Though the term “prospect funnel” is widely used, it’s a bit of a misnomer.
It should really be called the “stranger funnel” because with your prospecting engine, you need to think about them first as strangers.
Strangers don’t know who you are, haven’t expressed an interest in you yet, and have no relationship with you.
They go to the top of your marketing funnel, and as they move through it, they should become less stranger-like and more like acquaintances.
For instance, let’s say you’re dropping your kid off at school and see another parent. You know she’s Jenny’s mom, and you sometimes say a casual hi in passing, but you don’t even know her first name, and you’re pretty sure she doesn’t know yours either. You’d never ask her for money since you barely know her, yet that’s what I see people do all the time with their so-called prospects.
Often, companies use the word “lead” for a standard email address in their CRM, but that’s not what a lead is. Salesforce.com does a great disservice in reinforcing this. Instead, a “lead object” should really be called a “stranger object.”
And inside your protecting funnel are records, which are simply two things:
- Email addresses
- Phone numbers
On their own, these should not be counted as having any material value because they don’t know who you are and haven’t formed a relationship yet. You must nurture that relationship before asking for their time, attention, or money.
Said another way, you can’t monetize an audience you haven’t built, so loading 20,000 records into your CRM and firing off 12 emails to them, expecting it to work, is ridiculous.
Here’s the other thing about funnels: they’re a lot like dating in college.
I went to the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where there were 15,000 men around my age. Pretty good odds, right?
But not ALL 15,000 of those guys were right for me. So through a selection process, I’d disqualify a bunch and run others through my ideal partner profile (like your ideal client profile) to see if they might be a match. But I definitely wouldn’t go up to any random dude and ask for something!
This is the same way you need to think about the list that lives in your CRM.
Not everyone in your TAM wants to hear from you; you need to be okay with that. In business, but especially in B2B marketing for supply chain, you don’t need volume; you need value and quality.
A “spray and pray” approach to marketing, where you blast emails to an extensive list of records without bothering to target or understand them first, DOES. NOT. WORK.
But the crazy thing is that leaders expect it, even though it’s a terrible practice.
A better way is to build trust and awareness as you move people through the funnel by sharing good news widely and for free.
Instead, use the stranger funnel to get dirty and have fun, put lots of things in and out, do all your testing here, and try crazy outreach methods with this audience. It’s a safer place for experimentation and far less risky than trying things with those who are almost customers or evaluating you or your services/product.
Remember, the road to revenue is paved with buying signals. But no one will buy from you until they know and trust you first.