Unlocking Marketing Success: Understanding the AAARRR Funnel

Unlocking Marketing Success: Understanding the AAARRR Funnel

by | Jul 18, 2023 | Blog, Growth Marketing, Lead Generation, Marketing Agency | 0 comments

In the fast-paced world of marketing, success depends on more than just innovative ideas and creative campaigns. Businesses need a well-defined and efficient marketing funnel to achieve lasting growth and maximize results. Introducing the AAARRR funnel, a robust framework designed to guide marketers to attract, engage, convert, and retain customers. This article will dive deep into the AAARRR funnel, exploring its stages and revealing how it can supercharge your marketing efforts.

What is the AAARRR Funnel?

The AAARRR funnel, or the Pirate Funnel, is a framework that breaks down the customer journey into five key stages: Awareness, Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Revenue, and Referral. Each stage represents a specific goal within the marketing process, allowing businesses to understand their customers better and tailor strategies to meet their needs at different touchpoints.

Let’s take a closer look at each stage: 

Capturing Attention: The Awareness Stage

A potential customer’s journey begins with awareness – the crucial stage of capturing attention. At this phase, businesses aim to introduce their brand, products, or services to a broad audience, sparking curiosity and generating interest. This is the foundation upon which fruitful customer relationships are built. A good example of activities during the Awareness Stage would be LinkedIn Prospecting, Pay Per Click Advertising, Trade Shows, Print and Digital Baseboard Ads. 

Engaging Potential Customers: The Acquisition Stage

Once potential customers know a brand’s existence, it’s time to engage with them effectively. In the Acquisition stage, businesses aim to nurture initial interest and build a relationship with the target audience.

For example: Brands engage potential customers with personalized messages, showing a deep understanding of their needs and interests. Email marketing, tailored offers, and targeted ads contribute to the acquisition effort.

Proposing Solutions: The Activation Stage

In the Activation stage, businesses aim to convert interested prospects into active customers. It’s about presenting a compelling solution that fulfills the potential customers’ needs and encourages them to take the next step.

Retention: Nurturing Customer Loyalty

The third stage, Retention, is all about keeping your customers engaged and satisfied to ensure they stay with your brand over the long term. Satisfied customers are more likely to become loyal advocates and make repeat purchases. To foster retention, implement customer support strategies, loyalty programs, regular communication, and personalized offers. Monitoring customer feedback and analyzing user behaviour can also help identify areas for improvement and increase customer retention.

Revenue: Driving Sales and Conversions

At the Revenue stage, your primary focus is to create a positive new customer experience to ensure customer Retention and further Referrals. This stage is critical as it sets the tone for customer relationships. By providing a seamless and delightful onboarding process, you leave a lasting impression on new customers, increasing the likelihood of their continued engagement with your brand. A positive experience during the Revenue stage enhances customer satisfaction and plays a significant role in customer retention.

Satisfied customers are more likely to become loyal advocates who keep coming back and enthusiastically refer your products or services to their network. In this way, the Revenue stage is pivotal in establishing strong customer relationships that drive long-term growth and foster a loyal customer base.

Referral: Turning Customers into Advocates

The final stage of the AAARRR funnel is Referral. Happy customers are your best brand ambassadors, and by encouraging referrals, you can tap into the power of word-of-mouth marketing. Referral programs, social sharing incentives, and outstanding customer experiences can all contribute to transforming customers into active advocates who help you acquire new customers organically.

Conclusion

The AAARRR funnel provides a roadmap for marketers to navigate the complexities of the customer journey. By understanding each stage – Awareness, Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Revenue, and Referral – businesses can identify strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities within their marketing strategies. Moreover, this framework enables marketers to allocate resources effectively, ensuring the right initiatives are implemented at each stage to drive growth and foster long-term customer relationships. Incorporate the AAARRR funnel into your marketing efforts and set sail for marketing success. Remember, it’s not just about acquiring customers; it’s about nurturing and retaining them to build a thriving and sustainable business. So, hoist the sails, navigate the funnel, and chart a course toward marketing greatness!

Growth Marketing vs. Lead Generation

Growth Marketing vs. Lead Generation

by | Feb 27, 2023 | Blog, Growth Marketing, Marketing Agency | 0 comments

Demystifying Growth Marketing, Demand Generation and Lead Generation in Modern Marketing Management

Companies spend a lot of money on marketing to achieve sustainable and timely growth, but often they can’t get the results they expect.  Understanding the difference between Lead Generation, Demand Generation, and Growth Marketing will open a unique perspective on modern marketing and the KPIs of different marketing campaigns.

1. Lead Generation:

If you have been around the marketing profession for a decade and more, you probably are very familiar with the term Lead Generation. Lead Generation has been the most popular marketing term for defining and measuring appointment setting and sales generation results. Traditionally, the most popular channels for Lead Generation have been Telemarketing and, later, LinkedIn Outreach Prospecting. However, taken from the context of a well-designed long-term Marketing Strategy, the results of short-term Lead Generation campaigns may be disappointing for business owners and salespeople.

2. Demand Generation:

Unlike Lead Generation Strategies, Demand Generation strategies are designed to create demand for the product or service. Demand Generation Campaigns aim to communicate the benefits and create awareness about the brand. An example of a Demand Generation strategy would be writing an article highlighting decision-makers pains and problems and how a particular product or service would resolve them.

Another example of a Demand generation strategy would be a PPC advertising campaign promoting a webinar, event, or a poll tool to educate and research the target market.

3. Growth Marketing

As we can see from the above, Lead Generation and Demand Generation relate more to campaign execution than a long-term Growth strategy. Growth Marketing takes a broad perspective of understanding the AAARRR funnel.

AAARRR stands for:

  • Awareness
  • Acquisition
  • Activation
  • Revenue
  • Retention
  • Referrals

When we speak about Growth Marketing, we mean long-term, idea-generating, and data-based marketing based on a step-by-step Growth Approach.

Growth Marketing aligns all business functions and departments into one Growth team. First, we take time and extended effort to understand the Buyers’ Persona. Then, we start collecting and evaluating quality data for future Growth Marketing campaigns by connecting with the right people on LinkedIn in B2B, running database acquisition PPC ads in B2C, or buying a database of prospects from a reliable source, such as Dan and Bradstreet, or InfoCanada.

Growth Marketers and Growth Hackers rely heavily on modern marketing technology like CRM and CMS. Securing and constantly growing quality databases of prospects is a stepping stone to Growth Marketing because we need data to achieve results and measure them.

Growth Marketing strategy unites Demand Generation and Lead Generation into one highly functional marketing system. For example, from a Growth Marketing standpoint, Telemarketing or LinkedIn outreach is not measured by a dollar-to-dollar return on sales but by the amount of data obtained, the quality of connections and the rate of engagement we achieved. Yes, we want to secure prospects’ engagement, such as appointments and sales meetings, but we are realistic about our expectations. The main goal is to create a marketing culture and a system that will help our sales team repeatedly.

 

Beware of Four Marketing and Sales Investment Loopholes

Beware of Four Marketing and Sales Investment Loopholes

by | Mar 26, 2021 | Blog, Lead Generation, Marketing Agency, Small Business Marketing Blog | 0 comments

Marketing and sales investment loopholes that companies must be aware of.

With work from home being our new reality, many businesses are struggling to get return on their marketing and sales investment. Our employees are working from home, trade shows and networking functions are either canceled or went virtual…So how do we make sure that our money is well spent?

Here are a few suggestions to consider:

1.Rethink marketing and sales investment in technology

We are all using CRMs, right? Do you want to know the dirtiest secret about CRMs? They take your staff valuable time in managing and reporting marketing data, which has no value to your business!

Sales and marketing people often drag along leads that are not active or will never produce anything. Why do we do it? We need to show our management that the RESULTS ARE COMING.

To avoid this endless cycle, do invest in CRM that is simple enough for you to read the results in real time. Many of the most marketed CRMs on the market are simply not user friendly, but sold for $$$ to you because of many functions and features that you do not need.

Do a simple test: go to your CRM and see how many calls, conversations, or updates was done by your team TODAY. Cannot see it? Ditch that CRM investment-you are wasting your money!

2. Compare: where the money goes, and where do your leads come from? Or is it all same old forever?

This is an especially important question. Make a list of all the leads you generated during the last 6 months and see where they are coming from:

Lead Source % $$ invested
Website and SEO    
LinkedIn    
Online Ads    
Email marketing    
Referrals    
Social Media    
Cold Calling    
Total inbound:    
Total outbound:    

You have the idea: the money shall be directed to the most ROI effective channels. Have not tried some of the channels yet-get a trial run. You may be surprised how effective they are for you.

3.Sales Performance Tricks: your sales closing numbers are another eye opener on how your hard-earned money was wasted.

Leads Date Generated $$ closed
     
     

 

Sales Professionals are “tough monkeys” (joke). We are always in demand and first to go if ANYTHING goes wrong. If we cannot sell-we show ACTIVITY.  If your sales team is doing this – find the real reason why they are not closing. Most probably it is not their fault – there is something wrong with your company’s business, market and offering.

4.Keep my investments inhouse or outsource dilemma: Consider both.

Outsourced agencies are offering cutting edge strategies, ideas, and technologies. Your salespeople know your business and your customers on a personal level. BUT…(read below carefully)

There are many ways to optimize on how you can direct your sales and marketing money, staff, and resources. I believe that the mixed solution is the best, but there must be great rapport and cooperation between parties. Often salespeople see outsourced consultants and marketers as a threat. If it is so in your company – raise the red flag! This may be a sign of complacency, laziness, or withdrawal. The healthy sales team will receive this help with open arms. The unhealthy one will reject and sabotage it.

In conclusion:

Analyzing your ROIs and KPIs may be hard during our “unusual times”. You can use and hear many excuses such as “decisions are not made fast” and ” because of COVID”, etc. But can you keep going like this and stay in business?

Is this the time to change strategy or downsize? How long has it been since you revisited and re-evaluated your sales methods, proposals, offers, target markets, etc.? I personally believe in “Profit First” concept. Sometimes downsizing, rethinking and renewing is better that running loops and wasting resources.

Are you Doing Telemarketing During Covid-19? 5 Pros for Going Digital

Are you Doing Telemarketing During Covid-19? 5 Pros for Going Digital

by | Apr 14, 2020 | Blog, Lead Generation, Marketing Agency, Small Business Marketing Blog | 0 comments

When it comes to sales, marketing and telemarketing during Covid-19, the question is: shall we stop it, or shall we adopt and possibly succeed?  In my opinion this is the time to go digital, to work from home and to promote your brand among your prospects and customers.

It looks like we are all in this together, and it will be a while till we get back to normal, whatever “normal” it is going to be.  According to officials, COVID-19 quarantine may last weeks, or even months, and it will probably be back in the fall, if the vaccine is not developed. So, this is a new reality and we need to adopt to it.  On a good side, the times of change also presents opportunities to renew, rebuild, re-learn and reconsider what we do in our business and every day lives.

Many of us, small business owners, started our businesses in 1980s to early 2000s. We built them based on hard-core traditional marketing methods such as telemarketing, business networking, door knocking –  you get the idea. All of us worked hard, and got customers the old way and we succeeded. Why do we need to change what worked for us for so many years? Many of us are still skeptical of the new modern marketing methods.  Some tried it and failed, others found it challenging and time consuming to learn, and it can be hard to trust another marketing agency, which promises to make it all work.

As a result of these postponements and hesitations, hundreds of thousands marketing dollars are wasted without positive ROI’s.

In this article, I invite you to reconsider your telemarketing during Covid-19  strategies in favor of digital prospecting via LinkedIn, Google and other social media channels.

Why to reconsider doing Telemarketing During Covid-19 Pandemics? See if I can persuade you here:

“We do Telemarketing because our Customers are Not Present on Social Media Networks…because they are too small, too busy, not very educated, not technology oriented, etc.”

Surprisingly, this is a very common belief among late baby boomer’s generation and even early millennials. My counterparts were amazed when I shared my screen viz Zoom with them and presented the possibility of the Sales Navigator searches. One of my prospects was shocked when I presented them with a search showing over 18000 business owners in Ontario alone with 1-50 employees.

Marketing during Covid-19 presents an opportunity to tap into this huge pool of LinkedIn users, who now have more time on their hand, working from home and as a result are more active on their Social Media networks.

 

“Telemarketing is the only way to reach people – Our customers are not active on LinkedIn” 

  • According to statistics 40% of LinkedIn users use it regularly: https://kinsta.com/blog/linkedin-statistics/
  • People who are not active will not accept your invite. And it is OK! It does not take long to invite other prospects, who are just like them and are active on the platform.
  • You may choose to connect only with Premium profiles users. These type of users usually pay LinkedIn, so they are active on the platform for sure!

 

Money talks: LinkedIn Prospecting vs Telemarketing cost benefit scenario.

In addition to the benefits above, it has been calculated to be at least 10 times cheaper to deliver your message via LinkedIn rather than via Telemarketing. Here is the example based on the real numbers:

LinkedIn Telemarketing
Target Market 18000 (Business Owners Ontario)  

 
Cost to Reach $1000 per month $50 per hour
Timing 12 months 12 months 720 hours (25 calls/conversations per hour)
Budget Yearly/monthly $12000/ year or $1000 per month/profile $36000 ($3000 per month=60 hours)
Connections/Calls per month average ROI/month 1500 invites=500 connections 60*25=1500 calls/ 150 conversations (10% call/convers rate)
Engagement Reply/further interest/appointment 30% Avg Reply rate
10% further interest = 15 monthly /future appointments		 150 conversation-2% appts = 3-5 appointments (optimistically)
Cost per Appointment $1000/15=$65 $600-$1000

 

“I get a lot of spam from my LinkedIn connections, nothing good can come out of this”

Yes, you may have spam if you are not connecting with the right people. Here are the reasons why you may have spam and how to fix it when marketing during COVID-19:

  • You are accepting connections without looking at the Invitees profiles – they will spam you with the message not relevant to your business.
  • Your Team uses LinkedIn Bots – Bots will connect you with wrong people.
  • You do not regularly clean up and audit your connections.

“I tried it, but I did not get any results.”

According to statistics 43% of marketers say that they acquired at least one customer out of LinkedIn.

To achieve results, you need to have the following:

  • Know your customers: Buyers Persona
  • Sales Navigator Search – Pay for it and use the filters to narrow down your search.
  • Do NOT Sell like a company. Be personal – connect first!
  • Pay attention to your communications be friendly and professional.
  • Keep conversation going and follow up, follow up, follow up!

Conclusion

In conclusion, I strongly believe that money spent on telemarketing during Covid-19 crisis shall be redirected towards digital prospecting, marketing and advertising. Digital prospecting on LinkedIn is unmatched when in comes to startinga connection and communications with our prospects and customers.

So, stay connected and stay healthy!

Ekaterina Spooner

Lead Generation in 2020: Where are we going and what to do to survive and thrive?

Lead Generation in 2020: Where are we going and what to do to survive and thrive?

by | Feb 19, 2020 | Blog, Lead Generation, Small Business Marketing Blog | 0 comments

What is in Store for Small Business Lead Generation in 2020?

Happy New Year! After a Holiday hangover we are all back to business: paying credit cards, completing year ends and filing taxes. So, what Lead Generation in 2020 has in store for all of us?

I don’t know about you, my fellow business owner, but I feel like we are going into another recession. The main indication of this to me is not what I hear on TV and radio, but the fact that my prospects and customers are cutting their spending on marketing and sales by almost 50%.

So, what do we do to thrive and survive in the challenging 2020 business landscape in Canada? Here are the marketing trends to watch, observe and follow.

1.B2B Lead Generation 2020 Goes Digital:

If you have not heard about LinkedIn Prospecting yet, I strongly suggest you get on it! Traditional lead generation such as email and telemarketing alone does not produce the enough engagement anymore. LinkedIn is number one communication tool in B2B today because it allows large coverage, high deliverability and great engagement, which surpasses any other marketing channels. To compare: telemarketing engagement is less than 5%, email less than 1%, while LinkedIn messaging engagement is over 40%.

2.Many Touches to Gain Trust:

Is still good old: “One touch is not enough”. One call is not enough, one email campaign is not enough, one LinkedIn text message is not enough. It takes on average 7 messages to get a reply from a qualified prospect. So carefully construct, fill and monitor your sales funnel with scheduled follow ups.

3.Take it Offline and Make it Personal:

If LinkedIn is the best channel to start a conversation, it is important to take it offline at the earliest opportunity. Follow up with telemarketing calls, send them a personalized e-mail, book coffee meetings, invite your prospects to your lunch and learns. Add your voice, face and personality to your connections. Chat, laugh, joke, communicate and relate. If you market is outside of your geographic area, use video conferencing and webinar technology to meet your prospects.

4. Follow Up, Follow Up, Follow Up!

With digital tools under our fingertips it is way easier to get interest and attention, but with slow economy and cash flow challenges many sales professionals and business owners experience delays in closing on their proposals and contracts. It may be tiring and frustrating, but don’t give up! Follow Up, Follow Up, Follow Up!

5. Do Not Abandon Branding:

Even you are a tiny, small consulting business you still can afford branding! It is not only for big guys anymore. With digital tools under your fingertips you can look big, even while being very small. It starts with your website – make it user friendly! Make it easy for your visitors to navigate and read, whichever gadget they prefer to use. Put great information with easy to follow format, make sure there is call for action and other engagements tools such as forms and chats. Make it interesting! Brag, educate, interact and lead visitors to your contact us forms.

Make sure that your site has a blog and connects to social media channels.

Conclusion:

I hope this is helpful for you my fellow business owner. If you need a word of advice, or marketing help book your Free Consultation with one of our consultants. We would love to hear from you.

Happy 2020 again!

Ekaterina Spooner

President

Prospect Solutions Inc.