One of the key objectives of your sales funnel is lead generation.
Lead generation is a term used in marketing and sales which means you are reaching out to people who are in your target demographic and then systematically introducing them to your brand (products and services).
You are not trying to force your product or service. It is an educational, informational, approach to build trust first. You are collecting their details so that you can slowly build a relationship and then sell to them.
These people are cold leads – they have shown an interest in your brand. That is the first step.
The next type warming up the lead. This is someone who has shown more of an interest in your brand and who is now potentially ready to be marketed to.
Perhaps they subscribed to your marketing mailing list, or maybe they liked you on Facebook, or follow you on Twitter.
Finally, you have your ‘qualified lead’.
This is someone who has shown an interest in buying from you – perhaps by requesting a quote or clicking to get more information about a product or service you offer.
In your sales funnel your qualified lead is the person who is now ready to cross the ‘free line’ and become a potential paying customer.
This is a critical concept to understand when building a sales funnel. It shows you how you’re going to reach out to new leads and then develop them into paying customers (you do need sales funnel tools to create your sales funnel).
Lead Management and Lead Scoring
When a lead has entered your sales funnel, you can score them based on the actions they take.
This gives you an idea who is actively engaged with your brand. The more active they are, the higher the likelihood of them buying.
You can use an autoresponders and other sales funnel tools to score leads in your sales funnel.
The tool will be able to score a lead by calculating the amount of emails they open, which pages of your website they visit, products they look at, and many more touch points.
You will be able to identify who is ready to buy from you now and who might just need an extra little nudge from a sales-oriented email or well timed phone call.
