Most-Wanted Inbound Marketing Metrics That Can Help Your Sales Funnel

Just ask any business leader or CEOs if they require more leads. Naturally, the reply you are going to get is a resounding ‘Yes’.

However, when it comes to the marketing metrics that they use for lead generation, you will either get a perplexed look, or they will avoid the question.

This is something that has to change. Being a CEO or Vice President or anything related to sales and marketing, you need to have a basic idea of the funnel, i.e. the metrics and necessary data related to your revenue funnel.

Spotting the inefficiencies in your sales funnel is vital. This will help you to locate and fix the various leaks that harm your ROI.

(Marketing Funnel)

Significant Inbound Marketing Metrics

1.Understanding Inbound Marketing Leads

Let’s assume you are not providing any free products or iPhones and iPads at discounted rates and you are not giving away trips to Caribbean Islands.

So, any individual who fills a conversion form on your website is a lead. If your site architecture and content strategy are designed in a proper manner, then you will get a variety of leads through your website.

(Inbound Marketing Leads)

Currently, the visitors who come to your site are at various stages of the buying cycle. So, to know where the visitors are on their journey, you must offer educational content that is strategically designed to find out exactly where they are.

2. MQL (Marketing-Qualified Leads)

Before you start to understand how a funnel works, you need to know the vocabulary. You may have come across the term MQL. MQL refers to anyone who converts to leads using any form available on your site.

3. Number Of Visitors Coming To The Website

Here you need to find out the total number of individuals who come to your website. This is the top-most factor of the inbound funnel.

4. Converting Sales-Qualified Leads

Not all the available MQLs are sales-qualified leads (SQL).

An SQL is a lead which is already present at the bottom of the funnel. So, it means they are at the stage where they want to interact and speak with sales personnel.

Only about 10% MQLs are SQLs. So, as you get more accustomed to the funnel of your firm, this ratio must be checked.

(Sales Qualified Leads)

5. Getting And Utilizing Sale Opportunities

One thing you need to keep in mind is that not all sales-qualified leads are going to convert to sales opportunities.

Here the issue is that the prospect might think they are right for you. But as you haven’t spoken or interacted with them, you cannot know if the prospect is qualified.

Inbound marketing strategies can bring in various opportunities to increase sales. In the infographic “Social Media 101 – How To Turn Your Small Business Into A Huge Enterprise”, it clearly states that marketing tactics like SEO, branding and more will help business get the required sales transaction.

To confirm whether you are spending time and resources on the best opportunities, you must have an inbound sales qualification process.

This will assist you in knowing which sales-related leads are real sales opportunities. However, the ratio of sales opportunities to sales-qualified leads will vary as per the firm.

6. Check Out Agreements or Proposals

Now if you are getting your prospects qualified correctly, it means every single sales opportunity is heading to the agreement phrase. Studies show that about 90%-95% of sales opportunities convert into agreements.

(Converting Sales opportunities into agreements)

7. Get New Customers and Gain Additional And Continuous Revenue

If the experience crafted for your prospects is remarkable and if the given sales process is tight, it means you have properly guided them, given them valuable suggestions and assisted in making a safe purchase decision.

In such cases, you should be closing about 90% of the agreements sent out by you.

8. Sales Cycle Duration And Full Funnel Close Rate

These are the two numbers related to your funnel which you want to know cold.

For calculating the full funnel close rate you need to have the total number of visitors for a given month and the number of new customers whom you have got from the funnel.

Then divide the small number by the big number. With this result you can predict how many new customers will be coming to your website.

To calculate the length of the sales cycle check the timestamp of the first visit from the last new customer. Track the average time taken by customers to sign your agreement from their first visit.

9. Performance Of Email Click Rates

An effective email sequence can easily warm up to become leads which later on become likely customers. It is a cost-effective method to set up and send automated ‘nurturing’ emails to potential clients.

The emails that generate leads in the sales funnel perform two actions –

1. At the time when the prospects think of buying, the emails will remind them about your business, products and services.
2. Emails stimulate further leads through helpful content, and this pushes the prospects efficiently through the sales funnel. Various smartly crafted emails provide tremendous opportunities to progress, and this will result in sales for the business.

One of the major steps that business owners and would-be-marketers neglect is measuring the performance of email marketing tactics. Another major mistake marketers make, is focusing on email metrics which are difficult to control or less significant.

Closing Up

The various inbound marketing tactics discussed in this article are what marketers need to follow. Of course, some might feel that these are tedious to implement, but this is not the case.

With proper knowledge and solutions at hand, you can ensure that the inbound marketing gimmicks you use bring required success.