Marketing automation, artificial intelligence (A.I.), and advanced data analytics are transforming marketing across industries and creating new ways of turbocharging the sales funnel process for driving more leads into the sales funnel and accelerating them through to generating final sales.

As you probably know, a sales funnel refers to the buying process that brings potential customers to a buying decision by taking them through a series of marketing actions. Like a turbocharger does for an automotive engine, marketing automation combined with A.I. and data analytics brings more prospects into the funnel, accelerates them through the process more efficiently, and delivers higher performance for sales conversions.

Let's look at how this happens in three phases:

• Engage
• Discover
• Harvest

ENGAGE

In the most basic approaches to a sales funnel, you run ads that bring prospects to your website, where they are offered something (a report, free sample, etc.) in return for providing their email address, and this capturing of their email address initiates them into the sales funnel process.  However, with tools such as marketing automation and A.I., there are now much more effective ways of engaging prospects. For example, rather than offering just a one-time report, by providing prospects with A.I.-driven automated personalized home care reminders and tips, you can:

• stay top-of-mind with your prospects on an on-going basis;
• enhance your brand; and
• learn the specific needs of each prospect.

Ideally, you will want to engage your prospects through multiple touch points across multiple marketing channels.  This not only casts a wider net for prospects who may prefer a particular type of touch point, but also enables deeper visibility into the needs of prospects who engage through multiple touch points.

Thanks to marketing automation and A.I., achieving this increased prospect engagement costs significantly less and saves you substantial time.

DISCOVER

The next phase involves discovering the levels of engagement and the specific needs of your prospects.  The better you can understand these, the more effectively marketing campaigns can be tailored in the next 'harvest' phase.

Advanced data analytics tools enable this discovery in two ways:

• visualizing performance results; and
• 'slicing and dicing' data using custom analytics.

When applying data analytics tools, it is best to consider the Pareto principle (also known as the 80/20 rule), which includes that 80% of the profits of a business can come from 20% of the customers.  This enables you to crisply define customer segmentations based on deep insights into relative levels of engagement and groupings of customer needs, which together is then used for focusing your marketing campaigns in the next harvesting phase.

HARVEST

Armed with segmentations identified in the 'discover' phase, you are now well-positioned for harvesting your sales through:

• developing targeted marketing campaigns; and
• nurturing your leads through sales funnels.

Targeted marketing campaigns can include emailings, phone calls, presentations, drip campaigns, etc., and each should be specifically tailored for a specific segmentation that is based on the insights gained from the custom analytics in the 'discovery' phase.  With this, you are now well-positioned for nurturing your leads through your sales funnels.  

Lead nurturing is the building of relationships with buyers as you increase their awareness of your services, build trust, and improve the likelihood that they will choose you when it's time to buy.  

With the combination of marketing automation, A.I, and advanced data analytics, you now can have a turbocharged sales funnel process with more leads that can be accelerated to generated sales.  So start your engines!

To learn how APPLICA can help you build and manage your sales funnel to grow your business, contact us at support@applica-solutions.com or (508) 281-2050.