What’s the best way to manage your lead funnel?
In many ways, businesses are just like cars — they need fuel (sales) to keep them running. This is a simple fact we all understand, whether we’re old hands in the events industry or are just getting started as event service providers. But for many of us, regardless of actual experience, the question of how to manage sales leads most effectively remains somewhere between a mystery and magic.
These days, sources for leads in the events industry have expanded far beyond traditional word-of-mouth and relationships with planning agencies to include inbound marketing tactics that embrace many digital platforms. (For more on inbound and outbound marketing, check out post.
These inbound tactics can include:
- Web directories listing all kind of event services that planners can search (of course, the more specific the directory is to your exact service type, the better)
- Social media where you can post your catalog, event images, ads and other types of content that help to increase brand awareness
- Your own website that you can promote on Google with the right tactics
The only problem with inbound marketing is that these tactics mean that you invest in content and then basically wait around for planners to reach out to you. Once they do reach out, the real work begins! You need to use various methods to continue building trust, keep your business top of mind, provide planners with specific information, and offer solutions — all of which takes time and requires the use of proper management methods and tools for success. This process is also known as “Funnel Management.”
So, what is a sales funnel?
A sales funnel is a visual representation helping you to understand the full process of generating leads and nurturing prospects. The top of the funnel is the widest part — this is the earliest, broadest approach when trying to generate leads, aiming at the largest target audience.
As you move through the funnel and the opening gets narrower, you are taking those original broad-based leads and further defining them. By refining your approach as you learn more about your prospects, the information you provide becomes more focused and personalized. This helps to build trust and guides your prospects through their buying process, as they gather information and seek solutions.
Managing your sales funnel is about providing exactly the right information at exactly the right time to move prospects forward, toward the final sale.
What stages does the funnel have?
Usually, the funnel is broken down into six distinct stages: Awareness, Consideration, Preference, Purchase, Loyalty, and Advocacy.
Each stage requires a different kind of attention, and your conversion goals will also change as your prospect progresses through the funnel. So let’s look at each stage individually:
Awareness — Here, your goal is to attract the community that is unfamiliar with your business. People can’t book you if they don’t know you exist, and they won’t book you if they don’t trust you. The most common awareness stage tactics for attracting new planners and establishing authority are social media posts, ads, and campaigns.
Consideration — Engage those who now know you exist. Your goal is now to get their email. Once someone has become familiar with your event service business, engage them and encourage them to make small commitments to your business even before they are ready to book. The best way to do this is to offer a small giveaway, which helps to solve a small problem they have, in exchange for their email address. This can be a how-to manual, recipes, downloadable images, or whatever is most relevant to your event service. It’s essentially a valuable “bribe” offered to a visitor in exchange for their contact information. Small commitments like this build to larger ones, like ultimately purchasing your product.
Preference — Educate those who are likely to book your service. Your goal: pre-qualify the prospect. Okay, you’ve got their attention. Now what? The next step is to educate them about your event service. They have questions and your job is to answer them. Your goal here is to pre-qualify prospects by helping them understand if your product is a good fit for them, but you also want to know if they’re a good fit for you! This will save a lot of hassle and confusion later in the process. Pre-qualification can also be done online, such as via this requirements form.
Purchase — Convert customers who are ready to book you. Your goal: make the sale. Give planners clear opportunities to book your services and reduce potential friction at every stage. The events industry as a whole is still dealing with proposals, rather than quick online booking, but that doesn’t mean we still need to do it all manually or endure endless cycles of feedback and changes. Remember that the longer the process takes, the more likely the customer will move on to another opportunity. You want to reduce any distractions and minimize the appeal of competing offers. The Maryoku platform is a good example of how to do this. In Maryoku platform the planner receives an online digital proposal and can do everything in one place, from adding extras, to deciding which parts of the offer to book.
Loyalty — Re-engage core fans who have already booked your service. It’s far easier to sell to an existing customer than it is to gain a new customer, especially if we’re talking about a professional event planner who works on multiple events for different clients. When your customer is a non-traditional planner from a corporation, it really depends on the type of service you’re offering. Some services are more likely to invoke loyalty — mainly when you’re looking at commoditized services like transportation, decor, or equipment rental. Other services are more creative, such as venue rental, food & beverage, and entertainment, and it is likely the planner will need different vendor for each event. Other services like photography and DJ are somewhere in between. In any case, if you can nurture loyalty you should go for it! You’ve already invested a lot of energy and money in gaining a core customer, so don’t just leave them on their own now! You can reinforce loyalty by offering a referral program with a bonus for the next booking.
Advocacy — Get planners to talk about you, whether that’s in the form of tweets, blog posts, shares, or ratings. Even when planners are unlikely to book you again (because they prefer going for new creative vendors every time), you can still put them to work to help you gain your next deal through referrals, rankings, and testimonials. Simply ask your customers to put in a good word and if they know anyone else who might benefit from your service.
