I know a fellow consultant, who is a true expert in his field of nutritional consulting for business organizations. Not only that. His integrity is high. He resists using any kind of pushy marketing tactics on anyone. That is his argument against using marketing funnels.
I understand.
The Problem with Marketing Funnels
There are many low-quality, high-pressure marketing and sales approaches out there today. Having a “sales funnel” in place has become something dirty.
You probably know what I mean.
You are googling up something that could be useful to you in that moment. Let’s say you are doing a hashtag (#) research as you are considering using Twitter for your online presence. You have no ambition to turn into a social media manager. You just need some quality advice how to use #s most effectively.
The majority of articles you find are a simplistic, but they offer a quick overview. Soon you are able to specify your question even further. You discover that you need to research the most fitting hashtags for your precise industry. So you continue your Google search to find the best tool available for hashtag research.
You come across a blog post that explains such tools. In the middle of the post, you are invited to enter your email in order to download a comprehensive guide for solopreneurs who are starting out on Twitter.
You enter your email. Boom. Now you have officially turned into a MQL (marketing qualified lead) and have become an impersonal object in their marketing automation system. Most probably, you have been assigned a score, which will get adjusted with your actions on their website and your interaction with their emails.
At the same time, you have reached your temporary objective (receiving the guide on Twitter) and from your side, the story of interaction with that company is over.
But you are now in their system. Your inbox will be flooded with their “lead nurturing” emails. Message 1: Thank you for downloading your guide. Message 2: Let us know what you thought about guide. Message 3: Here are some other resources that you might enjoy. Message 4: How about a free 7-day trial? Message 5: Do not miss this opportunity. This is your final chance to get a 30% discount. And so on and so on.
Honestly, I fail to understand why the word “nurturing” is used. It is such a warm and caring word, where the focus is on doing something good for the receiver. But lead nurturing is the opposite of it. It aims at getting something out of the receiver. It is about “warming leads up” and indoctrinating them. The final aim is getting them ready to be pushed into the next action that you want from them.
So there is no wonder that my fellow consultant resists using such a tactic. He is a trustworthy authority in his field. He does not need to convince anyone. When his target clients are ready for his solutions, they seek out the help that he is offering.
So all he has to do is remain visible and provide helpful content that shows his expertise. Remaining visible means providing a consistent stream of high-quality nutritional advice. It takes the form of articles, videos, webinars, newsletters, interviews and podcasts.
If he’d be using a marketing funnel, it would have to be a polite and a non-intrusive one. Of course he can aim at filling his high-end online courses with it. The trick lies in not manipulating people into registering. It lies in providing them stepping stones through which they can get to know him and his solutions better without risking too much.
It seldom is a perfect fit at a very timely point in the potential client’s life when they would buy immediately a $1,000 online course.
People usually have a much longer journey. They need to gradually trust the expert and decide whether he or she is able to solve their issues. That is the ultimate decision of a buyer: is the seller worth their money and time?
That is when an honest, well-designed, helpful and authentic marketing funnel can come in very handy.
Positive Aspects of Marketing Funnels
The warmth factor of your audience’s readiness to buy from you usually ranges from light yellow to dark red (with red meaning immediate readiness).
That warmth depends on the trust that you have built with your audience over time. It also depends on the crafting of your offer: is it meeting the immediate needs of your audience or not?
And that is OK.
It takes time to gain trust. I takes long-term caring and consistent quality content creation. It takes respectful attitude towards people who are in different stages of discovering you. It takes a lot of personal interaction with your audience to get to know them close enough.
Sometimes a person trusts you completely, but their problem has not yet reached the burning stage that would make them want to buy a solution. Or they have reached that stage, but they genuinely do not have enough money to afford it at the moment.
(I always advocate debt-free living and accepting life’s circumstances as they come. It is unrealistic to expect from oneself to build a successful business from scratch while caring for small children or elderly family members, or while struggling to make ends meet, or while recovering from a severe physical or mental condition, to name a few. Sometimes people simply do not have the time, money or energy available to consume your in-depth, paid content.)
And that is OK.
Let’s think of a funnel as offering people certain stepping stones for them to help themselves.
By having stepping stones in place (such as, for example, free social media content, consistent high-quality blog posts, a low-priced email course, a mid-priced webinar and a high-priced online course), you can do both yourself and your audience multiple favours:
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You offer your potential clients and the public at large a chance to see if your expertise is a good fit for their burning problem.
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You are spreading your core beliefs and having a positive influence on the society as a whole.
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You treat people respectfully and let them choose when they are ready to make the next step. Those who are ready for your solution, just need an invitation from you, no persuasion.
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You grow and develop yourself with practice. The more content you produce, the better your articulation of your core beliefs becomes. The more people you help on the way, the better you feel about fulfilling your mission.
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Doing something good is a reward in itself. It makes productivity more joyful, interesting and propels you into even more creative ideas. Life becomes fun and meaningful.
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If you are able to focus on helpfulness and on consistent self-growth, regardless of whether you get your clients’ money in exchange immediately, at some point in the future or never, you are able to continuously feel successful. That boosts your confidence, creativity and productivity. Focusing exclusively on financial benefits is energy-draining and demotivating. The perceived scarcity puts you in a competitive mode. The fear of missing out puts you into a fight-or-flight state which constantly nabs at your overall health. Your self-esteem may get drown, too, when you correlate your financial status with your worthiness.
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Designing a kind of funnel may also serve as a motivating aid in your content creation. It helps you create more relevant content for people who are at different stages of readiness to hire you or purchase from you.
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Setting up a funnel helps you think of a larger variety of distribution channels for your content – as you’d like it to reach as many different audiences as possible, to be found by your ideal clients.
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Finally, it gives your audience a very clear path to follow in case they enjoy your content and would love to discover more and more of it. You are doing them a favour by making it easy for them to dive deeper.
If you are doing good work, consistently, patiently, and with proper values in place, the organic word of mouth will spread. And that is the ultimate goal of any marketing, with or without funnels in place.
