BLOG: Process mapping framework helps build marketing funnels
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For those of you who don’t know, a marketing funnel is a process that a prospect goes through on their path to purchase. It is accompanied by a sales pipeline, but that topic will be explained in a later post.
For now, you only need to understand that there is a handoff from marketing to sales in order for revenue to be realized (unless, of course, you are brilliant enough to make your surgery sales through an e-commerce shopping cart).
The marketing funnel process needs to be defined before it can be assembled. This post lays out a repeatable framework for defining the marketing funnels your practice puts to use by your marketing operations team.
A process mapping framework has three steps. Each step uses a map that progressively builds detail upon each previous version. The reason for this iterative approach is that process participants (your staff and your managers) often have different ideas about what actually happens during a prospect’s buying journey. Initially, the first step is to describe the major milestones required by a prospect that ends in booking a procedure. The second step is to align everyone around one single version of the truth about the prospect’s end-to-end buying experience. The third step is to produce a blueprint from which marketing funnel assets are created by your agency or marketing department. Let’s drill down.
Step 1: Discovery
Proper discovery takes three buying stages apart. The stages are top of funnel (TOFU), middle of funnel (MOFU) and bottom of funnel (BOFU). TOFU is the awareness stage; they are beginning to research a treatment or a condition. MOFU is the engagement stage; they are deciding which practice or surgeon should be on their short list. BOFU is the conversion stage; they are 75% or greater ready to purchase and are making contact directly with the practice.
Discovery maps the prospect milestones as they transition across these three levels of sales readiness. For the purpose of this post, I will continue to drill down on the BOFU or prospect inbound inquiry call funnel in which they contact the practice.
The discovery map is a simple hand-drawn timeline of your “as-is” inquiry-handling process. The starting point at the left-hand side is a sad face representing the prospect’s unfulfilled need or want. The endpoint is a happy face on the right-hand side showing a successful outcome. You and your team will mark each action that is taken, starting with “prospect calls in to office.”
What happens once the phone rings? Then what happens? For example, reception answers and transfers caller to coordinator voicemail, coordinator calls prospect back, appointment is scheduled, etc. One caveat, though: It is important to make an honest assessment of what is actually happening, as opposed to what your staff believes is happening. That might require several “secret shopper” calls just to be sure.
Step 2: Design
Design is where the improved process, or “to-be” map, is captured in much greater detail. Think about new steps or interactions with the prospect that might positively influence their decision to choose you. For example, you probably aren’t sending automatic email “indoctrination sequence” follow-ups to every caller right now. So, your design map will include this email “nurturing” activity as an additional step on the timeline. Everything you believe you should be doing to bring the caller from “I’m interested” to “I’d like an evaluation/exam appointment” should be a milestone on the “to-be” map. The design step is your wish list for improving your current, and possibly underperforming, conversion funnel.
Step 3: Develop
Develop is an actual blueprint detailing every marketing asset and every workflow step that will be followed in your revised marketing funnel. For example, the phone rings, and the operator captures the caller information. This triggers automatic and manual steps with different marketing assets as the flow progresses, from a welcome email sequence to a phone follow-up decision tree to a virtual visit qualification meeting to an in-office evaluation. Assets could include emails, links to videos, patient guides, self-assessment, affordability calculators, etc.
In summary, the only way to ensure your investment produces the desired outcome is by mapping your “as-is” state, use it to refine your “to-be” state and then, and only then, commission marketing services to create the funnel itself. The develop map is the one that helps to identify the costs involved in activating the funnel that you have just designed. It should not be the first map you draw. Just as a builder requires a blueprint from an architect, the develop map is the blueprint for building every operational marketing process. In context, the design step is like the rendering or scale model an architect shows the owner. It is important because it aligns the vision for the project before any money is spent. Then, in the develop step, the actual funnel is specified. By articulating each type of work product and marketing asset, it can serve to prevent needless expense.
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