Remote learning due to the lockdown of schools and educational institutes has raised the demand for EdTech products higher than ever. Funding for EdTech startups in 2020 (including higher education, professional skilling courses, and primary education) has already reached record highs, more than $8.9B.
If you’re a Sales Manager of an Edtech company trying to grow your user base in this potential market, you need to build a clear sales funnel with trackable metrics from the beginning until the end.
In this article, we will break down for you the EdTech sales process and relevant metrics at each stage. So you will understand how to manage data-driven sales teams in the true Salestrail fashion.
In this article
Although having a strong, data-driven sales funnel does not magically translate to more sales, It sure helps you operate more rationally and gives you more learning points into the right and wrong things.
Data allows you to manage your remote sales teams more effectively
As a sales manager, your sales activity data is your most valuable treasure. By learning to harvest the key data points from your sales call activities you can determine how well your reps are performing and help the ones who are struggling.
Giving you that fact-based decisions
Making data-backed decisions can help you optimize your sales operation better and accelerate more revenue. A Salesforce study recently revealed that high-performing sales teams are 3.5 times more likely to use sales analytics than underperforming teams, which enables them to measure performance during a set time-period against goals.
Stage 1. Generating leads (via cold callings or telemarketing)
Goal: to find users, parents, and learners that would benefit from your EdTech courses and solutions
Who to call: cold leads, potential users
As an Edtech sales rep, start asking these questions:
KPIs for stage 1
| Weekly outbound calls by salesperson |
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| Response Rate |
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| Average call duration | This figure will help you estimate the effectiveness of your sales pitch |
Hint: If your call durations are short and you got shut down all the time during the beginning of your conversation, it is a very good sign that you need to re-sharpen your sales pitch. Take a look at some of Salestrail's greatest sales openers to set you off to a great start.
Stage 2. Converting qualified leads to free trials
Goal: To evaluate the leads in-depth and convert them to sign up for free trials
Who to call: warm leads, marketing qualified leads, sales qualified leads
KPIs for stage 2
| Total outbound calls per qualified lead | The total number of calls made to turn one MQL into a SQL. Looking at this metric, sales manager can see if his rep is putting effort enough to convert potential leads . |
| Call-to-conversion ratio | Of all the calls you have made, how many of them convert your leads into trials |
| Average Number of Follow-ups | The average number of times you had to contact a prospect or lead to push them forward in your system. This metric allows you to put a cap on the number of times you should retry. It also prevents you from chasing people unlikely to convert. |
| Answered, Unanswered and Dead-end calls | These metrics can reflect the quality of your prospecting process and help you categorize clearly the buying intention of leads |
Step 3. Converting trials to purchases
Goal: to get your trails into purchases
Who to call: active users, hot lead
In this stage, it is very important to nurture your trial users constantly. Instead of pushing hard to sell the courses, try twisting the focus onto how beneficial your courses are to them.
Pick up the phone and find out how they have benefited from your courses, which features of the course their children like best, did they find what they are looking for from your company's courses.
Pro tip: Want to learn how to close a deal like a pro? Check out these top 20 Cold Calling Phrases Used by Top Performers in 2020
| Call-to-conversion ratio | Of all the calls you have made, how many of them convert trial users into actual customers |
| Average number of call attempts | The average number of attempts you have persuaded the free trial users to make the purchase. Again, this metric prevents you from chasing people unlikely to buy your courses. |
| Total outbound calls per customer |
The total number of calls made to turn one stranger into a customer. |
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Average time to conversion rate Average time to conversion = (Total number of days from contact to a customer of all deals) ÷ (Total number of deals) |
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Pipeline coverage Pipeline coverage = (All open opportunities) ÷ (# of sales you need to close (quota)) |
sales pipeline includes every opportunity a salesperson is handling (no matter how new or mature it is). This will show you how strong your pipeline is covering.
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Salestrail can log all your sim call details (number of calls, time, duration, response rate, etc.) automatically into a dashboard for analytics for actionable insights
Step 4. RetentionGoal: to keep those who purchased coming back for more courses
Who to call: active users, inactive users, resigned customers
Companies lose $1.6 trillion per year due to customer churn!
And according to the Forrester, it costs 5 TIMES MORE to acquire new customers than it does to keep an existing one.
For those inactive users and resigned customers
It's important to understand why they stopped buying from you. Consider asking:
For active users: try to upsell to by offering a more premium course or cross-sell them to other courses in your curriculum
KPIs for stage 4
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Churn rate Churn rate = (Customers beginning of month - Customers end of month)/(Customers beginning of month) |
This negative metric helps in deciding if you should concentrate your efforts on customer retention (high churn rate) or acquisition and upselling (low churn rate). To improve churn rate, follow these metrics
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Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) |
All investments spent on customer acquisition divided by the total number of customers acquired. |
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Sales by Lead Source |
Where your sales are coming from and what lead generation sources are or are not working |
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Revenue per Salesperson |
How much revenue is generated by each salesperson |
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Revenue by Product |
How much revenue is generated by each product, product line, or service that you sell |
To wrap it up
Edtech, like any other tech business, has its own differences in sales operation. So setting the right goals for KPIs has a huge impact on how much better sales performance can be.
And remember, at the end of the day, the more you sow, the more you shall reap.
The more accurate data you get, the more actionable insights and fuel you'll have to drive your organization.