The Lead Generation Funnel Explained
Let’s jump in and explore the art of the lead generation funnel.
The concept of an inbound lead generation funnel can be as simple or complex as you want to make it. Most anyone you talk to in a sales or marketing leadership role will have some twist on lead generation funnels. But, the basis of the lead funnel concept is usually the same – build awareness, build interest, and build conversions. Take a prospect from not knowing you to being interested in what you offer to converting on a sale or lead form.
Although the lines are more blurred than ever this article will have a slant towards B2B lead generation. B2C will always differ some in the lead generation process but effective lead generation in any market or industry will incorporate many of the strategies outlined below.
Lead Generation Funnel Phase: Awareness
In my opinion if the lead generation funnel strategy is strong with interest flowing into your company from your target audience, the awareness phase is where you’ve invested the bulk of your time, effort, and dollars. This is where you first engage prospects, gain their trust, and nurture them into the next phase of the funnel. The better job you do here, the more successful later funnel stages will be turning these prospects into customers.
At this point in the funnel, your prospect may or may not know they have a problem that your product or service can solve. They’re not looking to be sold anything. It’s too early for product related calls to action.
It’s time for value-based engagement to attract potential customers.
But first, who are we targeting and what is their customer journey? This is an important phase to know your personas. I won’t go too far into persona development, but this is where you profile and describe the people that:
- Sign off on buying your product
- Are influencers in the decision to buy your product
- Are the people that actually use your offering.
Skipping this part is expensive. It means you’re potentially creating untargeted content or purchasing ads for the wrong audience.
Assuming we now know the people and groups we’re targeting, it’s time to come up with our engagement strategy which should be focused on providing value and building trust with your prospects.
There is no one-fits-all strategy here. What goes into the plan here is very dependent on the industry you’re in, the people you’re selling to, the size of companies involved, etc. But, here are some sales funnel strategies I’ve seen work best for just about any size target company.
Content, Content, Content….and more Content
I’m a big believer that one of the most important lead generation tools is content marketing.
Thought leadership developed during this initial lead generation funnel phase may be one of the most important marketing initiatives for any team focused on developing qualified leads. Content your target prospects will find valuable and worth reading is an excellent place to start.
Go into problem solving mode and figure out what questions your prospects need answered or what information they find most valuable.
This can be website blog posts well-optimized for search engines (SEO) to white papers and industry resources that become information your prospects will rely on. It could be a video series offering resources for your industry.
The goal here is to prove to the industry and your prospects that you’re a source of reliable information they’ll want to follow.
Social Engagement
Based on your persona development you should have a good idea on what social media platforms your target prospects are engaged. Are they mainly LinkedIn or do they blur the lines between personal and business and absorb business information on multiple channels?
No matter the platform, get your brand involved with a strong series of social media posts. Facebook Groups and LinkedIn Groups are a great way to build community and offer valuable information and resources. Remember, we’re not pitching products here ALL the time. We’re contributing to the industry and occasionally throwing in a product awareness post.
Lead Magnets and Offers
Although we’re not trying to qualify leads for sales here, this is a great phase to build the email list of prospects to nurture.
Why do we want email here? So, we can start to develop that one-on-one relationship with the prospect. We can continue offering consistent valuable resources at a reliable cadence that keeps the prospect alert to your brand.
Well thought out downloadable items and blog content that promote signups are key here. What is something of high value you can offer in exchange for an email address?
Drip Campaigns
At the awareness phase drip campaigns need to be strategically planned but are key to nurturing your prospects.
What is a drip campaign? One example of a drip campaign is automated communications and activities that are triggered by a prospect taking action. Say for instance, a prospect finds a blog post via a Google search. They read your blog content, are impressed by it, and see a related resource you’ve put together for download. You’ve gated this particular piece of content and the prospect puts in their email address for download.
A drip campaign in this instance can be a follow-up series of emails that are designed to nurture the prospect down the funnel. Remember, your prospect may not be in “buy” mode here so a product focused first email in the campaign would not be a good idea. Rather, keep up with what got you here in the first place – good quality content. Then later in the drip, slowly start to show how your product or service can solve customer problems.
Remarketing
One other piece I want to mention here is the possibility of running Remarketing ads. Remarketing ads are ads you run on Google Ads, Facebook, LinkedIn etc that target people that took action on your site, for example. Could be just that they visited or could be based on content they downloaded.
I like this as a way to start the introduction of the brand. Maybe you’re simply offering the prospect another content offer or maybe you’re positioning a video series you’ve created that demonstrates your knowledge of your target audience and their needs. Whatever your strategy, this is a great additional touch point that won’t break the budget bank.
Virtual Events
I say virtual because so much has moved in that direction over the last few years but we could be referring to any type of event here. Imagine if you had a quarterly webinar that was built up to the point where people in the industry relied on the information coming out of it. What a great way to build up thought leadership!
Funnel Phase: Interest
Interest is where the prospect or buyer knows they have a problem for which they need a solution. At this stage in the funnel we want to make sure that a prospect or buyer knows we have the solution they’re looking for. We have the answers to their questions.
If your strategies are weak in the awareness phase, this step in the lead generation funnel will be more expensive. You’ll have a short time to convince someone who has never heard of you to buy from you.
If you were strong in the awareness phase, the prospect is well familiar with your brand, knows your offering, and will have an easier time feeling comfortable buying from you than a unknown brand.
Let’s walk through some strategies common to this phase, but adapted differently based on industry and customer type.
Search Engine Optimization
Very few product searches or analysis happen these days without a visit (or multiple visits) to Google. Here is where you’ll want to make sure you’re well optimized for the keywords that relate to your products and services.
Imagine a buyer prospect who is already familiar and trusts your brand, sees your product service in the top few results of their search. Wouldn’t you click to learn more?
I won’t dive into SEO here but knowing your target market, their pain points, and what they might search for to solve their problem is a great way to start building content for the right keywords.
Paid Search
I will oftentimes refer to paid search (ads on Google and/or Bing) as a great opportunity for a money pit scenario. Without the proper expertise, this practice can be extremely expensive and not yield the ROI you want.
I’ll have a different article on best practices for paid search so won’t dive too deep here but bidding on your brand keywords (company name) and keywords focused on your products or services can help to stay in front of the prospect at this phase.
Using paid ads to generate leads where you’re not ranking for a keyword organically is good use of budget dollars at this phase. You’ll make sure you’re still in front of the prospect on the search engine results page (SERP) even if your content is not ranking.
Landing Pages and Forms
Make sure your site is ready to convert on the buyer interest. Whether the buyer is coming from an organic search result, paid ad, or email, make sure your site content is ready to show them you know their pain and have the solution to solve the pain.
Then, have quick and easy forms where the prospect can ask for a demo or more information.
Experiment with site content here as well. Can you record a one minute demo or video representation of your product? What resources can you create for your niche that is aimed at the prospect in buy mode?
Remarketing
We’ve talked about his once already, but one way to cut down on paid ad costs in this phase is to target prospects who have already reviewed your products or service. Remarketing for the win! Creating audiences in Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc of site visitors that view product pages on your website gives you the ability to create specific ads for those visitors that will be a reminder to them to stop back and have another look.
Creating these audiences also give you the ability to create “lookalike audiences” which take the characteristics of people in your audience and create similar lists of people to serve ads to based on the people you’ve already had hit your site. Building data points is so important!
Funnel Phase: Buy
You’ve wooed them with your industry expertise. You’ve shown them you understand their pain and have a solution to solve their problem. Now, it’s time to convert these prospects to buyers.
Again, if you’ve knocked it out of the park on the first two phases, this part will be much less complicated. It’s really about nudging the prospect towards a purchase.
Many of the techniques we’ve already discussed above can be used in some for or another here, but these are some additional tools to consider.
Sales Enablement Tools
This is a very broad term, but in this instance it’s arming your salespeople with tools to help them close the deal. This can be anything from:
- A sales call slide deck that tells an amazing story
- Testimonials from current clients
- Detailed product spec sheets
- Email templates that reinforce the value in your solutions
These are just a couple examples but only you know what would be best for your sales team in that “close the sale” engagement.
Site Technology
I’m saving site technology for another article, but want to mention a few items here that I think are important to have in place.
Yes, site pop-ups are annoying at times. But, here’s a little secret – they actually work. I like to use very targeted site pop-ups. If you have the right tech working on your site you can set up a scenario where the pop-up will trigger only if the person has visited your site multiple times or has taken certain actions that indicate they’re in buy mode.
What a great time to serve a piece of content via a pop-up that helps the prospect in their buyer journey.
I also like a live chat for this point in the funnel. I like to make sure we’re ready to answer any last questions for the prospect. There will inevitably be that time period where you’re being compared to another vendor(s) and questions will pop-up. Have a chat that can handle those questions is a great way to be ready!
Targeted Social Media Ads
I don’t want the prospect’s social feeds to be jammed with ads and content from my brand, but at this point some subtle placements can help you stay top of mind. Maybe it’s a targeted post once a day with additional value-added content just to reinforce that the relationship will not stop at the sale, but will go long into the future.
If you’re monitoring the performance of these and know who takes what actions, it’s a great way to know who is getting closer to that time of purchase. This gives your sales team a leg up in the process.
Alter Paid Ad Strategies
If you’re using Audiences actively on Google, Linked, Facebook, etc. this is a good time to up the bid amounts for your audiences built around people that are serious buyers Using those parameters we talked about earlier, I find the conversion rates will jump with well-timed ads to the right people in this phase.
Setting up and optimizing these three phases of a lead generation funnel and pairing with a strong outbound lead generation practice will set you on your way to a nice lead generation funnel engine.
Does this cover all strategies? Absolutely not. There are many more techniques, tools, and tips that can be used in these lead generation funnels. This was meant to be a broad, higher-level set of strategies that can be tailored to your industry and target personas.
As an extra resource for you, I cover strategies for staff meeting success in a previous post which will give you some ideas on how to track and report on funnel progress.
What has worked for you? Any major strategies I’m missing here?
