Effective marketing is all about creating the 7 key marketing systems that drive prospects through your sales funnel to close.

NOTE: These systems are all connected and often overlap.

1. Lead Generation System: Your Lead Generation System should drive people to take some action…call you, attend a webinar, set up a meeting, download some cool tool or resource from your website, attend an event etc…That’s how you spark people’s interest in your company. When it’s up and running you should have an ongoing supply of leads coming through the door.

2. Lead Introduction System: Your Lead Introduction System is your way of introducing yourself to your prospects in a highly meaningful and memorable way. You have to make a strong first impression if you want your prospects to remember you when they are ready to buy. You want to spend some money here because these people have raised their hands and are therefore much more likely to buy from you! Your Lead Introduction System should relate to what you do and to the value you bring. It should convey a deep understanding of your prospects needs, challenges, industry or lifestyle.

3. Lead Nurturing System: Your Lead Nurturing System keeps you in touch with your prospects, approximately 6 times per year, sharing something that they will find valuable. The tactics in your lead nurturing system should help you develop a strong positive relationship over time, so don’t bug them, sell to them, or harass them with meaningless e-mails. This is your opportunity to help them in some way, not to sell to them.

4. Prospect Tracking System: If your sales person(s) has their list of prospects in an excel spreadsheet somewhere, or worse tucked in their head, you’re in deep trouble. If they leave the company, months, sometimes years of relationship building knowledge is lost. Your Prospect Tracking System ensures that the relationship building work being done is captured and built up as a valuable resource for the future. It’s where you document all the hard work you are doing building relationships with your prospects. It’s also one of the most valuable assets you’ll be creating as you grow your company. Your Prospect Tracking System should be easy to use and include the follow information: name, company, contact information, picture of the prospect, a record of each interaction including phone calls and materials presented or sent, relevant company or personal information, and the ability to easily assign to-do’s and automated reminders. My favorite tool for this is Highrise, because it’s so easy to use. I’ve seen company after company purchase an expensive and complicated system for tracking their prospects only to have no one use it because it’s too complicated.

5. Prospect Closing System: Your Prospect Closing System should include the following items, a specific ask for the sale, a clear picture that conveys how prospects can get started with you, and a process for capturing an ongoing list of common barriers to working with you so you can develop the responses that overcome those barriers. When you hire a new sales person they should be trained and receive marketing materials that help them understand and use the above processes.

6. Testimonials System and Case Study System: Every company should have a clearly defined process for capturing testimonials and case studies when the AWESOME happens, not six months later when everyone has forgotten how wonderful you were. Your Testimonial System should include the following steps: training for people on the front lines about how to recognize a testimonial or case study opportunity, a clear process for them to pass that opportunity on to someone with some marketing/copy writing experience in order to get client approval to use them for prime time, a process for using those testimonials and case studies in real time, and getting them in the hands of clients and prospects by posting them out through your social media channels and website.

7. Your Customer Loyalty System: Your Customer Loyalty System is your way of getting ongoing feedback on the value of your product or service, while making your customers or clients feel that you love having them around. Their feedback could lead to offering new products or services or refining existing features. Your Customer Loyalty System should include the following items: a survey of their experience working with your company, their current challenges, follow up from that survey on past or future actions you have taken as a result of their feedback, and some nice/unexpected things that you’ll do for them over the course of the year that show you appreciate their business.

Building these systems is no easy task, but once you have them in place you’ll be amazed at the power they have over your business development efforts.

If you’re having trouble building effective marketing systems give us a call, it’s one of the things we do best. Hope you found this article helpful and that 2017 brings you profitability, prosperity and success.

The Robeson Team