There’s a fundamental sales flaw in 1:1 marketing: it spends money to extend marketing’s paradigm rather than being used to improve sales effectiveness. 

A typical direct mail campaign generates a less than 2% response rate. Using 1:1 marketing techniques (changing photos, offers and text; segmenting mail lists based on geography, income, etc.) response rates improve -- sometimes as much as 400% -- but that’s still single-digits.

The reason response rates are so low is that marketing is essentially saying, who needs and wants to buy what I’m selling right now? It  would be the same as focusing strictly on the number of sales calls a rep makes while not keeping track of who is a potential customer six months from now.

The basic concept of Funnel Media is that sales is a process, not an event at a single moment in time. Refocusing 1:1 marketing techniques, sales can be closed faster by supplying the right information at the right time to the right individuals within a company.

Therefore, if I send information about the financial impacts of purchasing my solution to finance, workflow improvement information to the VP of manufacturing and customer benefits information to the sales VP, I’m aligning the various stakeholders in the sales process with my message.

Further, these messages are delivered in a specific sequence based on the selling cycle of your product. This replaces marketing’s wasteful shotgun approach with relevant communication that keeps opportunities alive, even when a sales rep is not making the calls.

Reps can cover more accounts more effectively with fewer calls while the entire sales cycle is shortened.

So why not turn marketing’s fundamental flaw to your sales advantage?