Using the Planning Dashboard

You've Got a Plan for That!

Please note: While this video refers to Response Management, its content applies specifically to Funnel Metrics.

Your Planning dashboard contains key metrics to help you develop a demand marketing plan that's data-driven, realistic, and achievable. You'll find that it comes in handy for annual planning exercises — and for guiding adjustments to those plans all throughout the year. Here are a few priority metrics you can find on this dashboard:

• Volume of leads at each funnel stage
• Conversion rates between funnel stages
• Velocity rates between funnel stages
• Average deal sizes
• Top-performing campaigns
• Sourced revenue by department
• Average number of touches for wins and losses
• Touch timing for won deals
   

Example Use Case: Demand Funnel Planning

When you're putting together a marketing plan, you're basically trying to figure out how many leads your company will need to bring in if it wants to achieve its revenue target. This process is sometimes called reverse waterfall planning, in reference to Sirius Decisions' popular framework of the demand waterfall. With reverse waterfall planning, you start out with the number you're trying to reach (the revenue target), and you work backward to determine how you can get there.

Let's say your company has set an annual revenue goal of $10 million. In many organizations, marketing might only be expected to pull in a portion of that goal, sharing the load with the sales and finance teams. Not so with yours! As a savvy marketer, you've already confirmed that your department is responsible for the entire $10 million. It's a lofty goal. It deserves a great plan.

In addition to your revenue target, you'll need two other crucial metrics to establish your plan: Average deal size and conversion rates. While you could haul out your calculator and start sifting through old reports, you don't actually need to. Those metrics are ready and waiting for you in your Planning dashboard!

For the purposes of our example, let's use the following figures:

And with that, you're ready to calculate your marketing plan. Remember that calculator you almost pulled out earlier? Now's the time to use it. No need for anything fancy, though — the math is pretty straightforward.

1. Divide your Revenue Target by your Average Deal Size to determine how many Wins you'll need.
2. Divide your Win volume by your SQL to Won Conversion Rate to determine how many SQLs Sales Qualified Leads you'll need.
3. Divide your SQL volume by your SAL to SQL Conversion Rate to determine how many Sales Accepted Leads you'll need.
4. Divide your SAL volume by your MQL to SAL Conversion Rate to determine how many Marketing Qualified Leads you'll need.
5. Finally, divide your MQL volume by your Inquiry to MQL Conversion Rate to determine how many inquiries you'll need.

Ta-daa! You've got yourself an answer. For all you visual learners out there, here's what the process looks like in action:

Note: Your organization's funnel stages may be different. Fortunately, the general concept of marketing planning remains the same. 

Also, don't forget to consider how sales cycle length (velocity) may affect your marketing planning. For example, if your sales cycles are six months, then the leads generated in Q3 and Q4 the year prior to your planning year need to be considered in your planning calculations. Similarly, the leads generated in Q3 and Q4 in your planning year may not have a material affect on revenue until the following (planning) year.

Additional Components for Additional Context

The calculation above is a great jumping-off point. To add a little more context to your planning efforts, check out these other Planning Dashboard components.

Top Performing Campaigns

Here you'll find a list of campaigns with the most sourced revenue, in descending order.
(Time Parameter: Trailing 12 Months)

Sourced Revenue by Department

This donut chart shows the distribution of revenue by organizational department (based on campaign sources). In other words, this is the amount of revenue for which each organizational department is responsible.
(Time Parameter: Trailing 12 Months)

Touch Timing for Won Deals

This delightfully stripy bar chart shows the pattern of touches by campaign type in 30-day cohorts prior to a won opportunity. Take a look at the 151-180 time cohort. What can you visually understand about the distribution of touches by campaign type? What types of campaigns did people interact with during this time cohort? And how does it compare to other 30-day cohorts?
(Time Parameter: Trailing 12 Months)

Average Number of Touches Won/Lost

This chart gives you the average quantity of influential touches (determined by the settings in Influence Model 1) for both won and lost opportunities by fiscal quarter. This lets you track the pattern of engagement over time. In the example below, it looks like won and lost opportunities have both increased over the past eight fiscal quarters.
(Time Parameter: All time by quarter)