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AdsIntelligence is Anti-Gravity: Flipping the Sales Funnel Upside Down in the Name of Strategy

Hey, remember how marketers are supposed to be innovative and forward thinking? Then why are we still looking at the retro sales funnel published in marketing 101 books since the dawn of… marketing books?

The following will be a multi-part series re-packaging the traditional sales cycle into the AdsIntelligence strategic philosophy we have dubbed “The Pyramid.” It’s the approach we take when building out the marketing strategies that have led to the success of our clients for over 2 decades.

…also, it’s a lot of fun to say. Let us explain what “The Pyramid” is. 

Funnel vs Pyramid

We’ve all seen the standard sales funnel. Awareness at the top, sale at the bottom and everything in between. It’s a little like the old school plinko game – it relies on gravity and randomness. It almost feels like we’re hoping the prospect falls down the funnel and lands at the bottom in a sale … not ideal.

I know, I know… it’s not meant to be taken literally. It’s just a basic illustration of the sales process. It’s not that deep! Well, we can’t help getting deep over here.

We believe there’s a better way to conceptualize the sales cycle that shows not only the steps, but also HOW we as marketers can strategically control the process of taking prospects from unaware all the way to loyal buyer – taking random chance out of the equation.

Enter The Pyramid. You could call it an inverted funnel, but then you couldn’t say cool things like “Unleash the POWER of the PYRAMID!” so that’s not an option.

…but this isn’t just for fun. By thinking of the sales cycle as a pyramid, you can quite literally build your marketing strategies on top of one another like laying bricks. In doing so, each step is supported by the one before it and they work together to build toward the ultimate goal—the sale!

The point of this series is to dissect each part of The Pyramid, from the bottom to the top, and show how we approach marketing strategy for our clients. Some of this will be basic 101 methods that all marketers should be doing (but you’d be surprised) and a lot will involve our own unique strategies and proprietary programs designed to give our clients a superior marketing program.

Defying Gravity in 3 Key Parts

BASE: The Foundation of Everything Else

People buy from brands they know. BASE puts your brand in the know.

BASE (Branding & Awareness Strategic Engagement) is our approach to generating awareness and cultivating an audience for your brand – making the steps escalating to a sale more “anti-gravity.”

Building awareness lays the foundation for everything else. From sales centers and signage to geofencing and Meta ads, this includes anything that makes you known. Casting this wide net early on will enable us to cultivate an audience that is much warmer and more receptive to our later efforts to drive interest and action. Trust is a factor here. And you certainly can’t trust a brand you aren’t aware of. 

But building awareness can take a huge chunk out of your media budget. So, we’re going to talk about how to tackle that strategically so the budget – large or small – is being used efficiently and effectively.

Lead Gen & Lead Nurture

At the center of the pyramid, we like to discuss these two pieces together as there is a great deal of flow between the two. Particularly in real estate, until a lead becomes a sale, they often re-establish themselves as a lead multiple times – giving their information across various contact forms or making calls throughout the process.

Capturing leads efficiently involves a well-tuned digital marketing strategy that pushes traffic to a high converting website. The key to effective lead gen is hyper efficiency with a balance of quantity and quality (emphasis on quality).

Measuring quantity is easier. To measure quality, you’ll need an advanced analytics setup which we’ll be discussing in this article as well as the next.  Stay tuned for that, as well as the strategies we implement to drive high-quality leads with a wholistic marketing approach.

The Sale (and back!)

The top of The Pyramid! The ultimate goal – the sale! Time to go home? Nope! This is not the end. In fact, it’s more of a beginning.

Because this “Pyramid” we keep talking about is going to need some depth or else it’s just a triangle (queue the math nerds) and no one wants to say, “Unleash the POWER of the TRIANGLE.” Just doesn’t have the same ring…

To truly flesh out this pyramid concept, you must understand that we do not stop at the sale. We have to dissect all the touchpoints that lead to that sale if we’re going to understand what marketing efforts are truly working. Then we have to take all that information back down the pyramid and re-inform our marketing efforts all the way back up the pyramid.

It’s a never-ending cycle of data-driven advertising decisions. Goosebumps? We’ll walk you through how that’s only been made possible VERY recently and how our Advanced Analytics service accomplishes this.

Stay tuned as we delve deeper into each of these sections to discuss the tactics and strategies we utilize to build out The Pyramid and generate more sales for clients. Afraid you’ll miss the next article? Follow us on social or sign up for our newsletter and we’ll make sure you don’t.

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