Friday Funnel Focus by EPOCH Sales Management Solutions
Our 3 Part Formula to a Healthy Sales Pipeline identifies “Grow Existing Clients” as the #1 New Opportunity Process Bucket and “Intentional Networking/Referrals” as bucket #2. Together they are the most fertile ground to grow new opportunities. Bucket #3 is “Build and Leverage Inbound Marketing/ Demand Generation”. It can take time to build a successful Inbound Marketing/Demand Generation Engine to create more new opportunities. We recommend that you initiate this bucket in advance of Buckets 4 and 5, because this effort will assist your efforts in those two buckets. (We will be talking about buckets 4 and 5 in the next two episodes of the Friday Funnel Focus Blog.)
Today we want to share our recommendations to help you better partner with your marketing team to create more new opportunities for sales.
Helpful Resources
There are many resources to help you with “marketing”, but these three are our favorites to help you get the most ROI out of your marketing efforts to create more new opportunities for your sales team.
- Donald Miller and his Marketing Made Simple/Building Your Story Brand concepts
- Amy Porterfield and her Online Marketing Made Easy concepts, specifically her List Building Society
- HubSpot with its HubSpot Academy and Marketing Hub Platform
Grow Engaged Contacts
We believe that the goal of a small B2B Business marketing program should be to grow the number of engaged contacts in a steady manner. Focus on growing engaged contacts that fit your ideal customer profile. You may ask, what is an “engaged contact”? We consider an “engaged contact” as one that “engaged” in the past 45 days and “slipping away” as one that last engaged in 45-180 days prior.
You might ask, how do we measure “engaged”? HubSpot defines an “engaged contact” as:
Contact engaged with your site or a form, document, meetings link, or tracked email. This doesn't include marketing emails or emails to multiple contacts.
In Chapter 10 of his book, Marketing Made Simple, Donald Miller outlines six meetings to execute his Marketing Made Simple format.
- Goal Meeting - Decide which sales funnel to create
- BrandScript Script and One-Liner Meeting
- Wireframe Website meeting
- Lead Generator and Email Sequence Meeting
- Content Refinement Meeting
- Results Analysis and Refinement Meeting
Amy Porterfield’s List Builder Society and HubSpot Academy help further explain how to execute the various steps to attract contacts.
Yes, our goal is more new opportunities to win more sales. But we recommend that your Inbound Marketing/Demand Generation program be focused initially at attracting prospects to grow your engaged contact list.
Consider these steps as you build your Inbound Marketing/Demand Generation engine.
Build the Foundation
Buyer Persona
Go beyond your definition of your Ideal Client Profile(s) to build out Buyer Personas. What is a Buyer Persona? Here is what HubSpot says:
Personas are fictional, generalized characters that encompass the various needs, goals, and observed behavior patterns among your customers.
Creating buyer personas allows you to target these groups and refine your messaging and products to better address their needs. You want to be speaking to your primary Buyer Persona. You can use this free tool to build out your Buyer Persona.
Company Story
You need a succinct compelling story to attract prospective buyers. In other articles we discuss our three favorite personas. For this effort, we recommend the Story Brand Framework. Build your own BrandScript with this free tool.
Build and Execute a Content Strategy
Content Strategy
Develop your content plan to identify what types of regular content you will create and what topics you will cover in your first 90 days.
Also, select a topic area for your weekly anchor content and develop individual topics for the first 13 weeks.
Weekly Anchor Content
Choose an “anchor” for your regular content such as a blog or podcast.
Lead Magnets
Building Irresistible Lead Magnets are a key element of this Marketing Strategy.
Informational Email Plan
Develop a plan for a newsletter or other informational email to go along with your anchor content.
Donald Miller’s Marketing Made Simple can help you get started. HIs Marketing Made Simple provides a great basic framework.
Amy Porterfield’s List Builder Society provides more details on the “how” to accomplish the various steps. While her primary market is for women growing side hustle businesses, her concepts and principles that she uses with her podcasts can be applied to many businesses.
HubSpot Academy is loaded with content that can help you each step of the way. HubSpot’s strength in this arena is around Business Blogging and Inbound Marketing Automation Tools.
Attract Engaged Contacts
Once you develop great content, you need a plan to get it in front of your Ideal Prospects. Find the ways that will work best for you to connect your content with your audience. Here are some ideas to consider in your plan:
- Promote directly to your network and encourage them to share.
- Promote on Social Media that makes the most sense for you Ideal Prospects and Ideal Networking Partners.
- Leverage Guest Posts, Interviews and Media to promote your content.
- Use Paid Advertising to boost your content.
Developing great content is half the battle. The other half of the battle is promoting your content so that your prospects see it.
Reach out to us if you would like us to connect you with a Marketing Agency that can help you with this process.
At EPOCH Sales Management Solutions, we are committed to help you get up to speed at your desired pace and be here as you grow with the platform. We are building an online community at EPOCH Sales Management Solutions for our HubSpot customers.
Come join the EPOCH Sales Management Solutions HubSpot Community.
While growing Small Businesses and Building Great Sales Teams is hard, the process to do this is simple. But, simple does not mean easy.
Want to explore the process further, schedule a free 30-minute consultation.
In the meantime, get our guide to the 3 Part Formula to a Healthy Sales Pipeline
