Introduction

If you are a marketing professional, you recognize the marketing stages or the graphic of a funnel alluding to poring leads into your database, turning leads into customers. It’s time to graduate from the outdated funnel stages into the new age terminology, the seed stages of marketing!  Don’t get left behind during this new digital era of marketing. 

The seed stages introduce new terminology, like revenue seeds. Think of revenue seeds as SEO resource magnets. These seeds will flourish and sprout into the “harvest stage” of revenue growth. This article will run you through a new way of growing your leads into blossoming customers by utilizing revenue seeds. 

Understanding Traditional Funnel Stages

When thinking about the marketing funnel, you most likely think of these three stages,  awareness, consideration, and decision. The stages are also known as: 

• Top of the funnel: The awareness stage
• Middle of the funnel: The consideration stage
• Bottom of the funnel: The decision stage

In today’s dynamic market, the funnel approach has limitations that it did not have in the past. For example, the funnel stages pigeonhole your potential customers into having a fragmented customer experience. The traditional funnel stages primarily focus on just moving leads through the sales process and neglect the importance of ongoing engagement and relationship building.

Funnel stages are dead and there is now a new approach that addresses customer needs unlike before. This new customer-centric model will help your organization thrive in the new age of marketing. 

Introducing, Seed stages…

The Concept of Seed Stages

Seed stages can be thought of as the new-generation marketing funnel. Except for seed stages include more of a sticky approach. The concept is exactly as it sounds, you are planting a seed that’ll eventually blossom to be harvested. 

Seed stages focus on nurturing leads and cultivating long-term relationships. The seed stages are:

• Planting
• Sprouting
• Growing
• Harvesting

As you can see, it’s a typical growth cycle of plants. Plants can’t grow without being nurtured and handled with care throughout their lifecycle. Also, you can’t harvest something if it never grows. The same goes for your customers. You can’t close a deal, or move onto the harvest stage, without them gaining interest and interacting with your brand, also referred to as the sprouting stage.

Let’s go into the details of each of these stages. 

Planting the Seed: Plant Stage

Planting the seed, the initial stage of this process is the most important. This stage directly correlated to the traditional “top-of-funnel” resources you’d put out for your prospects and leads. In this stage, you are planting “revenue seeds.” Revenue seeds are exclusive resources that are developed specifically for your services or products, designed to assist your customers in finding solutions to the challenges they are facing.

Planting the seed is planting these resources on your website for the general audience to see. They are not selling your specific product or service just yet. Moreover, they are educating your audience about a question they have about a topic you are experts on in your field. 

Examples of resources, or revenue seeds, that can be utilized in this stage are:

• Blog posts 
• Videos
• SEO
• eBooks

Sprouting: Sprout Stage

Next, is the sprouting stage. The sprouting stage is where leads start to show signs of engagement and interest. The importance of nurturing your leads in this stage is crucial. Personalized communication comes into play in this stage as well as pushing out relevant content. Some examples that can be created and used in this stage are:

• Case Studies
• Paid Advertising
• White papers
• Infographics
• One-page documents

Once your lead has shown interest, use these above revenue seeds to gain their full attention and begin to trust your brand will solve their problem.

Growing Strong: Grow Stage

Next, we blossom into the growth stage. At this stage, your prospect is in the works of transforming into a customer. You’ve built trust, and proven that your product or service will deliver value, and now all that’s left to do is provide an exceptional customer experience to grow the leads into loyal customers.

Examples of activities or content in this stage are:

• Demos
• Product spec sheets
• Trials

Harvesting Rewards: Harvest Stage

During the Harvest Stage, businesses focus on maximizing revenue, encouraging repeat business, and aiming to foster brand loyalty. Strategies like value-added services and promotional offers are typically during this stage.

Another important milestone in the harvest stage is fostering brand loyalty. This involves building an emotional connection and prioritizing customer satisfaction and retention. After nurturing this customer through the growth cycle, having lasting relationships is the most rewarding aspect of the harvesting experience. 

Conclusion

We covered a ton of information in this article. The key takeaway is that it’s time to transition away from the old-generation funnel strategy of marketing. It’s time to embrace seed stages and it’s time to begin planting revenue seeds into your website. By utilizing the seed stages of planting, sprouting, growing, and harvesting, you’ll see faster lead generation and increased revenue for your company. 

Marmentum is spearheading the industry by planting revenue seeds like no one has done before. From creating custom revenue seeds tailored specifically for you to hosting and optimizing the pages, we do it all. See how it works, what you get, and the monthly pricing options on our website and let us plant a seed that’ll grow the future of your business.