In the last blog, I mentioned the need to create a lead funnel and identifying how it relates to your business. If you’re asking yourself “what the heck is a lead funnel” or how you can create one, read on because it’s pretty fun. 

Let’s start off by a simple definition of what a lead funnel is. A lead funnel is your guide to defining your lead generation process. From the top of the funnel where your leads enter and you begin the lead nurture process, to the bottom of the funnel where your lead is converted and enters the retention cycle. 

Stages of the lead funnel:

• Awareness - generate brand awareness, enter prospects into your funnel

• Interest - engage and educate about the brand and product

• Consideration - provide more in-depth information, trials, case studies, pain-point solutions

• Intent - sales handoff stage, 1:1 communication from the sales team

• Conversion - transaction complete

• Retention - post-sales campaigns focusing on retention

As you review each stage of the funnel identify which marketing tactics align best to reach your audience. A quick and general example:

• Awareness - social media ads, trade shows, webinars, blogs

• Interest - email nurture, newsletters, targeted digital ads, paid search

• Consideration - case studies, webinars, tailored content, remarketing ads

• Intent - email from the sales team, blogs, additional digital marketing ads

• Conversion - onboarding

• Retention - social media, PR, content syndication, remarketing, email, company events

Monitor activity and reporting

Monitoring your campaigns and lead stage activity go hand-in-hand. A critical task for the marketing and sales team is to update each lead record to its proper stage. This will allow the proper campaign tactics to initiate, and also provide proper reporting for the number of days it takes for a lead to get to each stage and at what cost.

Look closely at your reporting and identify any obvious low-performing campaigns needing to be immediately addressed. Determine if the campaigns need to pause, adjust, or any of the settings be corrected. 

Analyze reporting and summarize results

As you look over your campaign reports and lead stage performance, take a close look to see if all tactics are aligned to help nurture the lead and progress to conversion. Some questions to ask when reviewing reports and results:

• Are the platforms you’re using at each stage performing well?

• Are your tactics aligned with your campaign plan?

• Are your prospects engaged with your ad, emails, and content?

Look at the journey for any conversions and work backward to identify the actions which earned their reaction. Make sure you’re collecting the necessary and complete information in your lead forms, they are being distributed to the right teams and entering any special email drip campaigns. 

The lead funnel allows you to be organized in your marketing execution. It provides you with a tool to be effective, efficient, and allows you to scale with growth. It creates a roadmap for you and your marketing team to easily reference and knock down any internal silos to be more aligned as a marketing team when executing campaigns.