The Prospecting Sales Funnel

One of my favourite tasks in marketing is about finding leads, and then converting them into customers. Don’t you love that feeling?

But what kinds of messages you send in your marketing must be tailored to different segments of your potential customers depending on which part of the "Prospecting Sales Funnel" they are in. You can either "broadcast" messages widely, send messages intended to "qualify" identified potential customers, or target messages to "convert" qualified prospects into customers.

But first, let me explain what I mean by the Prospecting Sales Funnel.

In marketing, you will hear a lot about “funnels”. That’s because the picture of a funnel is exactly what targeted marketing is all about, you find a bunch of people who might be interested in your product, you qualify them as interested potential customers, and you “push” them down a funnel so that by the time they come out of the narrow end they are ready to buy. It’s about “conversion” – converting prospects to customers

An example of a Prospecting Sales Funnel is the online marketing sales funnel.

In the online marketing sales funnel, you advertise a product on social media to a wide group of people.

People who are really interested in what you have to say will self-identify and click on it, and they are sent more details. If they like the details they are sent to yet another page with very focused information specifically for them – at that point they either drop out or buy.

It’s about "broadcast" messages to the broad target market, "qualifying" messages that pre-qualify an interested segment from the broad market, and "conversion" messages to persuade the smaller group to buy. This Prospecting Sales Funnel is a key concept in my DIY Marketing formula that I call SMART Marketing.

Now a quick word about the key concept of SMART Marketing

SMART Marketing is based on the principle that the most efficient way of attracting your customers is to aim specifically at those people who need for your product, rather than fire a shotgun-blast at everybody and hope you hit someone.

So that means you need to understand exactly how your product benefit people, and not about its features. An example of a feature is what something is made of – “stainless steel housing”. A benefit however is what that feature DOES for the customer – “it’s unbreakable!”

You then need to brainstorm marketing activities that send out a clear message about the benefits.

Then, to aim specifically at the people who are most likely to buy your product – your ideal customer – you aim specific activities at them depending on what stage of the “ready to buy” journey they are in. So to help us identify what marketing activities are best suited for the people in your target market – suited to whatever stage of the ready-to-buy journey they are in, think of them travelling through a funnel

People in the first level are those in your target market who are likely to be interested in your product – these are your prospects which you have identified through demographics or buying behaviour or interest. The types of marketing activities you need to match to their level of interest are Broadcast marketing activities.

People in the second level are those who have taken note of your broadcast messages, and who identify themselves and become the Leads. They are the ones who have put up a hand and shown an active interest. For these people, you need to conduct marketing activities that send out a more tailored message about how your product not only gives them all these benefits you talk about but also makes them FEEL good if they had it. You are trying to turn a benefit into a need and so qualify them as potential buyers.

Then those in the the third level are your specific targets. They have moved all the way down to the bottom of the funnel and just need the right push to buy. For this smaller group of people, your activity and messages need to convey very individualised messages – you need to show them that not only do they have a need, but that your product is the one to do it for them.

This is where you need to convert them into customers.

At the Broadcast level, you need to conduct marketing activities that tell your target market that you are there, what you do, and why they should take an interest in you.

So the types of activities here will depend on your product or service, but they include advertisements, wide area mail drops, websites, brochures and catalogues, special offers, sales, and blog-posts

At the qualifying level, you need activities that more specifically talk about YOUR products as opposed to others in your category. So you include seminars and webinars, free trials or “a taste of” offers and content-specific freebies.

At the targeting level, you want activities that persuade your targets to buy so these include loyalty cards, bonuses, free gifts, discounts, and one-to-one sales calls

In summary, you need to choose the most appropriate marketing activity for your target market – what it tells them about how your product will benefit them – and for the stage of their journey down the prospecting sales funnel.