Digital Marketing Consulting

Metric #2: Identify Funnel Deficiencies – What The Investment Needs To Do

The second reporting metric that is often overlooked or glanced at as part of the financial reporting strategy is identifying the deficiencies in the sales funnel. Look, if you are going to hit your revenue target, you need to have a defined process as to how you will get there. That defined process is getting prospects into the sales funnel and moving them to the end of the funnel, pretty straightforward right? It is.

However, the majority of agencies and companies do not see the metric this audit produces and that is where they will need to invest their ad dollars to overcome funnel deficiencies.

Every business owner has made the same mistake — assuming the campaign focus should always be on leads or growing brand awareness. But that right there is where campaigns fail and the objective of identifying an ROI is lost forever. Mapping out all the funnel deficiencies is your guide to the revenue goal, the number you are weighing your investment against.

Funnel deficiencies can have a serious impact on your customer acquisition costs if your revenue target requires it. If the overall cost is prohibitive and is way beyond your investment threshold, then step back and reevaluate your goal. What you cannot do is push forward with an unrealistic budget targeting one or two deficiencies (we are looking at your lead gen fans) and then using that investment as the weight of your ROI measurement. If you do do this, I can tell you right now, you will not see a positive ROI.

Look, there are caveats to this. You may only need to invest in one part of the funnel at a time or maybe your sales process is different — the takeaway is this, you cannot judge an ROI by trying to silo funnel efforts. After 20 years of experience we can tell you with confidence. It does not work and will force you into marketing investment decisions that are ill-informed.

Do not underestimate this reporting metric step, it is nearly as essential as establishing a revenue goal.

When you properly identify the deficiencies in the sales funnel, you then start to get a clear picture of where your investment needs to be allocated.