Let’s be honest. Acquiring good, qualified leads is a struggle.
You’ve got a great product or service, and you know that it could help thousands of people. But your efforts to connect with your ideal client…let’s just say they haven’t been so successful.
Sure, you can generate leads, but they’re not very good. You end up spending buckets of money on ads, only to get leads from people who don’t really want to work with you or can’t afford you.
But it doesn’t have to be this way.
What you need is an automated marketing funnel.
Qualified Versus Unqualified
On its own, generating leads isn’t that difficult. A couple of well-placed ads and maybe some selective outreach marketing will do the trick in pulling people through the door.
But being able to generate leads doesn’t mean you’ll make any money. We learned this the hard way.
You need a way to connect with your ideal customer – the people who WANT what you offer AND are willing to pay for it.
In other words, you need to generate qualified leads. And, you need to be able to generate these leads automatically, 24/7, 365 days per year.
But how do you do this?
The Automated Marketing Funnel
The solution to your lead problem is a marketing funnel that automatically attracts leads, thoroughly qualifies the leads, develops a relationship with them, and finally positions you to make the sale.
At its core, the automated marketing funnel consists of four fundamental elements:
- The Highly Targeted Ad
- The Entry Point
- Education and Relationship Building
- The Sale
The Highly Targeted Ad
To attract leads automatically, you need to advertise. But instead of a generic ad that tries to appeal to a huge number of people, you want to develop a highly targeted ad that hones in on the type of client most likely to be interested in what you have to offer.
Like we said, your issue probably isn’t pulling in leads. It’s finding the right ones.
That’s where the powerful Facebook ad platform comes in.
Don’t mistake the world’s most popular social media site as merely a way to stay connected to friends and family.
Their power ad platform lets you create very specific micro-campaigns that target potential consumers who REALLY want to work with you.
And when we say, “specific,” we mean really, really specific. You can target ads by age, income, gender, interests, buying habits, location, language, and hundreds of other data points.
Want to sell your business consulting services to small business owners who read Entrepreneur.com, regularly purchase online, and are located in Austin, Texas? With Facebook’s ad platform, you can do exactly that.
The Entry Point
The entry point of a marketing funnel is often the most misunderstood part of the process.
The entry point (aka your landing page) is the first place you qualify your leads. It’s where you speak to the pain points of your ideal client, as well as spell out exactly how you can help them. It’s also where you intentionally repel every person who isn’t your ideal client. In other words, using specific copywriting techniques, you ensure that only your perfect customer moves from your entry point down into your marketing funnel.
You can’t afford to skimp on your landing page.
Why?
Because the entry point serves as a secondary level of qualification.
It’s where you provide a clear and straightforward message of your product or service, while at the same inviting the prospect to learn more.
They can learn more through any number of things, including:
- A video
- A free download (like an eBook or similar material)
- A webinar (our personal favorite)
- A free trial
- Anything else that can induce your lead to provide their contact information
Once they’ve signed up to receive more information, you begin automatically moving them through your marketing funnel.
Education and Relationship Building
Now we get to the good stuff: educating and developing the relationship between you and your potential client.
Depending on the product or service you provide, this area of the marketing funnel can vary greatly.
Ultimately though, this is the set up to the sale.
After a potential lead opts into your funnel, you can begin giving them more information that will prepare them to buy from you. This helps the prospect begin to know and trust you.
We like to use automated webinars as our main method of education and nurturing. On a webinar, we can speak directly to the pain points of the prospect, show them the solutions available, and then move them toward a sale.
We know that a percentage of those who attend the webinar will be even more interested after they watch it and will be ready to schedule a call with our team. However, before they get on a call, we have them fill out an application.
Why? Because it furthers qualifies the lead.
It’s important to note that up to this point, everything is happening automatically. Once the system is set in place, leads are attracted and qualified automatically.
The only point we step in is when it comes to actually closing the sale.
The Sale
Regardless of the form your relationship building takes, it all leads to here.
The close or final sale.
The culmination of the automated marketing funnel, this is where you make your final pitch.
Much like the relationship building process, the final sales strategy should be tailored specifically to your business and may even occur at some point in the education process.
For example, we prefer the old school method of getting on the phone and actually talking to prospects. We’ve found that this method converts much higher than other ways we’ve tried. There’s just something about talking to a person that’s different than other forms of communication.
And here’s the good news. Because of all the pre-qualification we’ve done, we know that we’ll ONLY be talking to hot leads on the phone. That’s the power of the automated marketing funnel. It ensures that when it’s finally time to make the sale, you’re only talking to your ideal client.
Trust the Process
With an automated marketing funnel, you don’t have to worry about constantly trying to hunt down new business. The leads come directly to you. And by the time you talk to them in person, they’re ready to buy.
By automating three-quarters of your sales process – the advertising, entry, and relationship building – you free up more time to engage with those that are really interested in what you’re selling (and can pay for it).
Though it can help any business of any size, the marketing funnel is a massive benefit to those that are growing. You can never overstate the importance of scaling your operations to meet increased demand.
So you’re not just giving yourself more time to focus on customers who genuinely want to do business with you, you’re giving yourself more time to focus on your business.