If optimizing your revenue operations is not on your radar, it should be.
And when you’re bringing your people, processes, systems and data together, following fundamental RevOps best practices will lay the foundation for lasting success.
Why worry about the state of your RevOps now? It’s simple. Better leveraging your technology, strategically aligning your internal processes and gaining more visibility across your entire revenue acquisition process offers an incredible return on investment.
It doesn’t only help to ensure sustainable revenue growth, it’s also one of the best ways to unlock new, hidden revenue streams. We see it time and time again with clients who come to us for support with RevOps solutions.
Whether you’ve just started working with a new CRM like HubSpot, or you’re looking for a bigger impact from your marketing automation, here’s what to know.
What Are the Fundamentals of RevOps Best Practices?
Before we dive into the top RevOps best practices to follow, let’s recap the basics.
Revenue operations is all about supporting the customer lifecycle with better ways of doing things. This means using the right tools and technology, streamlining processes, optimizing conversion points and breaking down silos between marketing and sales departments.
And at the heart of identifying and leveraging opportunities to scale revenue growth is data. That’s why having insight into your entire revenue acquisition process is so important.
It’s not just a deep dive into the data, though. You then need to be able to take a step back to maintain a holistic perspective on customer conversion points at every stage of the funnel.
In essence, the fundamentals of RevOps best practices involve:
- Processes
- Systems
- Data
- People
How can RevOps best practices enhance revenue growth? Let’s explore what this means in practice.
Audit Where You Are Right Now
Before you can improve, you need to know where you’re at.
When we start working on a RevOps project, the first step is always to take the time to fully understand the client’s business model, processes and challenges. Oftentimes, you don’t know what you don’t know. Digging in with an experienced partner can help shed light on untapped opportunities.
For example, a SaaS provider – who was actually a long-time client of ours – needed support improving their inbound conversion rates and operational efficiencies. So, as one piece of the puzzle, we performed a comprehensive lead capture audit.
From this, we were able to identify both fields and form redundancies in lead capture materials. This enabled us to make some changes that had immediate results:
- We reduced the information that was being requested at each stage of the buyer’s journey for a more streamlined, engaging experience.
- We implemented a data enrichment tool on key conversion points, making it easier to submit forms.
- We added hidden fields at the form level for better tracking and attribution.
The impact? A 30% increase in conversion rate across their website.
All this to say taking stock of where you currently are is well worth the investment.
Working with a dedicated RevOps partner is the best way to garner these insights, but some initial questions to consider include:
- What marketing and sales automation tools are you currently using?
- Are there any gaps in functionality?
- What data are you tracking?
- Who is responsible for data hygiene?
- Is there any business intelligence missing from your data reporting?
- Is your contact database up-to-date, and where is that information from?
- Do you have a dedicated RevOps team or need to outsource more complex projects?
Use the Right Tech Stack
Technology is a major component of RevOps. It’s what allows you to implement and execute your strategy.
From automation to sales enablement to reporting, you need the tools for the job. That’s why HubSpot onboarding and implementation is often a big part of what our clients come to us for as part of their RevOps needs. Having everything under one roof, as opposed to a fragmented tech stack, ensures maximum efficiency.
We see the immediate impacts of streamlining corporate tech stacks every day:
- An easier way of tracking, nurturing and engaging with prospects and leads
- A standard process for sales enablement, improving the time and effort spent on data management
- Increased conversion rates
That increased efficiency leads to scalable growth and increased revenue.
To make sure you are using the right technology in the right ways, here are some tips:
- Periodically audit your technology to review the tools you have, who they serve and what they are being used for, as well as to identify gaps in functionality
- Integrate and consolidate your tech stack whenever possible
- Evaluate where your data is coming from, where it lives and the processes around data hygiene
- Work with an accredited partner like Kuno who can help you make the most of your tech investment with comprehensive implementation and strategic direction
Ensure Your Data Is Clean and Current
Data drives good decision making and business growth, but your data is only as useful as it is reliable.
Part of this comes down to the tools you use, as discussed above. Integrations are key here: It’s not uncommon for companies to be using dozens of different software platforms with data coming in from all angles, so you need to make sure that all your systems are talking to each other.
Your CRM is an incredibly valuable asset and not fully leveraging its data puts your business at a significant disadvantage. And it’s critical to make sure that your data is clean.
This means removing or updating anything that is:
- Inaccurate or incomplete
- Duplicated
- Incorrectly formatted
- Corrupted
In an email list, for instance, you may have contacts that have been entered several times. Or perhaps some of those email addresses are old and no longer active. Maybe there’s a misspelled name or no name. That email list is only as strong as the data in it, and the consequences of an inaccurate email list range from poor campaign performance to potential blacklisting by mail servers.
There are a lot of ways to ensure clean, accurate data but here is one important tip: appoint someone to be responsible for data hygiene and cleanliness. That can be someone internally on your team or you could outsource it to a partner like Kuno.
Look for Hidden Opportunities in Your Pipeline Management
One of the benefits of having great data and a robust CRM system is all the readily accessible information available to your sales team.
For one, looking at metrics like conversion rates, average deal size and time-to-close allows you to continuously improve and refine your sales processes. Real-time insight means you can adjust as needed. That’s pretty basic.
Take it a step further by identifying hidden opportunities for growth. For instance, set up a process for closed lost deals – the prospects who give a no and the sales cycle is marked as complete. Capture information about why the deal didn’t close in order to leverage it in the future. Just because it wasn’t the right deal today doesn’t mean it’s forever going to be a no.
Your sales team may be able to reach back out to these prospects after a certain time period. Developing an automated process around closed lost deals helps you avoid letting opportunities slip by the wayside or linger untapped in your database.
Improve Your Marketing-to-Sales-to-Service Handoffs
Aligning processes across departments is central to any successful RevOps approach. It’s a big part of how you ensure seamless operations.
That means that marketing, sales and service teams must be on the same page.
There are a few ways to pursue this alignment. Part of the equation, of course, is relationship-based: making sure all teams are involved in strategy, goal setting and attribution of success. There shouldn’t be any silos when teams are working together towards shared goals.
Beyond that, though, strategic RevOps enables overall better sales and marketing alignment when you can:
- Have a centralized CRM to track and manage all sales and marketing activities, training both teams on how to use it
- Automate sales and commissions tracking and set up more efficient workflows
- Close the gap between sales and customer service with automated workflows and a clear assignment of tasks
Fumbled handoffs between marketing, sales and customer service can be costly, so it’s crucial to get this piece right.
Get Help With the Heavy Lifting of Your RevOps
Need help implementing some or all of these best practices in RevOps?
For more than two decades, our experienced team at Kuno Creative has helped companies tackle complex RevOps struggles to grow, scale and optimize.
From comprehensive HubSpot implementation to thoughtful, accessible strategies, improving your entire revenue acquisition process is made easier with the right partner.
