Top 5 Ways to Engage Leads Within Your Sales Funnel

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You’re staring at a CRM full of thousands of names.

It was hard work getting them, but filling your database with half-interested folks is only the beginning of the long journey down the sales funnel.

Turning the “maybe’s” into the “take my money’s” comes down to how you engage leads at each sales funnel stage.

Which is essentially…

How you reach out
What you say
When you say it

…at scale.

We know it’s not as easy as that.

Maintaining consistent lead engagement is exhausting for even the strongest sales reps without a process that works and tools to help.

So we made a guide to help you build and action a rinse-and-repeat lead engagement process. You’ll be smashing your quota without even breaking a sweat.

Here’s a breakdown of what we’ll cover (feel free to skip ahead):

Back to Basics: The Sales Funnel

What Does Lead Engagement Actually Do?

Examples of Lead Engagement At Different Stages of Your Sales Funnel

Top 5 Ways to Engage Leads Within Your Sales Funnel Through A CRM

First, a return to Sales 101.

What is a Sales Funnel?

“I know what a sales funnel is, dude”.

We hear you, but we have to start somewhere.

Of course, every business’s sales funnel will look a little different and your funnel might not have all the stages we discuss here.

But all sales funnels are a lot like cooking spinach.

So to end up with sales at the end, your lead engagement tactics must focus on quantity (without compromising on quality).

Let’s take a step back and look at this sales fundamental from a birds-eye view.

We’ll recap:

What each stage means, and
How lead engagement connects them together.

But, of course, feel free to skip ahead if you want to.

Awareness

The first moment your prospects discover your business.

The content people engage with at the awareness stage will vary hugely depending on:

What works for your industry
Where your audiences are active

Either way, it makes sense to cast your net wide and use a strategic combination of inbound and outbound marketing tactics to nail first impressions everywhere.

We’ll dive deeper into these tactics later on, but here are a few common examples of awareness-level sales and marketing activities:

Sales	Marketing
Cold calling Cold emailing Door knocking (very old school)	Website and blog Paid social media campaigns TV and radio (also old school)

Here’s the kicker.

We’re at the wide end of the sales funnel, and the average conversion rate for a landing page is just over 2%.

Remember the spinach metaphor? If you’re lucky, that’s how much spinach you’re left with at the end.

So in this early stage, focus on reaching as many of the right people as possible.

Interest

Ping! Your lead did the thing* you wanted them to do!

*Filled out the form, answered fairly positively on a cold call, or maybe replied to your cold email with a few questions.

At the interest stage, your lead is now aware that your service exists. They’re warm.

This is a win, but it’s also a vulnerability. Why? Because now they can start checking out the competition and be lost, perhaps forever.

So, what you do next is arguably the most important part of your lead engagement process.

Your focus at the interest stage should be: responding as fast as possible.

A gazillion stats show that the faster you respond to interest from prospects, the more likely you are to close deals.

Time is money; responding to a lead within one minute can lead to 391x more conversions.

Sound impossible? It’s not. More on that later.

(Psst, it’s automation).

Consideration

We know that B2B sales cycles take a bit longer – up to 9 months! 👼

And this time is often consumed by the consideration stage.

Sometimes this takes place in the background while your prospect stealthily does their research.

But it mostly involves active discussion.

Think back-and-forth questions between you and the prospect (and their bosses) as they figure out whether you’re the one.

Aside from your sharp sales skills and charisma, your secret weapon here is providing proof that your business can deliver exactly what the prospect needs.

So you should have case studies, whitepapers, webinar snippets, and product demos to send their way. The better they are, the quicker you can shake hands and get that sweet, sweet commission.

Action

“Let’s do it.”

“Where do I sign?”

“When can we start?”

“Take my money!”

There’s not much more to it. Your hard work has paid off, congratulations.

Retention

Oh, you thought you were done?

If B2B sales teams quit lead engagement after the sale, there’d be a lot of businesses in the toilet.

Because the secret to huge profits isn’t more sales, it’s longer customer relationships.

Yep, most companies get the majority of their business from repeat customers.

Having a strong customer retention strategy is one of the most crucial aspects of lead engagement.

Retention is cheaper than acquisition, and a 5% increase in retention can unlock up to 95% more revenue.

The secret? Impeccable customer service.

Think tailored drip campaigns that include surveys and special offers. Or just picking up the phone to ask how they’re doing.

We mean, besides the obvious goal of leading to a sale. 🙄

To show you just how important lead engagement is throughout the sales funnel, let’s break down what it can achieve (when done well).

Ensure You’re Top of Mind

Top of mind awareness (or TOMA) is a fancy way of saying your popularity with audiences. Investing in consistent lead engagement ensures that your business is the first thing that comes to mind.

The advantages of TOMA are that:

Marketing campaigns get more results because people already have a baseline awareness of your brand. This could be explicit, like following you on social media. Or implicit, like recognizing your logo on a billboard.
Domain authority increases because more people are actively searching for your company or product name, which then boosts your search ranking for related keywords and attracts even more users.
More prospects at the top of the funnel meaning more raw spinach to cook down into paying customers at the end.
Greater perceived value because popularity sells. When people know you’re a household name, you can charge higher prices.

Makes sense, huh?

Outshines the Competition

For markets with thousands of products to choose from, lead engagement helps you differentiate.

This relates strongly back to the advantages of TOMA, but with the added benefit of catching customers who’ve been dissatisfied with your competitors and are seeking something better.

You can’t always prove that you’re better than the rest.

But you can still outshine the competition with lead engagement by:

Offering a second-to-none brand experience
Sharing more valuable content (like lead magnets)
Niching down to a very specific audience

This is particularly effective for selling software products that already have fairly standard features and benefits – like, you know, sales CRMs. 😉

Boosts ROI

Lead nurture = 💸

Expecting to drive revenue without lead nurture is like expecting your house plant to stay alive without watering it.

If you make an effort to build a relationship with your leads and current customers, they’re more likely to spend money with your business.

Many assume that lead engagement tactics are too expensive.

But here’s the kicker – if you’re smart about it and use the right tools, engaging your leads can actually bring a healthy ROI.

Companies with a strong lead nurture strategy can achieve 50% more sales-ready leads at a 33% lower cost.

And by tailoring a personalized and meaningful experience to your current customers, you’ll find more opportunities to:

Upsell
Cross-sell
Lock-in long-term contracts

It’s kind of a no-brainer, right?

Examples of Lead Engagement At Different Stages of Your Sales Funnel

We can keep ranting to you about different lead engagement tactics.

But we know that textbook definitions and explanations will only get tired sales teams so far.

You need to see it in context.

We’ve put together three strong examples of lead nurture to show you how to…

Blend sales and CRM marketing tactics together
Tailor messages to your audience
Adapt tactics to move leads down the sales funnel

Prepare to be inspired.

Awareness: Cold Email Campaigns

It’s the bread and butter of remote sales.

Cold email is 40x more effective than social media and 80% of your prospects prefer that you pop up in their inbox rather than by phone call.

Remember that we’re at the widest part of the funnel (raw spinach) and so the key to success with cold email is volume.

The more leads you contact, the greater the likelihood of conversion and the greater your number of closed deals at the bottom of the sales funnel.

And by building an automated cold email sequence in your CRM, you can reach out to thousands of people at the push of a button.

But, with great power comes great responsibility. Just because you can spam thousands of prospects at a time doesn’t mean you should go crazy with it.

To make a great impression with your cold leads and maximize the chance they’ll progress down the sales funnel, you need to build the perfect email template and cadence.

Basically, that means tailoring what you say, when you say it, and how often you reach out.

This will depend hugely on your:

Brand persona
Product or service or industry
Customer persona

But a good rule of thumb is to create 3 email templates in total and set up an automation in your CRM to send each email every two weeks.

The cadence continues only if you don’t get a response. If the prospect replies, the cadence shifts and you can tailor your responses accordingly.

Here’s a solid breakdown of what you could say in those three automated cold emails:

Email 1	Email 2	Email 3
Agitating the pain point	Providing proof	Parting ways
Cut straight to the point and say why you’re reaching out. Orient your message around the challenge your prospect is facing and why that’s such a headache for them. Then succinctly state that you might have the solution for them.	Back up your last email by providing a simple demonstration of how you’ve solved the same problem for another client. A case study or testimonial is your secret weapon here.	Graciously admit defeat, thank your prospect for their time, and leave them alone.

Consideration: Case Studies

Let’s assume that your prospect has replied to your cold email (great job!).

They say that they’re interested but want to ask a few more questions before they can make a decision (or discuss it with their team).

Questions from your leads at the consideration stage of the sales funnel (especially for B2B) usually look like this:

Do you have the capability to serve our unique needs? (with details about those needs)
Can you tell me more about your service and how it works?
What’s your pricing and how does that compare with your competitors?

Don’t be intimidated by these questions. This is your opportunity to build a solid relationship with your prospects – even if you don’t have all the answers, they’ll likely respect you for being honest.

But no matter how well you’re channeling Jordan Belfort, your ability to engage leads at this stage of the sales funnel can be trumped by one thing: social proof.

It’s well documented that social proof is a game-changer for sales. Almost everyone trusts reviews and customer stories and these play a huge part in influencing purchasing decisions.

Beyond just proving that your company has happy customers, providing your consideration-level leads with case studies will also:

Help them identify how you’ve solved their challenges for other companies
Showcase what other customers have been able to achieve with your product or service
Agitate FOMO so they’re anxious to sign a deal – even if scarcity isn’t an issue with your product or service

So when you’re building your lead engagement strategy, make sure you work closely with your marketing team to create meaningful case studies and customer testimonials.

Retention: email and SMS drip campaigns

We’ve already covered that lead nurturing is fundamental to retaining customers and maximizing the profitability of those relationships.

But what does lead engagement look like at the retention stage?

Essentially, it’s a drip campaign.

A drip campaign is like your cold email cadence, except it’s usually more sophisticated and lasts longer.

Each ‘drip’ is a message that could be sent via email or SMS or even direct message on social media.

Ideally, multiple channels are used so you can maximize the chance of your message being opened and responded to. Plus, SMS has 8x the response rate of email.

The drips can be activated by you within your CRM, or they could be triggered by your customers’ behavior.

For example, if they use certain features of your software product, that could trigger an automated email that offers them a discount to a premium account to unlock more related features.

Some other examples include:

Abandoned cart emails
Software use reports
Reminder of a free trial ending
Exclusive access to a new product release
Discounts or special offers for current customers

From a sales process perspective, you’re upselling and cross-selling.

And from a customer experience perspective, you’re providing a helpful and personalized service.

All with a cost-effective and fairly easy-to-build system for lead engagement.

Top 5 Ways to Engage Leads Within Your Sales Funnel Through A CRM

We’ve covered the what’s and why’s of lead engagement in the sales funnel.

Now let’s dive deeper into the best tool you can use to implement it.

Your CRM.

1. Step-up Your Sales Call Game

Cloud VOIP Softphone

A CRM with a built-in cloud VOIP softphone is a game-changer.

Instead of making calls separately on your mobile (or, yikes, telephone) this feature allows you to make calls from within the CRM using your internet connection.

The accessibility, efficiency, and scalability of the business VOIP feature mean your team can call more leads, faster, with more accurate reporting of their progress.

Built-in Intelligent Local Presence Dialing

If your sales team relies on cold calling to engage leads, they probably suffer from low connect rates.

And that’s because people don’t pick up the phone when they don’t recognize the number.

But if your CRM has a Local ID, your sales team can adapt their caller ID to be local to the region you’re targeting.

And when people are 4x more likely to pick up calls from an area code they recognize, that makes all the difference.

Progressive Dialing

The admin around one phone call can take up to ten minutes. From dialing the number to recording a voicemail and finding the next prospect on the list.

But if your CRM has progressive dialing, sales reps can automate:

Dialing
Voicemail recordings
Queuing the next call

This can allow sales reps to make up to 60 calls per hour.

2. Take Advantage of Business SMS Marketing

Offer Discounts & Promotions

The most effective way to engage leads with discounts and promotions is to use a CRM with SMS features.

SMS is both personal and highly scalable. So long as you don’t spam your leads or give them “offer fatigue”, you can anticipate 98% open rates.

Use your CRM to set up templates, set auto-replies, and off you go!

Appointment Reminders

Missed appointments can add up to thousands of dollars lost per year.

Without an appointment reminder system, businesses are missing out on opportunities to:

Safeguard their hard-earned profit
Build a meaningful relationship with customers

Because your customers don’t want to miss appointments either.

Surveys

You can use your CRM to send out surveys to prospects and customers using an email drip campaign.

When created and shared intentionally, customer surveys are a huge asset to your sales team and a key driver of customer loyalty.

By setting up automated replies via SMS and email, you can break down surveys into quick and accessible experiences that minimize survey fatigue – meaning more people complete the survey.

This gives your sales team even more insights to improve and further personalize your lead nurture strategy.

3. Run Strategic and Measurable Drip Campaigns

Send SMS and Email Drip Campaigns by Location, Timeframe, Lead status

With the right CRM, you can build sophisticated drip campaigns that are triggered by your prospect’s location, timeframe, and lead status.

Segmenting your prospects into specific campaigns built around these metrics will help your sales team deliver a more personalized experience and enhance speed-to-lead.

Make sure your CRM offers these options when labeling and organizing your leads into drip campaigns.

4. Upgrade to a Leading Sales CRM

Centralize All Your Contacts to Better Manage Leads

The way sales teams to manage leads is a make-or-break situation.

With a smart CRM, your whole team can access a database of organized contacts and accurately label leads based on:

Where they’re at in the sales funnel
Outcomes from the last conversation
Potential deal value

With this data available at their fingertips, sales reps can quickly decide how to prioritize and pass leads through specific lead nurture campaigns.

Track Calls, Emails, and Contact History and Have Full Visibility and Control of Your Schedule

Relying on sales reps to record every activity within a lead or a deal is dangerous territory.

It’s not that your sales reps are dishonest, they’re just too busy to maintain the administrative tasks on top of trying to make quota each quarter.

The solution is simple: make sure your CRM takes care of this for you.

Your CRM should automatically record every activity taking place within a lead.

This ensures that managers can accurately track team productivity and that reps can jump on a lead and get context immediately.

Integration with Your Tech Stack

There’s no headache like the “my tools don’t work together” headache.

And when it comes to sales, you need your tech stack to integrate smoothly to operate at speed.

When shopping around for your shiny new CRM, check its integrations to make sure it connects with your:

Lead vendor
Social channels
Email provider
Website or CMS
Calendar

Because there’s nothing more satisfying than when all your apps talk to each other. 😇

5. Improve with Insights & Reporting

Measure All Your Marketing Efforts by Channel

Pumping out marketing campaigns is only half the battle. Arguably the most important part is how you interpret the data and check what’s worked and what hasn’t.

Your CRM should offer in-depth insights and reporting tools that show you how your campaigns are going based on relevant metrics, while also being clear enough for you to understand the context behind the data.

From there, it’s about optimizing your efforts by capitalizing on what’s working (and putting the failed campaigns in the trash).

We’ve covered a lot in this guide.

Hopefully, you’ve now got a solid understanding of how to engage your leads throughout the sales funnel –;why it matters, what it looks like, and how to do it.

And at the very least, you’ll know to always cook more spinach than you think you’ll need. 🥬

The success of your lead nurture strategy ultimately comes down to the tool you’re using to implement it.

Looking for a CRM that champions SMS, Local ID, automation?;

You should try Ringy. Request a demo and we’ll show you what you could be capable of.

Want to see the CRM in action?

Book A Demo