2 - How the ABM Funnel Progresses

Based on Industry Standard

The Full Circle ABM Funnel is derived from the the Forrester B2B Revenue Waterfall (pictured below), which is the industry standard for tracking an Account-Based Funnel as part of an ABM strategy.

Overview: Full Circle ABM Funnel Stages

Funnel Criteria

Progress through the ABM funnel is marked by a series of stages. Let's take a look at what happens at each stage of the Account Funnel.

Targeted

The very first stage of your Account Funnel is the Targeted stage. You can think of it as the gateway into the universe of Target Accounts: To get to this stage, an account must be identified as a target either using the Target Account field checkbox on the account, or by other specific criteria on that Account. These criteria should align with your company's predetermined Ideal Customer Profile (ICP), which determines which accounts are the best fit for your company.

Detected 

In the Detected stage, you'll find accounts that are researching your products, your company, or your competitors. This behavior often indicates that an account is actively in the market for your products/services, or something similar. If the Targeted stage is the gateway into the funnel, the Detected stage is the true start of that funnel, because it indicates that there's some activity on the account - in other words, you've got a "live one."

Once you know which of your Target Accounts are in market for your services, you can deploy some targeted marketing to bring your company to their attention and (hopefully!) drive them to your website.

Depending on which Intent Provider you use, the following are the typical fields used to identify accounts that meet the criteria to enter the Detected stage:

1. Bombora: Average Surge Score Summary, Topic Count Summary
2. 6Sense: Account Buying Stage
3. DemandBase: Journey Stage

If you are not using an intent provider, the Detected Stage can be removed from your Account Funnel

Engaged 

When a Target Account engages with your marketing and officially makes themselves known to you, usually by filling out a form on your website or providing information as part of another marketing campaign, they enter into the Engaged stage. At this point, they can be approached more directly to further qualify the engagement.

The Engaged stage is typically driven in one or both of these ways:

1. Campaign response(s) from a member of the Buying Group*, tracked using Person Funnel Metrics
   Note: You'll be able to determine how many responses to require in order to trigger the Engaged stage
2. Populating from a status field on the Account, e.g. the Journey Stage for DemandBase customers

*See below for more information on Buying Groups.

Prioritized

An account reaches the Prioritized stage when it has produced some additional qualified engagements and it's time to make a push toward the sales process. Often, this means that one or more contacts on the account have become Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs) by filling out a Demo Request Form or something similar. It can also mean that they've begun to interact more frequently with your marketing campaigns, especially your high-value campaigns.

The Prioritized Stage is typically driven in one or both of these ways:

1. Campaign Response(s) that are denoted as MQLs and originated from a member of the Buying Group*, tracked using Person Funnel Metrics 
   Note: You'll be able to determine how many MQL responses to require in order to trigger the Prioritized stage.
2. Populating from a status field on the Account, e.g. the Journey Stage for DemandBase customers

* See below for more info on Buying Groups

Qualified

Once an Opportunity has been created and the account is engaged in the Sales Process, that account enters the Qualified stage. The Qualified stage is typically driven in one or both of following two ways:

1. Opportunity Creation in Salesforce
2. Populating from a status field on the Account, e.g. the Journey stage for DemandBase customers

Pipeline 

When the account has progressed to a more qualified step in the Sales process and is firmly entrenched in the Sales Pipeline, it enters - you guessed it - the Pipeline Stage. The Pipeline stage is generally driven in one or both of the following ways:

1. Opportunity Stage updates to your specified Pipeline stage, which can be based off of a Probability % or specific Opportunity Stage
2. Populating from a status field on the Account, e.g. the Journey stage for DemandBase customers

Won

Pop open a bottle of your celebratory beverage of choice - the Opportunity has progressed to a Closed/Won Deal! The Won stage is typically driven by one or both of the following:

1. Opportunity has been set to Closed/Won
2. Populating from a status field on the Account, e.g. the Journey stage for DemandBase customers

Buying Groups

Identifying your Buying Group is an important aspect of designing and deploying an ABM strategy. Essentially, a Buying Group is made up of key decision-makers at one of your Target Accounts. The earlier you can identify these influencers, the better! Once you understand who holds the purse strings, you can make sure your marketing efforts are laser-focused on driving engagements with those specific people. It's much more efficient to tailor your message to a few power players than to waste your time (and money!) appealing to people outside of your Buying Group.

Full Circle ABM enables you to include the Buying Group as a criteria for Person Funnel responses in populating certain Funnel Stages (like Engaged and Prioritized). On the Lead and Contact, you can use a checkbox or formula field to specify who's a member of the buying group.