Lifecycle Stages

[chris_remotish]

Got a question I want to pose for anyone who would want to share some thoughts. But some context first.

Lifecycle Stages. HubSpot has its default ones. Other places on the internet have thousands of different variations that essentially say the same thing. It seems like most companies even have slightly different definitions themselves. In my experience, even the organizations that do actively use and maintain their data to properly reflect what stage their database is at any one moment when it comes to asking them what their definitions are, it can feel a little difficult to fully follow. I specifically find that usually, the grayest area on these definitions tends to be in the stages before a contact enters into the more formal part of the Sales Process (ex: where a demo has been scheduled, a quote has been sent, etc.) that usually puts the contact in something like the “Opportunity” stage.

So here’s my question. What stages do you feel are vital to properly feel as if you can witness the full journey that contact goes through from the moment they come on your radar (such as subscribing to your blog, following you on social, filling out a form, is part of a paid list, met at a networking or tradeshow event, etc.) to the moment they’ve been a customer for 20+ years. I know that we can use the Lead Status property to help condense certain stages as well as help cross over stages when appropriate (which I’d love your thoughts there as well), but in general what do you feel are the MUST HAVES in lifecycle stages and why should that term be considered essential rather than others?

Thanks! Look forward to hearing your thoughts 🙂

[MandyDROS · Accepted solution]

I love this topic because the best outcome needs to be well-engineered and have purpose...and then, of course, be useful in making decisions.

I have worked with clients that want to assign a stage or status to everything that a prospect does.  

While I understand the reasoning and logic, that approach is often unhelpful.  

In these instances, discussing and agreeing on what a stage, status, source, etc. means to your business is a great first step.

The questions I ask clients when developing this strategy are: 

• What will this stage change about how you market or sell to the customer?  Will it change the marketing campaigns delivered, sales sequence, frequency of outreach, etc.? 
• What will reporting on these stages assist you with when it comes to altering your revenue strategy?  
• Do you have the resources to alter strategy for all of the stages you are capturing and ensuring that you can measure the impact of said changes? 
• Is there another property that can be used in conjunction with lifecycle stage to avoid adding too many extra stages?  For example, lead source, lead status, most recent conversation, etc. 
• How long is your buyer's journey once an email address has been captured?  For example, if you run demand gen campaigns that don't capture emails for content then extensive early-funnel stages may not be reached frequently enough to give those stages meaning. 
•  What data do you have available to look back and discover what the true lifecycle of your general customer is? 
• Can you capture the determinents of the stages easily so that your data remains accurate? 

I think that it is easy, with a tool as robust as HubSpot, to overengineer solutions for tracking, attribution, etc.  

My recommendation is to go through all of these questions and start simple.  When you have sufficient cause for expanding, then do so, keeping in mind that you may look back in 30, 60, 90 days and realize that nothing was gained by these changes...meaning you also want a plan for reverting back if your expanded LCS experiment doesn't go as planned. 

[danmoyle · Accepted solution]

Thanks for thinking of me @kvlschaefer 😊

A great discussion to have, based on real world examples @chris_remotish. I love @MandyDROS's perspective and agree whole-heartedly. It takes a certain amoujnt of discivery before I'd recommend a path to a business I'm working with. 

However, there's also a perspective I bring that we don't have to make this overly-complex. I like simple (h/t Mandy for the advice to start simple!). And I believe that simple can get us a long way into a standard starting point. 

I think back on my days in the marketing seat at a mortgage company, and then as the marketer at a B2B agency (three, actually). And for me, it comes down to the original intent from HubSpot as I learned lifecycle stage management. 

Subscriber: Someone is aware (of our brand, not in the awareness stage per se) and maybe they've followed us or subscribe to our content in some way. But they haven't shown true interest. 

Lead: The contact has shown interest beyond just a follow. Could be a marketing download, a webinar sign-up, viewing our "about us page" ... their interest shows us at least some engagement.

MQL: Marketing has said certain specific actions or demographics have indicated this person should receive our marketing attention and efforts. They're "worth" the effort. 

SQL: Sales has agreed to specific metrics that would qualify this prospect is ready to talk with sales. We're not overly aggressive, so it's a consultant style conversation. Not every person with a pulse is an SQL. 

Opportunity: They're actively engaged in a pricing conversation. We have a Deal with them, maybe a quote or porposal in their hands. 

Customer: They've closed. 

The thing for me though is this: The stages aren't all required. A prospect we meet at a trade show and chat with, and they show real interest and we know they're qualified, we can add to the CRM as an SQL immediately. Or some folks may never leave the subscriber stage (thanks for following us on Instagram, mom). 

And once they're a customer, how do we think about reselling, upselling, cross-selling... is there a secondary customer designation? Or do we use a status that designates existing vs. new business? 

That's my two cents. Looking forward to understanding how others think about it! 

[jolle · Accepted solution]

Awesome topic of discussion, @chris_remotish! And thank you for the mention, @kvlschaefer 🙂

I love the thoughts and key questions from @MandyDROS and @danmoyle! I am also in the "simple is better" boat!

I feel like linear, score/activity-based lifecycle stages apply only when a company has years upon years of customer engagement data and thoroughly defined, repeatable customer journeys. The dream is being able to say that once someone views ~XX website pages, downloads ~XX eBooks, and clicks on ~XX emails, they're ready to go to the sales team. That's also when we can most easily match those activities to individual lifecycle stages and continue nurturing accordingly. However, I would say most companies aren't at a point where they can make data-backed conclusions about those specific lifecycle stages (or they don't have the turnkey sales processes down).

That of course doesn't mean that lifecycle stages shouldn't be used, but they need to be clearly defined within the context of that business and not heavily relied upon until the data allows. I'm with Dan and Mandy that these stages should be kept simple, and I also feel that the lead's engagement should really define how we categorize and nurture them. 

I think that Dan's stage definitions are great and would be at least a great starting point for most businesses. Those specific engagements (i.e., content downloads, forms fills, key page visits, key email engagement) can then be used to further refine lifecycle stage categorization as the company learns more about their top-performing assets following Mandy's points. The focus should be less on the quantity of engagements and more about the quality/intent of those engagements. Like Dan said, contacts can absolutely skip lifecycle stages if they meet agreed-upon criteria from the sales and marketing teams!

I don't think there's a totally right or wrong way to do this as long as you're solving for the customer and allowing them to take the path that works for them vs pushing them through a linear one!

Thanks for the great discussion!

[danmoyle]

"...solving for the customer." BOOM.

[chris_remotish]

Totally agree @jolle! I think the point that too often doesn't get focused on is just what you mentioned: HOW a lead engages should play a much larger role than often is considered when a company is segmenting and nurturing them. I think it's a really helpful reminder for all of us that as much as we want to try and fit leads into a box in order to neatly fall in line with our processes if we aren't actively taking into consideration their experience, needs, preferences then we're still falling short. 

[danmoyle · Accepted solution]

Thanks for thinking of me @kvlschaefer 😊

A great discussion to have, based on real world examples @chris_remotish. I love @MandyDROS's perspective and agree whole-heartedly. It takes a certain amoujnt of discivery before I'd recommend a path to a business I'm working with. 

However, there's also a perspective I bring that we don't have to make this overly-complex. I like simple (h/t Mandy for the advice to start simple!). And I believe that simple can get us a long way into a standard starting point. 

I think back on my days in the marketing seat at a mortgage company, and then as the marketer at a B2B agency (three, actually). And for me, it comes down to the original intent from HubSpot as I learned lifecycle stage management. 

Subscriber: Someone is aware (of our brand, not in the awareness stage per se) and maybe they've followed us or subscribe to our content in some way. But they haven't shown true interest. 

Lead: The contact has shown interest beyond just a follow. Could be a marketing download, a webinar sign-up, viewing our "about us page" ... their interest shows us at least some engagement.

MQL: Marketing has said certain specific actions or demographics have indicated this person should receive our marketing attention and efforts. They're "worth" the effort. 

SQL: Sales has agreed to specific metrics that would qualify this prospect is ready to talk with sales. We're not overly aggressive, so it's a consultant style conversation. Not every person with a pulse is an SQL. 

Opportunity: They're actively engaged in a pricing conversation. We have a Deal with them, maybe a quote or porposal in their hands. 

Customer: They've closed. 

The thing for me though is this: The stages aren't all required. A prospect we meet at a trade show and chat with, and they show real interest and we know they're qualified, we can add to the CRM as an SQL immediately. Or some folks may never leave the subscriber stage (thanks for following us on Instagram, mom). 

And once they're a customer, how do we think about reselling, upselling, cross-selling... is there a secondary customer designation? Or do we use a status that designates existing vs. new business? 

That's my two cents. Looking forward to understanding how others think about it! 

[chris_remotish]

Thanks @danmoyle! I really love how you took these stage names that most people are familiar with and provided a really tangible and practical definition that removes the overly broad and vague business language and replaces it with something anyone (especially when new people join your company and have to get caught up to how your company does things) can understand. Incredible insight. If your mom is only following you on Instagram, maybe she needs to do so here as well. 🙂 

[danmoyle]

Thank you for the chuckle on my mom's following @chris_remotish 😁 

Who among hasn't reached out to our parents, siblings, partners, friends... to be the early followers of our efforts? Cheers! 

[MandyDROS · Accepted solution]

I love this topic because the best outcome needs to be well-engineered and have purpose...and then, of course, be useful in making decisions.

I have worked with clients that want to assign a stage or status to everything that a prospect does.  

While I understand the reasoning and logic, that approach is often unhelpful.  

In these instances, discussing and agreeing on what a stage, status, source, etc. means to your business is a great first step.

The questions I ask clients when developing this strategy are: 

• What will this stage change about how you market or sell to the customer?  Will it change the marketing campaigns delivered, sales sequence, frequency of outreach, etc.? 
• What will reporting on these stages assist you with when it comes to altering your revenue strategy?  
• Do you have the resources to alter strategy for all of the stages you are capturing and ensuring that you can measure the impact of said changes? 
• Is there another property that can be used in conjunction with lifecycle stage to avoid adding too many extra stages?  For example, lead source, lead status, most recent conversation, etc. 
• How long is your buyer's journey once an email address has been captured?  For example, if you run demand gen campaigns that don't capture emails for content then extensive early-funnel stages may not be reached frequently enough to give those stages meaning. 
•  What data do you have available to look back and discover what the true lifecycle of your general customer is? 
• Can you capture the determinents of the stages easily so that your data remains accurate? 

I think that it is easy, with a tool as robust as HubSpot, to overengineer solutions for tracking, attribution, etc.  

My recommendation is to go through all of these questions and start simple.  When you have sufficient cause for expanding, then do so, keeping in mind that you may look back in 30, 60, 90 days and realize that nothing was gained by these changes...meaning you also want a plan for reverting back if your expanded LCS experiment doesn't go as planned. 

[chris_remotish]

Thank you @MandyDROS! Super insightful questions. What I particularly appreciate about them is the level of accountability it requires the company to have to face. It further promotes the concept of intentionality over adding any exciting new trend or model being promoted at the time. Not just with larger strategic concepts like lifecycle stages or reporting, but also this philosophy trickles down into the type of content a company provides and the methods in which they go about offering them. Simple and done right may not turn heads and get someone the book deal and accolades they seek, but while they attempt to overcomplicate things, we can sit back with clearer data and a lot fewer headaches haha. You left me (and anyone else reading this) so much to think about. Grateful for your wisdom on this! 🙂 

[MandyDROS]

Thank you for prompting me to think about this and crystalize my viewpoint 🙂 

You are right - the sexy solution may sell but does it tell?  Likely not, especially for younger organizations that are just getting their revops game up and running! 

Looking forward to (hopefully) hearing your thoughts once some others chime in!  

Thank you, again, for starting the conversation! 

[kvlschaefer]

Hi @chris_remotish,

Thank you for reaching out to the Community! 

This is a great topic 🙂 

Let's invite our community members to this conversation to kick off this discussion.

Hi @Jnix284, @danmoyle, @franksteiner79, @jolle, @MariSuper, @karstenkoehler, @Gilempert - What are your thoughts on lifecycle stages? Do you have any must-haves to track the customer journey?

Thank you!

Best,

Kristen