Imagine yourself stuck on a deserted island with your ex, you would want the situation to alter itself but can’t help contradicting every idea your ex gives. You want to get out, but you need to work together. The sales and marketing departments at every organization face the same situation. Though they don’t share a romantic past, they do share responsibilities and the weight of previous failures, making them turn on each other. Was Marketing not bringing in enough leads? Or were the leads just not up to par? Or was Sales dropping the ball by missing opportunities or giving up too early?

The truth is that countless factors could have contributed to a missed target. But fear not, my friend, because there’s a solution to this age-old battle: Sales Development Reps (SDRs). These unsung heroes are like the duct tape that holds Sales and Marketing together. They take the leads generated by Marketing and turn them into sales opportunities, all while keeping the peace between the two feuding teams.

But how can you ensure your SDR team is operating at peak performance? By tracking and managing these five SDR activity metrics, of course. I am sure you might be jumping in your seat to learn how to align sales and marketing metrics, but before you solve this age-old feud there’s something you must know. No, nothing scary, just get a better understanding of the meaning of SDR and how you can use it. 

Who are SDRs?

For any company, generating leads and turning them into sales opportunities is a priceless operation. Thankfully, the unsung heroes in the company, popularly known as  Sales Development Representatives (SDRs) get it done with ease and a smile on their faces. SDRs are essential to the sales and marketing process, identifying and nurturing new business opportunities.

So what exactly is an SDR? Simply put, an SDR is a sales professional specializing in lead generation and qualification. Their primary role is to work with marketing to follow up on inbound leads and reach out to prospective customers to generate new business opportunities.

So why are SDRs so important? To begin with, they ensure that the sales team has a steady stream of new leads to pursue. An inability to generate new qualified leads can quickly lead to stagnation in the sales team and loss of potential revenue.

Furthermore, SDRs bridge the gap between sales and marketing. In addition to providing valuable feedback to marketing on the quality of leads they generate, SDRs can suggest ways to improve lead generation making sure that both departments are aligned and are working towards the same goal.

Let’s examine five crucial SDR activity indicators that effectively align with sales and marketing goals as we discuss SDRs. 

Essential Sales and Marketing Metrics for Successful SDR Activity

Pick-up Rate

The pick-up rate is calculated by dividing the number of leads worked by the number of leads assigned, expressed as a percentage. This metric gauges the proportion of leads an individual representative engages with out of the total leads allocated within a specific timeframe. It determines whether a representative effectively addresses all the leads entrusted to them.

Additionally, this metric can be further dissected based on campaigns, sources, or team divisions to understand how representative engagement with leads influences the revenue performance of those specific campaigns, sources, or teams.

A common lament from the Marketing team concerning Sales is often, “Our leads are of high quality, but they aren’t being actively pursued!”

In all fairness, if this assertion holds, it presents a significant predicament. Conversely, the Sales team may voice complaints about the inferior quality of leads generated from specific campaigns.

But what do the facts reveal? Herein lies the crux: the absence of concrete data hampers an accurate evaluation, particularly if the SDR team isn’t engaging with every lead. When leads originating from specific campaign sources remain unattended, their true worth remains obscured. The inability to measure their progression through the sales funnel makes ascertaining their effectiveness impossible.

For any organization, monitoring the pick-up rate as a pivotal SDR activity metric and aiming for a consistent 95-100% range is essential. The initial step of promptly responding to and working on each lead is pivotal to facilitating precise, data-driven determinations regarding the viability of leads for the business. This approach lays the foundation for making well-informed decisions about the quality of leads, ultimately fostering better alignment between Sales and Marketing endeavors.

The Cadence Compliance

Sales reps often have a lot on their plates; sometimes, it can take time to remember to follow through on every lead. That’s where cadence compliance comes in.

Think of cadence compliance as a way to ensure your sales reps stay on track and follow through on their commitments. Cadences are a series of predefined sales planning activities spread over several days. The activities could involve anything from personal calls to a thumbs up on social media. All of this helps sales reps to engage effectively with their concerned lead.

Then again, without proper follow-up, your sales reps will lose their lead and potential revenue. And that’s where cadence compliance comes in. By tracking and measuring your cadence compliance as an SDR activity metric, you can hold your sales reps accountable and ensure that they’re completing each cadence in its entirety and completing each step on time.

According to research, following up with a lead within five minutes increases your chances of a successful reply by 900%! Not following up equals a missed opportunity, and you wouldn’t want that, right?

So, to improve your sales and marketing alignment, ensure your SDR team stays on top of their cadences. That way, you can be sure that every lead is being worked how it’s supposed to be, and you will make the most potential sales.

Lead Response Time

Ah, lead response time – the ultimate test of speed and efficiency for your SDR team.

This metric measures how quickly your sales reps respond to leads after being assigned to them. Are they lightning-fast or taking their sweet time?

The formula for lead response time is simple: subtract the date the lead was assigned from the date of the first touchpoint. The result will tell you how long it took for your SDR team to reach out to the lead.

Now, why is lead response time necessary, you ask? Well, studies have shown that a fast response time with a personalized message significantly increases your chances of success. A lead responded to within five minutes is 100 times more likely to convert than one responded to after an hour.

Be the turtle, and instead of focusing too much on pace, make sure you are consistent. Ensure your SDR team is not just focused on responding to some leads while completely ghosting the others. Ask them to pick a time they can remain consistent with and not for them to race against time.

So, track and monitor your lead response time as an SDR activity metric. Aim for a response time of under five minutes whenever possible, but strive for consistency across all your leads. With fast and consistent response times, you’ll be well on your way to turning leads into loyal customers.

Revenue Generated

Revenue generated is the amount of money a company has made from the leads assigned to the SDR team within a certain period.

It’s like counting your chicken after they have hatched. If an SDR team was assigned 100 leads, they worked on them and finally turned 5 of them into opportunities that made it to the pipeline stage, and each opportunity was worth $10,000. The team would have generated $50,000 in the pipeline, leading to $30,000 in revenue after three deals were closed-won and two deals were lost.

Why is revenue generated essentially to Sales and Marketing alignment? It’s simple! 

Revenue generated directly reflects the quality of leads and opportunities passed on by the Marketing and SDR teams. It’s not about quantity but quality.

For instance, consider Sales Rep ‘A’ and Sales Rep’ B’

Sales Rep A could be booking 50 meetings per week and exceeding all SDR activity metric targets, but if only 5 of those meetings make it to the pipeline, and neither of them closes, they are not the rockstar they thought they were. On the other hand, Sales Rep B might be behind on their activity targets and book only ten weekly meetings, but all 10 make it to the pipeline, and 8 out of 10 turn into revenue. In this case, Sales Rep B is the apparent winner.

However, tracking leads through the full funnel takes time, especially if your sales cycle is over nine months. But you can still track the effectiveness of Marketing. By measuring the pipeline generated, you can have a more up-to-date rating on Marketing performance. But, the revenue generated is vital to see Marketing’s contribution to the business. You can break down the leads based on the source, campaign, time, etc.

It’s vital to have a keen eye on the number of revenue generated since it determines the future of Sales Reps and the impact of Marketing on previous quarters and current sales months/quarters.

Pipeline Generated

What is the pipeline generated, you ask? The magic number tells you how much your SDR team generates in the pipeline from the leads they’re working on over time. 

Think of it as a way to see how much of a revenue-driving machine your team is. For instance, if your SDR team worked on 50 leads and turned ten into pipeline opportunities, with each opportunity worth $5,000, they would have generated $50,000 in the pipeline.

But why is the pipeline generated essential to Sales and Marketing alignment, you may wonder? Well, it’s simple – Marketing generates leads, and Sales work on turning those leads into revenue. By tracking the generated pipeline, you can see how many of those Marketing-generated leads are making it into the pipeline and how much revenue they drive.

This metric helps both Sales and Marketing teams understand the effectiveness of their efforts. For Sales, it’s a way to see how well they work those leads and turn them into opportunities. For Marketing, it’s a way to measure their contribution to the pipeline, which can then be used to calculate their ROI.

So, if you’re serious about aligning your Sales and Marketing teams, track the pipeline generated. It’s the key to understanding how much revenue your team drives and how much impact Marketing has on your bottom line.

Aligning Sales and Marketing Metrics

Let’s turn this love-hate relationship into a “Happily Ever After” by aligning sales and marketing metrics.

The first step in aligning these two teams is ensuring your SDR team hits their activity metrics like a bullseye. That means answering every lead quickly and staying consistent in their outreach.

Once you’ve got that down, it’s time to dig into the data and see which of marketing’s leads are worth their weight in gold. By tracking leads through the sales process and measuring their success at every stage, you’ll have the insights to prove which marketing efforts drive revenue.

And don’t forget, this data isn’t just for internal use – you can use it to have informed and productive conversations with marketing about optimizing their strategies to drive even more revenue.

So let’s end the Sales vs Marketing feud once and for all – by working together, we can drive better results and crush our revenue goals.

Why Do This Alone?

Smartreach.io is a sales engagement platform that monitors necessary SDR activity measurements like how quickly they pick up leads, how fast they respond to them, and if they’re following the planned communication schedule. It even sends alerts and signals if anything needs attention. This tool ensures your SDRs stay responsible and focused on every lead they get.

But that’s not all – Smartreach.io also provides clear visibility into how leads perform from the top of the funnel to closed won or lost revenue. This allows you to accurately measure how marketing contributes to current and past pipeline and revenue numbers.

Using Smartreach.io, you’ll be able to identify areas where your SDR team needs improvement, track the quality of leads being passed along by marketing, and determine the effectiveness of your overall sales and marketing efforts. These insights can work wonders for your company by increasing revenue and driving growth. You would love that to happen, right? Then why are you still reading this and not using Smartreach.io to take your business to the next level?