Many organizations fill their sales funnel with hundreds – perhaps thousands of “prospects.” Often these prospects come from a rented list or an unqualified internal list and have never thought of using the product/ service being offered or considered they have a problem that needs fixing.

Because these prospects are not qualified, this situation often forces sales people to do one of two things:

Quickly list your features & benefits to the prospects and hope they listen long enough someone to identify a need / want.
Bombard prospects with questions - probing their needs / wants and hope they let you connect your features & benefits for them.

The result is that organizations that do this apply enormous effort and resources to this activity, but find it hard to produce a sale. Most prospects are eliminated as “not a good fit,” or “not interested.”

There are a few lessons we can learn from this:

With unqualified leads the traditional sales funnel might not give sales people a reasonable chance because their success is just luck of the draw.
By contacting so many uninterested prospects, the organizations are hurting their brand and reputation as people talk about how inappropriate their contact is.
Organizations using this method often waste time and money… never mind that lost opportunity had they done something more targeted.

Is there a better way to take control of your sales funnel and therefore increase sales success and ROI? Sure! Add niche marketing and effective communication into your sales & marketing approach.

A Better (Niche Marketing) Solution

Here’s how niche marketing works. What if:

You took a hard look at your core competencies, organizational values, and goals (mission & vision)
You identified a product / service that meet the needs and wants of a very specific target audience. You spent time and money researching the important issues of this audience?
After your research you developed your marketing strategies and promotional messages to attract and engage this very targeted audience?
All of your prospects and clients began seeing you as an expert?

Google has taught people to search for exactly what they want. The beauty is that by exploiting your niche you will have fewer prospects at the top of your inverted sales funnel. That scares many organizations – but fewer prospects means you can spend more time with each prospect building a relationship and effectively positing yourself as a business partner.

Once you have developed a niche marketing approach, now is the time to consider the traditional sales funnel – but do it strategically. The end result is that you should:

Have more sales
Take less time
Spend less money
Build a better reputation… even with the prospects that do not buy… today.

What to do with a database of happy clients

Promotion Counts:

Begin gathering testimonials, writing case studies and articles and be available for interviews or public presentations / conferences. This will further expand your reputation and successful horizons.

Go Deeper:

You have happy clients. Great - so now move each “happy client organization” through the “traditional” sales funnel. Conduct a needs analysis on their organization and see if there is anything more you can do for them.
Now is the time to be seen as a business partner and a solution provider. Take advantage of other areas of your business – perhaps even develop other (complimentary), areas of your business. Use what you know of your best clients and your great reputation as a solution partner to benefit both of you.

Go Wider A:

Ask your satisfied clients for referrals. Because it is a referral, you now have a warm lead – a new prospect will already will trust you are an expert.

If you are uncomfortable asking straight out – consider asking them:

How you should identify and approach prospects
What prospects you should approach
What they believe is / are your best value propositions

The reality is – people love giving their opinion.

Go Wider B:

You have success using niche marketing. Can you refocus your niche on another target? For example, perhaps you focused first in Toronto – now can you focus on Chicago, Montreal, New York, or Vancouver? Or, if you focused your niche on Accountants – is there now an opportunity to focus on Lawyers?

That’s one way to successfully apply a niche marketing strategy.

We work to build long-term, collaborative relationships that maximize your overall success and earnings.

Want to learn more about our services?

If you want to learn more about how you and your organization can benefit from our services, call us at 416.617.0462.

We work to build long-term, collaborative relationships that maximize your overall success and earnings.

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