For years, marketers have been trained to think in terms of leads, and we built out models to measure success and track leads as they move through the buying process. Then, a new go-to-market strategy came along called Account-Based Marketing, where everything is built around the account. People thought you had to choose between a lead-based or an account-based funnel.
But the reality is that you can (and should) have both.
“That’s liberating!” exclaims Craig Rosenberg, Chief Analyst at TOPO, who I chatted with for today’s vlog.
This is where TOPOs Double Funnels concept comes in.
Copyright TOPO, 2019.
Craig also gives full credit to Chris Moody, Jeffrey Cohen and Eric Wittlake for developing the Double Funnel idea, so be sure to check out their blog at Double Funnel: Measure the Impact of Multiple Go-To-Market Results Side-by-Side after you watch this video.
Enjoy my lively conversation with Craig!
TRANSCRIPT:
Brandon: Hey guys Brandon Redlinger here, from Engagio, joined by the one and only Colonel Rosenburg, welcome Colonel.
Craig: Thank you, I appreciate you having me. Actually I was worried about you you were so serious in the start I’m glad you brought your energy up. Thank you for having me.
Brandon: Always, always a pleasure. So let’s talk about funnels, let’s talk about funnels today. So with two separate go-to-market strategies right? Everyone knows their lead-based funnel, everyone’s got that one locked down these days. But now we’re telling people, they have to have an account-based funnel as well. So with two separate go-to-market strategies, how do you really measure them side-by-side?
Craig: Yeah, well I would say, do you think everyone’s got their lead-funnel locked down?
Brandon: You’re right, maybe I’m giving people a little too much credit here.
Craig: But I’d say that the early adopters definitely are way beyond this. So here’s what I think, so first of all, I’ll give you my historical. So I think our first move was to create the, the waterfall let’s call it? For the demand funnel, yeah? And that took a while, and then lot of people have it, so you are right about that. But then we said, there’s this thing called account-base and you have to use new metrics. And everyone said, “oh well how am I gonna measure it?”
Right, then some people started to figure it out but actually the issue was, was that people thought they had to choose. And that made things really hard, or, people thought account-base had to fit into the waterfall model, which it does not. So, in my opinion one of the most liberating things that has happened is this idea of multiple funnels because that has told people. So look, if you look at the numbers, if you take your average marketing department or organization 30% of their go-to-markets account-based, right? You guys have probably the same.
Yeah and some are gonna have more but, it’s fine, right? So 30%, now what people were trying to do is you’re either trying to squeeze into the waterfall or you’re doing things on, you know, your jury-rigged, your confused, it was hard. And so like what was the big thing? It was to say, “it’s okay, “it’s okay to have two go-to-market plans. “It’s okay to have two sets of metrics.”
Brandon: And you should.
Craig: “It’s okay to have two different processes.” You’re gonna have different go-to-markets for different products, for different segments, for different markets, and you should be okay with it. So I just met with this company, they have five. So they have 40, 50, 60 products, different segments, and today everyone said, “what we’re gonna have all these different go-to-markets?” and actually it’s four, they said, “okay well there’s four, “there’s four go-to-market types, “and we’ll measure you against that “and it will create processes “and all those things against those four.” That’s still more than one. Right?
So that was their big move is they had to move off just the pure volume-demand funnel and be able to create something for account-base, right? To be able to create something that’s pure upsell cross-sell you know, there’s these different flavors. So like, we call it the double funnel because it catches, people get it, but it can be more, right? Because like an AsiaPac, why would we try to squeeze a North American centric funnel into AsiaPac, where they have a completely different way of buying, a different way of demand.
Brandon: Good point.
Craig: So like, we should be okay with that. I think that’s the big thing, and so Chris Moody, on my team, he’s the head analyst. He’s the one who wrote the double funnel, it’s like taken off like you can’t believe, and I’d say for him, it’s like a cathartic exercise for people. He says, “hey man, you got different go-to-markets? “It’s okay, we’re gonna measure both.” And if you can allow yourself to do that it’s great. One of the things that I think we did a good job at training executive teams on lead-base metrics. So, the first thing people try to do is get them off it.
Instead you gotta say, “for some of our business we’ll have it, “for the rest of all business do this.” The last thing I’ll mention is on the double funnel is the one thing we did realize is there is a convergence point and that’s good. Like, you know, the different a lead to, you know, a score lead to a converted lead, or an engage lead to a converted lead. On the other side it’s like, get to the opportunity level they meet, right?
And there’s this sort of difference at the top, that makes things a little bit sorta, easier to stomach and take in, but like, the big thing is, there’s multiple ways to go-to-market. Let it go man, like, don’t build your go-to-market based on what you can track, figure out your go-to-market and then track it. And that’s the key there.
I love it, I mean Chris Moody my guy, he’s a genius. He worked on it with another analyst named Jeff Cohen, with help from Eric Wittlake, who we now call Eric Whittaker, and it’s been awesome, I mean I love it. I love talking about it, I love seeing it, I love seeing it in action, I mean it’s like–
Brandon: Look how excited he’s getting. Like a little girl, over here. giggling like a little girl.
Craig: It’s so exciting, anyways so yeah.
Brandon: Cool so where can people go check out the double funnel TOPO’s patented, double funnel.
Craig: So there is a, well we have you know, on the TOPO blog there’s a post. We have other materials on it, you just come to the site and put your name into the newsletter or something or you can go on to the, we have a chat function there and ask for more information on the double funnel and someone will get back to you, you know, we have the customer version, and then we have versions for the public as well.
Brandon: So you guys create funnels, to get people to the double funnel?
Craig: We have two funnels.
Brandon: Oh, two.
Craig: We have a yeah, Kevin O’Malley our leader of marketing, has a digital marketing presence and, you know, we get a lot of inbound.
Brandon: Mhmm, from videos like this.
Craig: Yes, that helps, they help a lot. Thank you for that, I’ll pay you later. And then we have obviously, specific target accounts that we try to engage with. And so, we have two funnels.
We had to test it through him a lot when we were creating it so. But yeah, so that’s how you’d reach us. I hope one day, I gotta go check on Google, we should go check if you type in double funnel does TOPO come up or Chris Moody?
Brandon: Oh, lets go check.
Craig: Let’s do that, and I’m sure someone in the comments when we post the video is gonna say, “I checked it and you’re not.” So. Which by the way, feel free to go do.
Brandon: Thanks Craig.