Most of us by now have heard the John Wanamaker advertising quote:
Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is, I don’t know which half.
Advertisers have recited this for years, but in today’s age of data, analytics, lead generation, and sales reports, can we still say we’re this oblivious to our advertising success? There are moving parts between the marketing budget you put into campaigns and the final return you gain from it, but the best strategies will include checkpoints along the way to manage the health of each link in our advertising chain.
Awareness
No matter the industry, potential clients and customers need to be aware of your products or services before they can become a lead. We can usually measure the level of audience awareness through impressions. Here, you’ll find the first possible clog in your sales funnel: wasted impressions. The objective at this stage is to package and target your message in a way that doesn’t waste impressions. Ask yourself:
- Are the right audiences seeing my ad?
- Am I utilizing the correct advertising platforms?
- Am I spending enough/too much to reach my audience?
You could have the world’s greatest advertising message, but that can ultimately mean nothing if your impressions are being served to the wrong people.
Lead Generation
The era of cold-calling has all but run its course. Very few substantial business transactions nowadays result from a direct sales pitch from a vacuum. Leads rely on the awareness built in the Awareness stage. They often result after a potential client or customer is aware of your business but before they become a paying client or customer. As you are probably already aware, it’s a pretty delicate time. Your chief focus during this time should be guiding those aware of your service along a path that ends with becoming a customer or client.
This portion of your sales funnel easily clogs up when you lose focus of the end goal. Many companies and advertising plans focus too much strictly on building awareness. The goal here is to ultimately gain revenue. Once you see the ratio of impressions to leads begin to dwindle, make sure you’re guiding them correctly by asking yourself these questions:
- Are we providing value to these potential clients or customers?
- Do we utilize proper calls to action?
- Are we accurately portraying our products or services in our messaging?
Cultivating these leads is, in many ways, just as important to your campaign success as building initial awareness.
Converting with Your Sales Funnel
The end goal of most of our campaigns will be to gain a return on our investment (ROI). If it’s not, then companies must really like seeing themselves on TV. If our campaigns are properly gaining awareness from the right audiences and cultivating leads by keeping them within our sales funnel, the last function of these campaigns is to convert them. By this stage of the sales funnel, potential clients or customers have done the following:
- Gained an awareness of our business
- Shown interest in our message
- Demonstrated a need of our products or services
A customer may find themselves stuck at this final stage for a multitude of reasons. Could it be fear of commitment? Approvals from some board? Chief Operations Officer just had a baby? No matter the circumstance, we can most efficiently facilitate this process by keeping in constant communication through scheduled meetings or presentations. A business needs to inform the potential client or customer about what kind of potential value they could gain or lose by committing.
And if you’re ready to begin your journey, take your first step to becoming a client now.