3 Ways to Move a Customer Through Your Pipeline

Short of proverbially holding your prospective customer’s hand, you don’t have much control over their relationship with your company. Three tested methods have the most promise in helping your leads become customers: content marketing, proactive salespeople, and the right management software.

Content marketing has a number of purposes, and its goals may be widespread—from making more sales to generating leads—but its primary focus is clear. Your content exists in order to help your sales team succeed.

Of course, your salespeople have to nurture their relationships with leads and customers. Only two per cent of sales occur after the first meeting, which means each sale takes time, effort, and patience.

To ensure your relationships are nurtured properly over time, you must use marketing automation and other software to keep organized. With these programs you could potentially see a 360% higher conversion rate than with basic sales efforts. Read on to learn how your sales and marketing teams can work together to help move a customer through the pipeline faster.

 3 Ways to move  a Costumer Through Your Pipeline

1. Empower Your Sales Team with Content Marketing

• Content marketing breaks the funnel down into 3 categories
  
  • Top of the funnel
    • Awareness stage
    • Your goals:
      • Capture their interest
      • Get their email address
      • Be worth a return visit
      • Inform without selling
    • Common types of content
      • Landing pages with videos
      • E-books
      • Whitepapers
      • How-to blog posts
      • Infographics
      • Social media posts
  • Middle of the funnel
    • Evaluation stage
    • Your goals:
      • Give them more in-depth information about how to solve their problems
      • Gather more details about them
      • Continue to inform without selling
    • Common types of content
      • Marketing newsletters
      • Buying guides
      • Product demo videos
      • Consultations
      • Webinars
      • ROI calculators
        
    • Bottom of the funnel
    • Purchase stage
    • Your goals:
      • Personalize the sale
      • Proactively reach out to new customers
      • Walk them through onboarding step-by-step
      • Optimize for the sale
    • Common types of content
      • Free product trials
      • User testimonials
      • Customized estimates
      • Exclusive offers
        

2. Your Salespeople Must Prioritize Followup

• Only 2% of sales occur after the first meeting
  
• 80% of non-routine sales close after at least 5 follow-ups
  • 44% of sales people give up after 1 "no"
  • 22% give up after being rejected twice
  • 14% give up after being rejected 3 times
  • 12% give up after being rejected 4 times
• 63% of people who request information from your company will not complete the purchase for at least 3 months
• 20% will take more than 12 months to buy
• You must get to know your prospects
  • Understand their issues
  • Solve their problems
  • Provide irrefutable proof
  • Build relationships and trust
  • Engage in ongoing dialogue
  • Don't just push your products and services
• Contact your prospective and existing customers every 3 months or sooner
  • Builds trust and professionalism
  • Keeps you and your company on their radar

3. Tie It All Together with Automation

• Companies that have implemented a marketing automation platform report higher levels of collaboration between sales and marketing
  • 13% increase in defining and executing field programs
  • 17% increase in capturing insight from customers and prospects
  • 12% increase in managing leads and lead pipelines
    
• B2B marketers who implement marketing automation increase their sales-pipeline contribution by 10%
  
• Marketing automation software can help drive a 360% higher conversion rate than a generic email with a personalized salutation because of
  • Segmentation
  • Personalization
  • Recommendations
  • Inclusion of custom database fields
    
• Thanks to marketing automation, you can see which content best attracts and converts leads
  • With this knowledge, adjust your content creation around success
  • Using marketing automation data leads to informed strategy and increased sales

Conclusion

Moving a customer through the sales pipeline takes a combination of a smart content marketing team, a savvy sales department, and powerful technology. With all three working together in harmony, your sales team can close more deals faster.