-
Job Interview and a case to solve
So I’ve this upcoming interview tomorrow (2nd round) and I really want this job. They told me me prepare the following:
Pretend that today we have 20k visitors, 2000 leads, 200 opportunities, and 50 new customers each month. All these are well tracked and you have a CRM database with all leads indicating their industry, title, company size, email, phone number and source. Tell us how would you use the information to create a plan and what would you focus on to improve the result 3 times in the upcoming 12 months.
Any good ideas? I was thinking on doing a weekly email newsletter. The company is an IT company, provides cybersecurity and business analytics services and is B2B.
-
5 Replies
-
First off, 20,000 visitors converting to 50 customers seems kind of low. You could use the behavior flow chart on Google Analytics to look at how people are moving through the website and where the major drop offs are. Those pages should be looked at more closely to see what needs to be change to help move visitors to the next step of the digital sales funnel.
As for the CRM data, it could be used for an email campaign. You could also look at the top job title categories to inform target audience for a LinkedIn campaign.
You could also do a display re-targeting campaign on the visitors who didn’t convert, and you could differentiate where the visitors are in the sales funnel based on where they made it to on the website and what actions they took, which would inform the ad sets they are served.
If you know the source from where the traffic is coming, you could see if there are any sources that are performing poorly and either optimize them or cut them and reinvest in top performers or find new sources to test for.
-
1. Text cart abandoners
2. 1 day, 3 day, 7 day, 14 day, 30 day re-targeting lists
3. Test button size and contrast on highest converting pages
4. Test button position on pages with the most drop off
5. Remove unnecessary/redundant pages to shorten the customer journeyIDK, just a few off the top of my head.
-
What’s the end result they are looking for? To take 50 customers a month to 150? Increase revenue from x to 3x?
What’s the average deal size? What about the sales cycle? What kind of sales team do they have? What’s the sales closing rate on average?
My thoughts: a 2.5% conversion rate sucks, especially for B2B. Which means there is either an inefficiency in the sales process or the leads process.
It’s usually a bit of both, but in my opinion, the marketing process gets scrutinized far more than the sales process.
The biggest gains imo, are made in the sales process, not the leads process. A good sales system can make good leads into great customers. A bad sales system on the other hand, takes good leads and turns them into negative reviews.
Benchmark for “average” companies in B2B for paid media is around 2.5%. That’s for average companies. If I were you, I would focus on doubling that conversion rate, because not only does it keep your cost down, but it helps keep the salespeople happy.
A weekly email newsletter is a good start, but in my opinion, that alone will not move the needle.
So here’s what I would do.
1: Review the existing sales process, as well as predominant sales trends. This has to come first before anything else. If the sales process sucks, you could be giving them home run leads and still end up in the shitter. I would ask for a breakdown conversion rate by month for the entire sales team. Talk to the CSO or VP of sales. See how they think things are going. Then, talk to the sales managers on the floor. Normally the VP and CSO will feed you all kinds of honeyed bullshit, but the sales managers will tell you if the sales process really works or not.
2: Look at the existing customer base. Can you upsell them? Too many companies are focused on getting more customers…but they forget that the best customer is a customer you already have. Customers that already like you will buy more, and buy more frequently. Any company that doesn’t have an upsell needs one.
3: Once you’ve looked at current customers, and have your conversion benchmark, break it down even further by channel. Which channels are doing the best? For B2B, normally the best lead sources are organic and referral, followed by SEM.
4: Find the channels that are performing above average, and the ones that aren’t. Separate them out into two groups. Ideally, you’ll break them even further down into separate classifications by channel, depending on what data is in the CRM.
5: For the winners, identify if there is potential to scale the existing efforts. For example, let’s say Google Ads is producing a 6% conversion rate. Dive into the data and figure out how much of the addressable market is underserved. There are multiple different ways to look at this, so I’ll leave that up to you.
5a: If you have existing clients, FIGURE OUT A REFERRAL PROGRAM THAT WORKS. So many freaking B2B companies have referral programs, but they suck! Figure out what works, whether it’s a premium upgrade for the referer and referee or a discount. Get it right though, and you’re in for it.
6: Now, look at the underperforming channels. Figure out why they are underperforming. For example, Facebook might be generating a lot of leads, but the leads are poor quality and not leading to conversions. Can you optimize what is currently being done without having to change everything? If you can’t, better to more or less cut the channel and double down on the winners until you can re-incorporate it.
7: Once you’ve optimized your existing channels, now it’s time to get creative with new opportunities. In my opinion, over a 12 month period, you should be looking at organic traffic combined with a multi-channel lead nurturing sequence combining email, paid media, webinars, and perhaps person to person outreach. Again, this can be complicated so I’m going to leave the details out.
If you want me to go more in-depth, I can. This is very basic and leaves out messaging, authority building, reviews, partnerships, and all that fun shit out. But, hopefully, this is helpful.
Good luck my brother, keep us updated on what happens. I hope you get the job. I’m rooting for you!
-
Since it’s an interview it’s best to show your knowledge of the concept and explain the whole process as the conversion funnel, before getting too tactical with recommendations.
If the goal is to 3x I would explain that there are many paths you can take, and that you would prioritize the lowest hanging fruit opportunities. Is the simplest path to 3x traffic? Or could you focus in on increasing conversion rates from lead to opportunity, or opportunity to new customer. The reality is you’d probably end up doing a combination of many things, and I would offer a few examples of well thought out strategies. (Quality over quantity)
Hope it goes well!
-
Thank you guys for taking the time and writing some really good answers. They were really helpful and it helped me a lot during the interview! The interview went well and now I am waiting for an answer that is supposed to come next week. I hope it will be a positive one! Thanks you one more time!!!
Log in to reply.