Your 'Customer Journey' Sales Funnel

I’ve just done some work helping a salesteam identify what we probably all know as “low hanging fruit”.  They’re selling a new product and, as is always the case you save time and heartache with a little planning that finds several people willing to be among the first on board.

Sessions I’ve run in the past can focus on things like an individual buyer’s propensity to jump in before any bandwagon’s started rolling, through to buying pattern analysis.  This one though, took an early turn towards pinpointing ‘customer funnels’.

The key theme that worked, was acknowledging that each customer could be viewed as being on one of several sequential steps with their supplier.  They tended to start off with a kind of ‘toe-dipping’ purchase, then as confidence in the services grew, they buy more and more until ultimately they are happy to take from across the board.

It transpired that starting to purchase from one particular product group made a buyer more prone to extending their orders into every category offered.

All that was then needed was make sure we knew who’d bought from this set of ‘entry’ products and our first sales campaign for their latest product could be crafted for a killer launch target market.

The product at the tip of this journey funnel needn’t necessarily be your premium offering. nor need it be a so-called Hero Product, a phrase so beloved by shopping TV presenters and the home-party-selling middle-class. Instead it could simply share some of the buying emotions associated with your latest product, or – as in this case – be a proven springboard to deeper client relationships.