Sales Funnel Management: How to Keep Leads Flowing

A sales funnel generally contains three segments: the Top, Middle and Bottom.

At the top is where you have the point of entry for potential leads. This often initiated by the hand-off between the marketing and sales departments. Once a marketing qualified lead makes it through the marketing funnel, it enters the sales funnel and becomes a sales qualified lead.  How a person arrives here is usually the result of an effective marketing strategy (SEO, social media, email marketing, etc.). A good marketing funnel will thoroughly vet lead prospects so that those who enter the sales funnel are in the best position to convert into a paying customer.

This section of the sales funnel stages is the widest as it is here that the largest volume of sales leads are. Leads at this stage only know about your company or organization through marketing materials. An initiation for leads to explore your site and services and ask questions are highly recommended at this stage. Don’t try to sell anything, but rather build rapport and portray a positive company experience and image.

By the end of the Middle of the Funnel stage, a prospect is in a position to become a customer. During this sales funnel stage, a prospect will be shopping around for the best solution to their concern, question, issue or need. He or she will be looking at your business and comparing it with your competitors. During this stage, it is important to follow-up with the lead. This can be done via phone calls and email. However, it is important to not follow-up too earnestly or frequently as this can annoy and scare the prospect away. The Middle of the Funnel is also a good opportunity to offer discounts and offers.

A visitor converts to a lead at the middle section of the funnel. This occurs when someone fills out a form in exchange for relevant, valued content. However, just because a lead arrives in the middle of the funnel doesn’t necessarily mean he or she is a qualified lead. The lead may show interest, but may be unwilling to follow through with a purchase or partnership commitment. It is important to measure engagement, urgency, and interests of the prospects at this point and develop targeted messaging and advertising to these prospects.

The bottom of the funnel is the point of conversion from lead to a sales opportunity. At this sales funnel stage, the prospect has chosen to do business with you and is ready to make a purchasing decision. To get an idea of where the sales qualified lead is at in regards to how ready he or she is in pulling the trigger, below are some indicators to look at and consider:

• Frequency of visits to your site
• How many conversations with a sales rep
• LinkedIn profile views

It’s important that once a lead converts and makes a purchase, the job of the salesperson isn’t done. He or she must continue communication and relationship building with the customer so that he or she becomes a loyal, repeat customer.

When someone shows enough interest, that person becomes a Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL). This MQL is then handed off to the sales team in which it then becomes a sales qualified lead (SQL). Depending on the lead, you can place this lead in the middle of the funnel. These leads are ready for your full pursuit.

 A good sales funnel allows you to understand your own sales team and its performance. Use it to see your customers’ behavior and motivations. If you don’t have a sales funnel, here a few guidelines to help you build one:

Effective sales efforts aren’t about talking to as many people as possible. They’re about focusing energy on the leads with the most potential to convert into sales. Your sales funnel should move low-quality contacts out of the flow as soon as possible to enable higher quality ones to more freely move forward through the sales pipeline stages.

Revenue is the lifeblood of any business. And who brings in the revenue? The sales department. It’s critical to train your sales reps in a way that optimizes the sales motion, while at the same time fostering a culture of innovation, learning and customer satisfaction.

Another crucial aspect of your sales team is hiring and training the right people. Hire motivated individuals with diverse experience and abilities.

You don’t need to wait for inbound marketing leads to getting your funnel moving. Generate activity. You can do this through prospecting tactics like referrals, conferences, and cold calling.

Identifying and filtering interested leads is a challenge. A successful sales funnel tags potential sales qualified leads that will convert to paying customers. If your funnel is too complicated, it may actually hurt your business. Read on for ideas on how to keep your sales funnel running buttery smooth.

Passing unqualified leads onto the sales organization is wasteful. Most of these leads will never turn into sales. A smaller, more focused pool of leads offers the sales team a better use of time, energy and resources. It also increases the chance of making a sale.

Your CRM (customer relationship management system) is the sales funnel concept made tangible. It allows you to follow customers along the journey. It also simplifies the sales flow by automating tasks such as email marketing segmentation and the sending of emails. Your CRM will also help you measure each stage of the funnel using detailed statistics and analytics.

A CRM should not take attention away from the core sales process. Use it to help execute your sales strategy, measure progress, and automate workflows.

There are some leads who never progress through the sales funnel stages, yet they could still qualify. They’ve stalled for some reason, and you don’t know why. Most companies put stalled sales qualified leads on ice because they don’t know what to do with them. Let Aktify find out why they’ve stalled. Plus, we revive the ones who are still interested. To learn more, click here.