(soft music) The five main segments of the marketing funnel are awareness, interest, consideration, conversion or action, loyalty, and retention. In these lessons, we'll discuss how each part can work as a helpful tool in marketing your company and product to consumers. In today's world, people don't want to spend their time searching for products that don't work, need to be returned, offer little satisfaction, or don't fit their wants and needs. Remember, it's generally a good idea to make it effortless for the consumer to get what they want or need. Advertising, marketing, and public relations all spread your organization's message. In the case of a marketing funnel, you are recommended to use email and phone calls to build a leads base of potential consumers. You can create a leads base from cold calls, where you call leads for the first time, or warm calls, where referrals have been made from other consumers, websites, or email. These leads are potential customers who need to hear from you directly about your organization's products and services that will meet their wants and needs. Cold calling is one of the best ways to find potential customers, but who do you cold call? It's best to list characteristics that you want in your customers. Summarize which type of potential customer you're trying to attract. Do they need to be in good financial standing, or of a certain age to be able to purchase your products? Oftentimes, reaching out to a third party company that specializes in finding people within a certain criterion has the best return on investment. Other times, it's better to use an in-house team that uses various free and paid tools to search. Such tools include Google Analytics, Google Adwords, Facebook I.D., Alexa, and Demographics Pro. There are several options to find your customer base. You just need to find what works best for you and your business. Your starting point can be calling your customers to give them a general awareness of who you are, and what you sell. Once you've created your cold call list, it's time to generate a script that'll peak interest and curiosity. It's best if your script focuses on the lead as much as possible. This can begin from the start of the call. It's recommended to build rapport by making the call more personal and conversational, instead of sales oriented. It's best practice to try to get at least three or four questions in before delving into complicated data or information about the product. It's also helpful to keep questions open-ended. This can keep the conversation going, and help you avoid awkward pauses. It will also help you to know beforehand what qualities, features, and benefits the consumer is interested in receiving. Here is an example script. Hi, Dahlia. This is Anders from Zapper Electronics. I've researched your company, Vinson Computers, and I'd love to learn more about the shortage of processing chips that's causing your manufacturing delays. At Zapper Electronics, we work with people like you to help with designing chips that are compatible with your hardware, optimizing them for speed and efficiency, and making them easy to install. Do you think our chips would be able to help with your manufacturing problems? Let's say Dahlia answers, yes, tell me more. Great, Anders has received a simple yes. Oftentimes, this can be done by offering a demo, or continuing the conversation with someone else higher up in the company. Anders would be wise to try to send the email shortly after hanging up. To easily remember to follow up, he can set a reminder for himself. Whatever route Andrews decides to take, this is the best point to introduce next steps. Alternatively, Dahlia might say, no, thank you. In this situation, Andrews might respond with, I completely understand. Would it be okay if I sent you an email to look over when you get a chance? Then I can follow up later in the week. If Dahlia and Vinson Computers still aren't interested, then Anders can thank them, and ask if they know another computer company that could use Zapper's help. Remember, every no gets you closer to a yes. There's no way to make everyone happy at the same time though. Sometimes someone won't be satisfied with an outcome, offering, or decision. Just remember that the only way to get to a yes is to keep trying.