Cleaning up Lead Source

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A common problem I see in pipelines is too many deal “channels” or “lead sources”. Does your pipeline contain any of the following?

Cold Call

Conference

Partner Referral

Web Form

Email Campaign

Client Referral

Industry Event

Prospected

Webinar

Demo

I’m even tempted to add too many to my own pipeline, so I get it!

But there are a few problems with too many sources:

1️⃣ Reps don’t know what to pick so they pick at random or whatever is closest to the top of the list. Thus most go unused.

2️⃣ Its too many to get meaningful statistics on a monthly basis.

3️⃣ Sales channel tactics change often. When analyzing sales performance over years, we need categories that stand the test of time and don’t follow fads.

For most sales teams, I recommend these 5 lead sources instead:

⬇️ Inbound

⬆️ Outbound

🏠 Existing Account

🎯 Prospected

🤝 Referral

⬇️ Inbound

All organic and non-campaign (see below) related deal flow.

⬆️ Outbound

All deals generated from direct marketing spend and demand generation campaigns.

🏠 Existing Account

All deals generated from existing customers (repeat sales). Every company with repeat sales should have this channel.

🎯 Prospected

For businesses where reps generate their own deal flow, call this one out separately. Otherwise they go in Outbound.

🤝 Referral

For businesses where referrals are a big source of flow, call this out separately. Otherwise put in inbound.

So where to put the rest of the marketing analytics? I like to follow the same structure as UTM parameters:

🚀 Campaign:

The name of your internal marketing campaign, creative, or project. This lets you specify what marketing activity the deal was related to.

Example: “Spring Sale”, “Conference Follow-ups”, “Brand Keyword Search”

📡 Medium:

The name of the communication protocol used to message and obtain the lead. Each medium typically corresponds with a different type of marketing message.

Example: Email, Search Ad, Video, Blog, Phone

🚰 Source:

The name of the third party company or entity that originated the deal. This lets you understand which partners and networks are driving your deal flow.

Example: LinkedIn, Google, Youtube, Instagram

With this structure of only a handful of lead sources, and then separating out Campaign, Medium and Source, you will be able to understand exactly how and why your pipeline deal flow is changing month over month!

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PRO is sponsored by SalesInsights.io, a reporting and dashboard tool implementing the PRO Framework.

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