunity to adjust throughout the year, and move budget and effort from programs that are not delivering to ones that are, this takes time. Measuring performance and optimizing are critical. We recently published an episode of the RevOps Revolution podcast with Brian Kotlyar, CMO of Highspot where he discusses the need to drive flexibility based on performance along with the challenges of doing so.
Further complicating this analysis are the complex questions of attribution when many potential touchpoints could be named as the source of the pipeline. But "first influence" or "first touch" for now remains a baseline report for sourcing pipeline.
No sales team can deliver against their revenue targets without strong support from marketing and great demand generation. Given the costs, resourcing, lead times, and complexity of doing so makes planning and measuring critical to driving success. This planning needs to be done in lockstep and collaboration with revenue planning to drive full alignment. Without doing so there will be gaps and risk to delivering revenue. Read further about the importance of getting marketing well-connected to your revenue plan.
Happy Wednesday!
