Managing Your Small Business Marketing Funnel

With the over whelming success of the Digital Marketing Age, you may think that the concept of a marketing funnel is now defunct. And, yes, what used to be a fairly direct route from drawing in leads to converting them into clients has now exploded into a multitude of micro processes.

However, the concept of a Marketing Funnel is still a good way to create a marketing plan that needs multiple levels of engagement to convert leads into clients. Today, in this era of social media and smart phones, we are definitely in a (sometimes) brave new world of marketing plans.  Even when we’re ready to run screaming from our computers after trying to make sense of all the rapid changes that have evolved.

If you use a marketing funnel plan for your small business, there are probably some adjustments that could be made to your process that will help you see even better results in lead generation and subsequently converting those leads into paying customers. Here are a few procedures to improve your marketing funnel and provide even more successful results quickly.

Carefully Research and Develop the Stages of Your Buying Process

What You're Doing Wrong In Your Small Business Or As An Entrepreneur

Business owners and entrepreneurs are not always good at asking for help. Be honest, when did you last reach out to someone? Perhaps this is the reason why they are entrepreneurs in the first place. Business owners are self motivated and self reliant. But if you're operating a business in this way, it could be the one thing which stands in the way of progress.

Entrepreneurs are hard workers too and will work hard in areas which many people wouldn't consider. They look forward to the long term effects of their actions rather than for immediate rewards. Often business owners have built up their businesses over many years of difficulties and sacrifice.

Grab our free Social Media checklist and free sales & marketing training here

However, thinking into the cause and effects of all this work there is one thing in common: you. As the 'owner' of a business it can be easy to become complacent. Perhaps business growth isn't what it should be? You are always the limiting factor in your life. Unless you are growing, your business isn't.

If you keep operating from the belief that you know everything, you will always keep getting the same results in your business, and in your life. Growing in awareness and developing your self along with your business is what smart entrepreneurs do.

Working Hard And Smart 

Grab these three FREE Ebooks to Kick Start your Business Success

For all small business owners, sales are the key factor to your growth and success. If you are not achieving the sales you want, then you are at risk of losing your business.

Here are three Ebooks that focus on getting the sales success that you need. They are ready for you to download, just CLICK HERE to access then right away and kick start your sales success.

7 Things Successful Small Business Owners Do

If you're stuck wondering how to be a successful small business owner, know this: running a small business often simply means making good use of successful small business ideas. Successful small business owners face many ups and downs throughout their work. They know that small business ideas cannot turn out successful unless they use the proper approach and strategies.

If you want to be one of the few successful small business owners, remember that having a good strategy is crucial. Without the right strategy and a proper approach, you are not likely to achieve your goal.

Some small business owners manage to overcome their everyday challenges, while others seem to give up after a while. So, let's find out what successful small business owners do differently from the unsuccessful ones. Let's turn their experience into your success through your small business ideas.

5 #Marketing Tips That Will Help Every Small Business - grab your free report here ow.ly/aUvG30bklGj

1. MAKE ANNUAL REVISIONS OF YOUR BUSINESS PLAN AND BUDGET

Do you really know what makes your small business the most money?

Do you really know what you sell and what makes you the most money?

Business Marketing Mastery has the sole aim of helping small business owners generate greater sales through better marketing:

I’ve met with hundreds of small business owners over the last 15 years or so and many have become clients of mine and I have helped them in a number of ways from simple advertising to re-branding.

One of the first questions I ask them no matter what their business or niche is 

‘What makes you the most money’? 

Small Business Advice: Build A Winning Business Model

Whether your company is a start-up or several decades old, the business model is the hub around which all activities revolve. The business model is the blueprint that shows company leaders how to create value and build a money-making enterprise. It is the engine that drives revenue and generates profits.

Fail to devise a winning business model and you will not build a business that succeeds over the long-term. Creation of a profitable business model is a multi-disciplinary exercise that encompasses marketing, sales, strategy, operations and finance.

Identify the primary customers (Marketing)

Small Business Sales: Using Content Marketing to Sell Online

Blog content (as a matter of fact, all content) has a very specific purpose. That purpose is to educate and inform your readers/target audience) about your products/services and to put them in a position of knowing a little more after they read your content than before they read it.

Using content marketing to help you sell online 

First of all, when it comes to your content, you need to consistently deliver top-quality, valuable content to your readers. It is your content that enables you to build a relationship with the other person, which means that eventually, that person will trust you enough to want to buy what you are selling. This is where content marketing comes into it.

Content marketing is an amazing tool to help you sell your product(s) online. If you do it correctly, your content marketing materials will reach the other person in such a way that he or she will only consider you and your business to be the one from whom to buy.

The truth is that your ability to sell anything online stems from the content that you share with other people. If not for your content, you would not have any way of letting your online connections know about what you are selling and why it stands above the products and/or services of your competitors. 

Of course, as far as selling is concerned, it is much more difficult to sell a service than to sell a product.

5 Steps to Get to Know Your Target Market

There is a big chance that the target market you are looking for is similar to yourself. After all, you are probably into a subject that really rings your bell and that's why you want to spread the word. 

Like us; we are learning about online marketing and defining our target market so that what we write, actually reaches the people who might find it useful. It really all comes down to these 5 steps to get to know your target market.

1. Who are they?

Since people are all over the place with their interests, and in the online world the common demographics are not that useful anymore, we must think differently. Bring your audience to life in your imagination.

Sales Skills for Small Business Owners

Selling is a very important aspect of any business and although many small business owners don't like to consider themselves as 'sales people' per se in reality small business owners are actually key sales people who know their business and product or service offering better than anyone else in most instances. Let's identify what some key sales skills are and discuss how they can be further developed.

In a nutshell the key 'must have' sales skills include:

• Confidence
• Relationship building skills
• Listening
• Persuasion
• Product / service knowledge

Most of the skills listed above will be familiar to you, but I bet you are wondering, how can I apply this and learn to become a better sales person?

3 Ways to Grow Any Business

Let me ask you something... Aside from the dead give-away coming from the title, how many ways do you, or did you, think there was to grow a business? Any business.

1? 3? 10? 150?

When ever I ask this to an audience I get countless people shouting out a variety of answers ranging from 1 to, well, unlimited. It's true... People actually think there are "unlimited" ways to grow a business!Truth be told, there are only three ways to grow and business.

THREE?! Have you lost your mind?Nope, and I welcome you to challenge that.

There are only THREE ways to grow ANY business.

Here they are: 

7 Uncommon Success Strategies for Your Small Business to Consistently Grow

In these difficult economic times, it's understandable if a small business owner may want to focus primarily on survival. But the most likely success strategies that can help your small business isn't just concerned about keeping your head above water; they're all about helping you reach bigger goals.

Here are the 7 small business tips that can transform your modest company into a blockbuster success:

• Focus On Providing Value

Too often, many entrepreneurs tend to concentrate on how to make a profit on their small business, and sometimes that kind of thinking can be detrimental to the long-term success of your company. So instead, try to focus on providing goods and services first to your customers.

How To Convert Customers To CLIENTS

Business owners and managers are often confronted with being able to differentiate between obtaining customers, as opposed to maintaining and servicing clients. Basically, a customer is someone who purchases something, or uses some service, without commitment or serious consideration of maintaining any type of serious commitment or allegiance.

On the other hand, a client generally feels a greater kinship and connection, and therefore, often becomes the type of word-of-mouth ambassador, who is usually one's greatest source of referrals and references. Great management realises how important it is, to transform customers to clients, in order to become sustainable and profitable.

Whether a product or a service is being offered, clients become repeat customers, and this conversion process eases the process of constantly searching, spending time, money and other resources, because the lifetime revenue per client, is significantly greater than per customer. Here is a mnemonic approach to developing CLIENTS.