Funneling Prospects into the Sales Pipeline

by Richard Rutigliano, PriMedia, Inc.

The marketing tactics you need to move from awareness to contract, and beyond

Is it a sales funnel or a sales pipeline? While both ideas relate to the journey of each customer to get to contract and beyond, they are not interchangeable, even though they are often used as such.

A sales funnel considers the customer’s point of view, the individual transition from awareness to interest to evaluation to decision and finally action.

The sales pipeline, on the other hand, tracks the movement from the company’s or salesperson’s point of view. This is the movement from prospecting to lead qualification to sales demo to proposal to contract signing and then post-purchase engagement.

One can easily see similarities in the two concepts. Both start with broad reach ideas of awareness and prospecting. Your company’s prospecting tactics lead to the customer’s awareness of your services.

From there, the customer shows interest, the sales team qualifies the lead. A sales demo or call is held, the customer evaluates.

A proposal is offered, the customer renders a decision and then takes action by signing the contract. Most sales funnels end there, with the sale. Many pipelines continue to include post-purchase engagement.

Just as the sales funnel and pipeline have points of correlation, your marketing and sales tactics overlap and enhance support both journeys.

Awareness/Prospecting

The prospecting phase of the sales pipeline consists of efforts to raise awareness of the company’s products and services in the minds of prospective customers.

How does one prospect, or raise awareness? Through outbound marketing, consisting of targeted print, broadcast, and digital advertising; paid and organic social media campaigns; optimized search results; and personalized email and text messaging.

Print, radio and TV marketing have always thrown the widest net. Traditionally, these campaigns reach all consumers, regardless of their interest or need for the services being promoted. They can raise awareness, and will, because of volume, locate prospects. The digital services attached to these broad marketing tactics often enable you to target your messaging as you would a digital campaign.

Digital advertising has evolved to offer the most precise targeting options. Google and Facebook provide options to identify potential customers by their interests, online history – including ads they may have clicked through or even hovered over – age, location, income level, and more, and the platforms’ AI-powered systems determine which of their billions of users will be most interested in your offers.

Programmatic marketing puts even more targeting options in your hands. Would you like to reach country music aficionados in your service area between 35-44 years old, with graduate degrees, three children under 10, a pre-1970s home they bought within the last three years, and a mortgage of less than $250,000, but only if they are interested in photography, wine appreciation and football or table tennis? I offer this extreme example to provide an idea of how deep the targeting options are with programmatic – and to offer a warning that sometimes, getting too specific limits your opportunities!

Programmatic systems process auctions on web page ad space, streaming platforms, apps, and connected TVs across the digital landscape, using AI and machine learning to bid on the opportunity to put your ad in front of your ideal customer at the best price possible. The programmatic system will also compare the performance of each image, message, and combination, and will learn to place the best performing ad for each individual or publishing platform. The low cost per placement of less than one cent per impression also gives you the chance to test different ads and audiences. Do the majority of homes in your service area have inground pools or driveway basketball hoops? If so, you might want to utilize the laser-like targeting available to promote your services to consumers with those interests.

Interest/Lead Qualification

The awareness campaign has worked. Consumers are interested. Where can they get more information, and what are you doing to qualify the leads coming in?

Every ad or email or text message needs to include a phone number and/or link to your website. The more data you can gather, by using a special number for ad responses, setting up custom landing pages, and including tracking data on your links, the better your reporting will be. Those landing pages should have a simple response mechanism as well, so the consumer can request more information.

As many responses may come in the form of telephone calls, your office team needs to be ready to respond to inquiries. They need to be aware of any special offers, understand the product or service, and be able to answer initial calls. The call will be forwarded to the sales team immediately, of course, but whoever answers the phone needs proper training to keep the customer interested until a salesperson can contact them!

At this point, you need to have a customized lead tracking platform to organize and route your leads, ensure that the next steps are completed in a timely manner, and enable your management team to track the activity and outcomes.

Evaluation/Sales Call

Every inbound lead, whether by phone call, email, or web submission, needs to be followed up by a salesperson who will set up a sales call so that the customer can evaluate your company’s capabilities.

During the evaluation period, the potential customer may have questions or request changes to products and services that had been presented. They may be looking for enhancements, lower cost options, financing, or additional information on rebates and tax credits. Especially during this sensitive period, it is vital that the individual feels as if he or she is the most important person to your company, and that everyone on your side is aware of and understands his/her issues and concerns. Therefore, all communications between your office and the lead need to be stored in your lead tracking system, so that everyone related to the lead – whether a CSR, sales person, or manager – can provide the exceptional service that will earn you the sale.

Your lead platform should also automatically remind your sales team to make the appropriate calls within a proscribed period, and management should be alerted if specific timelines are not met, to make sure the lead does not get lost.

Decision/Proposal

The next stage of the pipeline consists of your company presenting its proposal so that the prospect can make a decision.

Here, again, the lead tracking system can help push the project through your pipeline – and the lead through its funnel. The proposal document should be uploaded and the submission email sent directly from the platform and stored therein. Confirmation texts alerting the customer that the proposal is in their inbox can expedite their retrieval and review. Phone calls within a day or two to review any questions add a layer of service.

The prospective customer often needs this personal touch, especially if they are reviewing offers from several vendors. A little attention is often enough to tip the scales in your favor.

Action/Contract

If all goes well, the now-customer has taken action and you have a signed contract in your hands – and archived in your lead system.

If the lead tracking system is integrated with your customer relationship management portal, the data can be transferred to create a new customer account and open the project. The sales process is complete.

The customer has moved through the sales funnel, from awareness to interest to evaluation to decision and finally to action.

The lead has moved through your pipeline, from prospecting to lead qualification to sales call to proposal to contract.

Congratulations. What next?

There is one more station included in many pipelines.

Post-Purchase

The prospect became a customer because your marketing and sales processes worked in sync. Both real and artificial intelligence were utilized to develop your advertising and targeting strategies. Staff training and an automated lead tracking system ensured that every interaction the prospect had was professional, helpful, and moved them closer to signing the contract.

Your job now is to keep them as a customer.

That requires ongoing communications to strengthen their connection to your company and greater convenience than they would find with a competitor.

If your communications are limited to monthly invoices or incoming complaint and service calls, you are setting your company up for a revolving door of customer acquisitions and departures. Consider implementing cost-effective outbound messaging programs, including frequent social media updates, print and digital newsletters, customer-specific promotional emails, automated text alerts and reminders, and more. Remember to include more than just sales-related and promotional information. Use these communications to humanize your business: provide some company history, share news about your company’s and employees’ community service, highlight one of your exceptional staff, or create a contest that engages your customers and offers them a chance to win a prize or account credit. Each of these suggestions welcomes the customers into your “family.”

Lastly, convenience. Working with you needs to be convenient, or customers will find a provider who makes their life easier. Customers need to be able to pay bills, order fuel, check their accounts, and request service on their time. It will come as no surprise that “business hours” may be helpful to the business, but not to homeowners juggling their own work schedules, children, chores, friends and families, and community involvements. Their comfort systems are low on their list unless they have an emergency. A robust integrated portal provides the convenience they need, even at 6 a.m. on a Saturday.

Unifying your marketing, sales, and web services systems so that they work together will ease the journey through the sales funnel and sales pipeline for prospects, customers, and your staff, and help your company grow and thrive.

Richard Rutigliano is President of PriMedia, Inc., an integrated marketing and communications firm specializing in the home energy sector. He can be reached at 516-222-2041 or rrutigliano@primediany.com.

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