How to start mapping out your marketing plan now
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Converting potential customers into paying customers is a multi-step process, which I call your “marketing funnel.” For each company, it will be different. Consider the following examples of marketing funnels for two of my clients:
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The first sells a consumer good via its website. Their marketing funnel starts with making media appearances on local TV shows. During these appearances, they lead customers to the homepage of their website. From there, they direct customers to their order form. Once the order is processed online, they immediately offer two upsell options. Finally, after the sale, they send multiple emails to their customers in order to generate additional sales.
The second company sells consulting services. Their marketing funnel starts with a pay-per-click ad that drives potential customers to their website. On the website, visitors are encouraged to call the company directly or fill out a form. From there, potential clients have an initial consultation call. Then, if necessary, they participate in a call for proposals. Finally, if the company secures the client, they execute the work and follow up with the long-term client to secure additional work.
Here’s how to start creating your own marketing funnel:
1. Draw it. On a sheet of paper, outline all the steps needed to convert a potential customer into a regular customer.
2. Start monitoring. Track and put percentages next to each step. For example, maybe out of 5,000 visitors to your website; 5.6% arrive on your purchase order; 32.1% of these people complete the order; and 28.3% buy one of your upsells.
3. Determine where to improve. If you see percentages dropping over time, start testing new options. For example, perhaps changing the text or positioning of images on your homepage would increase the 5.6% of visitors who view your order form to 8%. This change alone could dramatically improve your performance.
4. Consider ways to expand. What new methods can you add to the top of your marketing funnel? For example, are there new advertising methods like social media, pay-per-click, radio, or email that you can use to get more leads? And what methods can you add to the bottom of your marketing funnel? Could you offer more upsell opportunities, a better deal to customers after their initial sale, or partner with other businesses that pay to market to your customer base?
Understanding and optimizing your marketing funnel is key to your sales and profits. If you track every aspect of your strategy, you identify key areas for improvement. For example, the consumer goods company mentioned above tracked the number of visitors to the website resulting from its appearance on local TV shows, radio shows and newspaper articles and found that the appearance in TV shows drove 20 times more visitors to the website than other media. This gave them the idea to focus solely on television.
Our consulting company above used a similar tactic. Recently they have experienced a drop in sales. Because they followed their marketing process, they were able to identify that their team was making fewer proposals than before. Management identified the problem, encouraged the sales team to come up with more proposals, and sales instantly increased.
