‘Know your customer’ has become quite a cliché in marketing. There has never been a business that didn’t start out fulfilling unmet needs for a very specific group of people.
We suspect you probably know your customer fairly well, but let’s turn this question on its head and instead ask:
How well do you know your prospects?
Air Marketing Group know that a lack of qualified prospects moving through your sales process today, can mean trouble for your business tomorrow. We understand that a strong sales pipeline is critical to attain revenue goals 6 – 12 months from now.
So what steps should you take to build and sustain a healthy sales pipeline?
Start with enough leads
Sales is a numbers game and to develop a strong sales pipeline you must accumulate enough leads to drive through your marketing and sales engine. If you have a good understanding of the pipeline process you’ll know only a proportion of your targeted leads will become qualified, and a fraction will convert and be ready to buy at any given time.
Qualify every lead
Generating a list of qualifying questions to ask every interested lead will allow you to determine if there’s a real business opportunity or not.
Ask: Has your prospect got a realistic need you can fill?
- What are their major challenges in this area?
- Have they tried to solve these issues? If so, how?
- How soon do they want to find a solution?
Ask: Is the prospect an appropriate lead for the value and price point of your offering?
- What solutions would they consider?
- What is the budget to address this solution?
Be careful of time wasters. If it appears there’s little budget for your solution, put this lead into your low-quality category and concentrate on higher priority prospects.
Use lead quality for targeted marketing
It’s important to use resulting lead quality data to develop more tailored campaigns. At Air Marketing all our campaigns use bespoke lead generation strategies and are tailored to meet individual business requirements. This strategy allows us to provide clients with quality sales leads that meet specified criteria.
Nurture qualified prospects
Not every qualified prospect will be ready to buy today. Once qualified leads have been identified you can leverage the use of content based email marketing, and follow up calls, to continue to nurture leads and identify interested prospects.
Create a next step for every interested lead. Base this on need, interest and timing:
- Schedule a demo or follow up call to share additional insights.
- Send a follow up email that needs a response within a requested time.
- Send an industry-related article every month to stay in touch and keep educating them.
Remaining in front of interested, qualified prospects will mean you are at the front of their mind to assist when the time of their need arises.
CRM systems
A customer relationship management system (CRM) will improve your sales efficiencies, and allow you to track and report on sales opportunities, leads and prospects.
Remember a healthy sales pipeline will have the following attributes:
- Many opportunities at every stage of the funnel.
- New opportunities coming into the top of the funnel regularly.
- New sales being converted at the bottom of the sales funnel regularly .
Here at Air Marketing Group, we pride ourselves on our ability to get under the skin of your business, speaking with your prospects and where possible and relevant warm the lead into a position where they can be converted into an opportunity. In addition to this, we provide a transparent reporting service, and the delivery of each call recording to ensure our clients that any leads we’ve secured will convert.
If knowing your prospect is still an area you would like help with get in touch today to find out how we can help on 03452413038 or get in touch.
