How many stages (lifecycle stages) is too much?

[Anonymous]

I'm familiar with developing life cycle stages but I was given their current workings on the stages and it is around 13 stages. The stages go past the sale and goes onto "Pending Graduate", 'Graduate", "Alumni", "Evangelist", and then "Attrition". I personally think that it does not need to go that far out since the point of life-cycles is to qualify/assign stages to a sale to better qualify the lead. I do agree that once a student graduates, we can up-sell them with another certification or a graduate degree if they first went for a certification but that would be a re-nurture campaign in my opinion.

Can you please give me some feedback or pointers on how to go about this? I will explain more with any of your questions. 

[Grégoire_Miche2]

HI Christina,

This one probably belongs more to "products" than to "Marketing central"

There is no good or bad, but usually, the fewer the better.

Also keep in mind that:

• Creating the stages is the easy part. setting up the system so that yo can track each stage is trickier. Make sure that you will really be capable of detecting each stage change
• are you going to use all these stages for reporting?

-Greg

[Joey_Forcelli1]

Hey Christina,

For higher education I would say the sweet spot is somewhere between 8-10 stages but in all reality it depends on the business process.

The buying process for higher education is unique and varies depending on the target audience.  For example, the buying cycle for traditional undergrad students will be much different than that of a adult MBA student.  Both of these groups will have very different buying considerations, requirements for admittance, and steps to enroll.

The sales stages should be flexible enough to support all business units and ensure "common ground"  when talking about the enrollment pipeline for an institution.  Based upon the few stages listed above I am sure you have opportunity to consolidate some stages.

Would be happy to connect offline if you would like.

J

[Anonymous]

Thanks for your feedback!