Your Marketing & Sales Prescription

Marketing creates leads and sales create customers and both in combination generate revenue.

And most brands want more revenue!

Now, there are only 3 ways to make more revenue:

Get more customers;
To spend more;
More frequently.

You get all 3 by:

Understanding your prospects and customers;
Increasing the number of prospects, AKA marketing;
Increasing the number of customers, AKA sales, AKA prospect conversions;
Increasing the value of customer transactions, AKA next-selling;
Increasing the number of customer transactions, AKA retention;
Increasing the engagement of prospects and customers to buy more, AKA referrals; and
Increasing the success of new product, service or solution launches.

Or simply:

You get more customers by generating leads;
You get them to spend more by upselling, down selling and cross selling;
You get them to spend more often by consuming your products, services and solutions faster.

That’s it.

Visually, it looks like a horizontal hour glass:

The horizontal hour glass is a visual analogy of how you can create more customers.

It shows you how to Get & Grow leads and customers.

The X axis is the Customer Journey (more on this later.)

The first half of the X axis is leads.

And the second half of X axis is revenue.

The Y axis is the quantity of leads or revenue depending on which half of the X axis you look at.

The first half of the X axis is leads and starts with you maximizing the number of prospects you can get.

You start by getting a large number of prospects who become Conscious, Captivated and Captured of and by your brand.

Then in the middle of X axis (between leads and revenue) is a purchase occurs (usually of a Low Priced offer).

This is where a small number of the original prospects become converted to customers.

From there, the newly converted customers move to the second half of the X axis where you attempt to maximise revenue from them.

Those customers have spent a small amount of money, so you try to grow that revenue number to a bigger amount.

In combination, these create the horizontal hourglass shape.

The horizontal hourglass shape has three different steps.

It is broken down by:

A Funnel;
Stairs; and
A Pipeline.

The Funnel shape is first half of the X axis and defines lead generation steps.

The Stair shape is the second half of the X Axis and defines products, services and solution and related price points for growing the revenue.

A Pipeline defines the specific flow directions between both the Funnel and the Stairs.

It looks like this:

Now, that looks complex and complicated!

And marketing and sales is complex and complicated.

Sometimes brands think they need one solution, such as Social Media, to get more revenue, but what they really need is something quite different.

For example, by analogy, a patient may go to the doctor thinking they need one solution for curing the flu, that is, an antibiotic, but the doctor will prescribe something quite different, that is, fluid and rest as antibiotics only treat bacteria not viruses.

Social Media is 1 of 33 pipeline building blocks (visually shown in the flow chart above) and if you don’t have many of other 32 building blocks, your marketing and sales efforts are wasted – it’s not the right prescription.

For example, if brands want more leads, generating leads encompasses 13 building blocks out of 33 and if brands don’t utilise many of other 20, their marketing efforts are wasted.

Likewise, if brands want more sales, making conversions is 20 building blocks out of 33 and if brands don’t utilise many of other 13, their sales efforts are wasted.

What all this means is that brands need to see the bigger picture before they can select a specific solution (like Social Media,) as the solution they think is necessary may not be the root cause of their problem, that is, generating more revenue.

Brands need to play “doctor” and not “patient” and accurately prescribe the correct solution, which may not, or most likely won’t, be the option they originally thought.

Even if the original thought proves to be the correct solution, it rarely works in isolation…

It needs a system around it!

The flow chart above visually shows the most basic marketing and sales pipeline every brand needs if they want more leads and customers and thus more revenue.

Yes, it looks complex and complicated!

Marketing and sales is just that — complex and complicated.

However, the rest of this white paper will guide you through this most basic marketing and sales pipeline, in particular, it will give you the theory behind this pipeline and then give you the links to recipes for implementing all 33 pipeline building blocks.

Let’s get started…

There are two sides to marketing and sales:

The emotional states that prospects and customers go through when they purchase; and
The corresponding and matching marketing and sales pipeline (and the recipes that make it happen.)

The recipes are the To Do task list, both once-off and ongoing tasks that put the marketing and sales pipeline together.

The first point can be broken down to:

The Human Purchasing Process; and
The Customer Journey.

At a high level, this marketing and sales pipeline follows the Human Purchasing Process, that is:

STEP 1: Becoming aware of their needs;
STEP 2: Determining if they want to change;
STEP 3: Finding out about brand’s products, services and solutions;
STEP 4: Convincing themselves that one’s (ideally your) brand product, service or solution is the best for their needs; and
STEP 5: Purchasing a product, service or solution.

Now, your brand does not exist in a vacuum.

Other brands have come before you, whatever product, service or solution you provide.

And it’s safe to say that 100% of those competitors have failed with their promises.

How do I know this to be true?

Because if they had succeed and delivered on their promise, then your current prospects would no longer have the problem they have.

It would have been solved already by the competition.

And as it is not solved, they are coming to you as an alternative supplier in the hope that you will deliver on your promise.

There is a marketing and sales adage that says: “All things being equal, people will do business with, and refer business to, those people they know, like, and trust.”

This is how you build trust:

You make a promise;
They get to know you as you deliver on that promise; and
They start to like you because you made a promise and delivered on that promise.

It is the promise plus delivery of promise that creates trust.

You achieve that through a Customer Journey.

The Customer Journey is the process it takes to go from suspect to prospect to customer, and to build relationships with suspects, prospects and customers, over the multiple the steps outlined next.

Simply, it helps you sell more, more frequently.

Here are the Customer Journey steps:

Conscious;
Captivated;
Captured;
Converted;
Charmed;
Climb;
Commend; and
Circulate.

All of these steps build rapport and trust with prospects and customers and mirror the Sales Process of:

Identify prospects (who are you customers?);
Suspect for Prospects (finding your customers);
Initiate Outreach (bridging the gap with your customers);
Target Outreach (qualify/disqualify your customers);
Needs Analysis (find your customer’s specific needs);
Solution Presentation (present your solution to your customers);
Trial Close (ask your customers to buy);
1. Negotiation (address any customer concerns – if required); and
2. Close (ask your customers to buy – if required.)

The Conscious, Captivated, and Captured stages are broken down into the 4 Types Of Leads:

Unqualified Leads;
Informed Qualified Leads;
Marketing Qualified Leads; and
Sales Qualified Leads.

And those 4 types of leads have 3 Temperature Levels:

Cold;
Warm; and
Hot.

Finally each of these leads fit into the 3 Media Types:

Paid Media;
Earned Media; or
Owned Media.

The Customer Journey, the Sales Process, the 4 Types Of Leads, 3 Temperature Levels and 3 Media Types above, provide the foundation for this marketing and sales pipeline.

And based on your diagnosis, the doctor prescribes the following for your brand…

It all starts with prospect Consciousness.

There are only two ways to get prospect Consciousness:

Inbound or outbound; and
Proactive or reactive.

Most brands get this Awareness Communication wrong; they propose marriage on the first date.

You need to have the right Awareness Communication, in the right place, at the right time, in the right sequence.

And that is not doing any selling – selling comes later.

At this stage stop selling and start helping!

So what do you do with that Consciousness of your brand?

You drive it to a Free Offer, which is usually long-form, pre-frame content hosted on your website, (but not always.)

Specifically you only direct the following traffic to a Free Offer:

B2B Outreach;
Inbound Enquires & Networking;
Ads;
Partnerships & Co-enrolment;
Exhibition Stands & Door-To-Door etc;
Search Engine Optimization;
Shared Content; and
Referrals.

That same long-form, pre-frame content is then used for Remarketing or Content Discovery, Shared Content, Publicity and Social Media.

Publicity, can be optionally supported by Ads.

Content hosted on other’s websites then get sent to your website.

The purpose of marketing (especially Content) is education, to get prospects Captivated with your brand.

Education, in the context of marketing, is giving instruction or information to prospects so they can make an informed buying decision.

And this means giving value (usually in the form of content) away for free.

Reciprocity is the psychological principle that states that people are more inclined to return free support received.

In the context of marketing and sales, the returned free support is in the form of payment for products, services or solutions.

The other purpose is to move prospects from Paid and Earned Media to your Owned Media.

All Cold and Remarketing or Content Discovery traffic (although it is Warm) gets sent to a Gated Offer, Low Priced Offer or a Needs Analysis.

From the Needs Analysis you conduct with prospects, you will do Trial Closes and address any of their objections.

Next, all other Warm traffic gets sent to Self-Paying Offers.

If prospects are Captured by Gated Offers or Low Priced Offers, they are sent Introduction Communication.

This Capture step is needed so you can communicate with prospects after that initial interaction, or Convert them to a customer via payment for a Low Priced Offer or a Self-Paying Offer.

The prospect now becomes an Information/Marketing/Sales Qualified Lead.

This is exactly the same steps you took to get this white paper!

If the prospect does not purchase a Low Priced Offer or a Self-Paying Offer, you send them Conversion and Progression Communication and short-form, pre-frame content hosted on your website.

If the prospect does purchase a Low Priced Offer or a Self-Paying Offer, they are then automatically Converted to a customer and:

You thank them for the purchase;
You deliver the product;
You Offer an Upsell;
You allow them to consume the original Offer so they are Charmed with your brand; and
You ask them to Circulate your brand to other prospects (where they start at prospect Conscious)

If you only have 1 product, service or solution, you need to create multiple, so you that new customer Climb your Offers via the Upsells mentioned before, that is:

A Main Offer; and
A Profit Offer.

If they do not take the Upsell immediately, you send them Conversion and Progression Communication or Determination to later Convert them or Segmentation Communication to Convert them on a new need (Offer a Cross Sell.)

At each of these Offers you will capture Testimonials (A Commendation).

At each of these Offers you will also provide Customer Service and further Captivate prospects and customers.

These all lead back to prospect Consciousness via Circulation.

Now, an Offer is simply a promise of providing a product, service or solution by a vendor to a prospect with certain Terms and Conditions and a certain price.

I have seen brands create Offers that are complex, convoluted, and unsexy.

So, if you had begun to read this through the lens of thinking you needed one solution, such as Social Media to get more revenue, I hope you realize that you really need something quite different – many of the other 33 pipeline building blocks described here.

In other words you need a system around that 1 thing!

The system or bigger picture, outlined here, will help you with the root cause of your revenue problem.

From here, you need to implement the missing pipeline building blocks, in addition to the original solution you thought you needed.

And Creating More Customers™ is as simple as that.

Talk soon,

Orren