I am writing to the community on this architentual issue, hoping some one has some ideas that could help.
First off, worth noting that we bring all contacts/leads into Marketo to run communications across our whole customer journey.
When I designed our SF instance I decided to use Record Types to handle the following Account types:
- Suspect
- These are holding places for account information. We might know demographic information about the account, but have zero contacts/leads. Think of them as bonus information that might be useful in prospecting.
- Contacts should never exist under a Suspect Account and should be entered as Leads.
- It is perfectly acceptable to have Leads that match a Suspect Account.
- Does not have an oppty.
- NEVER work a Suspect account, work the Lead.
- Customer
- Lost Customer
- Was once a Schoolbox customer but has since churned
- Prospect
- Qualified Leads are converted into Prospects with an Opportunity.
- Prospects will be worked by reps through the Oppty stages
- Prospect Re-engage
- An account that was once a prospect and now requires re-engaging.
- If we update the Oppty stage to Dead Lost, the account should change from Prospect to Prospect Re-engage.
- Contacts under a Prospect Re-engage record will be treated and marketed to as nurtured contacts (just like leads)
- Government
- Association
- Industry Associations, Bodies or groups. e.g. ASBA, Catholic Diocese, Independent Schools Victoria
- Partner
- Supplier
- A company that we do trade with that supplies us with goods and services.
- Tertiary / Higher-Ed
- University, TAFE, Tertiary Education, Higher Education. Not our target market
- Vendor
- A company that exists, that is neither a supplier or partner, nor any other type.
- Competitor
- A company we consider a direct competitor to Schoolbox
The benefits of record types is that they have page layout control and other configuration per type, but I can tell I’ve over done it.
Association + Government and Supplier+vendor are the same layouts, and yet have different record types.
Therefore, I am trying to seek input on how other B2B companies have handled this categorisation.
In our case we sell to schools, but also sometimes sell to a group buyer like a body that represents a group of schools.
Therefore, I am thinking we could reduce the record types to the following:
- School
- Add a “Lifecycle status”
- Suspect
- Prospect
- Prospect Re-engage
- Lost Customer
- Enterprise
- Add a “Sub-type category”
- Association
- Government
- Group Buyer
- Add a “Lifecycle status”
- Suspect
- Prospect
- Prospect Re-engage
- Lost Customer
- Partner
- Vendor
- Is Supplier moved to checkbox
- Is Tertiary is a checkbox
- Competitor
The other option is to have no record types on Account.
If you manage/have managed a B2B instance, can you please share how you dealt with this?
Any input is greatly appreciated.
Thanks!
Sean
Sean Richards
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