Video Production Business Tip - Marketing Sales Funnel
If you are a student of marketing, you probably know what a "sales funnel" is.
If you have no idea what I'm talking about, it's basically the business system you put in place that illustrates how you will attract new prospects and the path they take once they enter your "funnel" until they become a paying customer at the bottom.
Instead of labeling it as a "sales funnel," I prefer to call it the "success funnel" mainly because the success of my video production business is determined by the effectiveness of this process.
At the top of the funnel, I have networking, video marketing, social media and emails.
These are the tools that I use to get prospects into my funnel so that I can eventually move them down the line to become a paying customer.
The reason the funnel is in the shape of an upside down triangle is because you'll have a lot of prospects who enter your funnel but will never become video production customers.
I won't use this post to go over the merits of networking, video marketing, social media marketing or email marketing but just know that I believe all four of these tools are vital to bringing prospects into my success funnel.
The next section of the funnel is labeled "Drive Traffic to Website.
" I believe that if I can get prospects to visit my website, they will see within a few seconds or minutes why I am qualified to handle their video project.
My website does a great job of selling a prospect on my quality, capabilities and credibility so it's by far my greatest marketing tool.
(I'm not saying it's a perfect website, just that it's very effective.
) The main marketing goal of the website is to get an interested prospect to do one of three things.
1.
) Sign up for my email newsletter so I can stay in touch with them over a long period of time.
2.
) Fill out the contact form if they want/need to request a quote for a video production.
3.
) Call me directly if they want to request a quote for a video production.
I get a handful of inquiries each week through my website so I know it's doing its job.
In order to get more inquiries, I'd need to be more aggressive in the first section of the funnel by networking more, posting more videos online, interacting via social media more often and by building a larger email list that I can stay in touch with on a regular basis.
The next stage in the success funnel is labeled "Prospect Requests Quote.
" If the first stage is getting leads into my funnel and the second stage is working to get prospects to look at my website, there should be plenty of people emailing or calling to request a quote.
If there aren't a lot of requests at any point in time, I need to analyze where the problem is higher up in the funnel.
Do I need more leads or do I need to tweak something on my website so that more of my leads will request a quote Once a prospect has requested a quote, this is where you can make or break the deal based on how you write the proposal.
Writing a solid proposal will increase the number of deals you close but no matter how good they are, you'll be lucky if you win more than 50% of the deals you quote.
If I'm getting plenty of quote requests but haven't been closing enough deals, I know that I need to examine my pricing and/or the quality of prospect I'm bringing into my funnel.
So, if I bring 100 leads into the first stage of the funnel.
Thirty of them go to my website, 10 of them request a quote and only 3 of them hire me for their project.
I know there are a few things I can work on to improve my results.
The first thing I would look at is how to close more of the 10 quotes.
I might try to reduce my pricing a bit over the next month or so until I get fully booked.
If after reducing my pricing a bit, I realize that I'm still not closing more deals, I know that it's time to look higher up in the funnel at the quality of prospect I'm attracting or the information I'm providing on my website.
Since I'm pretty confident that my website is doing its job, I would make the assumption that my success (or lack of) is directly related to the quality of lead I'm attracting with my current marketing efforts.
After careful analysis, I might notice that a lot of my leads lately have been from smaller businesses or non-profit organizations instead of medium to large corporations - which is what I prefer.
With that in mind, I may change up where I'm networking or the kind of prospect I'm targeting with my social media efforts so that I can start bringing in more prospects who can afford my normal prices and who won't be scared off by my proposals.
If you have no idea what I'm talking about, it's basically the business system you put in place that illustrates how you will attract new prospects and the path they take once they enter your "funnel" until they become a paying customer at the bottom.
Instead of labeling it as a "sales funnel," I prefer to call it the "success funnel" mainly because the success of my video production business is determined by the effectiveness of this process.
At the top of the funnel, I have networking, video marketing, social media and emails.
These are the tools that I use to get prospects into my funnel so that I can eventually move them down the line to become a paying customer.
The reason the funnel is in the shape of an upside down triangle is because you'll have a lot of prospects who enter your funnel but will never become video production customers.
I won't use this post to go over the merits of networking, video marketing, social media marketing or email marketing but just know that I believe all four of these tools are vital to bringing prospects into my success funnel.
The next section of the funnel is labeled "Drive Traffic to Website.
" I believe that if I can get prospects to visit my website, they will see within a few seconds or minutes why I am qualified to handle their video project.
My website does a great job of selling a prospect on my quality, capabilities and credibility so it's by far my greatest marketing tool.
(I'm not saying it's a perfect website, just that it's very effective.
) The main marketing goal of the website is to get an interested prospect to do one of three things.
1.
) Sign up for my email newsletter so I can stay in touch with them over a long period of time.
2.
) Fill out the contact form if they want/need to request a quote for a video production.
3.
) Call me directly if they want to request a quote for a video production.
I get a handful of inquiries each week through my website so I know it's doing its job.
In order to get more inquiries, I'd need to be more aggressive in the first section of the funnel by networking more, posting more videos online, interacting via social media more often and by building a larger email list that I can stay in touch with on a regular basis.
The next stage in the success funnel is labeled "Prospect Requests Quote.
" If the first stage is getting leads into my funnel and the second stage is working to get prospects to look at my website, there should be plenty of people emailing or calling to request a quote.
If there aren't a lot of requests at any point in time, I need to analyze where the problem is higher up in the funnel.
Do I need more leads or do I need to tweak something on my website so that more of my leads will request a quote Once a prospect has requested a quote, this is where you can make or break the deal based on how you write the proposal.
Writing a solid proposal will increase the number of deals you close but no matter how good they are, you'll be lucky if you win more than 50% of the deals you quote.
If I'm getting plenty of quote requests but haven't been closing enough deals, I know that I need to examine my pricing and/or the quality of prospect I'm bringing into my funnel.
So, if I bring 100 leads into the first stage of the funnel.
Thirty of them go to my website, 10 of them request a quote and only 3 of them hire me for their project.
I know there are a few things I can work on to improve my results.
The first thing I would look at is how to close more of the 10 quotes.
I might try to reduce my pricing a bit over the next month or so until I get fully booked.
If after reducing my pricing a bit, I realize that I'm still not closing more deals, I know that it's time to look higher up in the funnel at the quality of prospect I'm attracting or the information I'm providing on my website.
Since I'm pretty confident that my website is doing its job, I would make the assumption that my success (or lack of) is directly related to the quality of lead I'm attracting with my current marketing efforts.
After careful analysis, I might notice that a lot of my leads lately have been from smaller businesses or non-profit organizations instead of medium to large corporations - which is what I prefer.
With that in mind, I may change up where I'm networking or the kind of prospect I'm targeting with my social media efforts so that I can start bringing in more prospects who can afford my normal prices and who won't be scared off by my proposals.