The sales funnel is dead. The old traditional sales funnel is dying. I know. Shocking statement,
right? Or maybe not so much. If you've had interaction with pretty much any modern day
consumer, if you're in marketing at all, you need to watch this video. I've got some thought
insights for you today about the sales funnel, and how constant marketing plays in for building
more influence and earning actual sales. All this is coming up in today's video, let's
go. So why first of all am I making this statement
that the sales funnel is dying? In our write blog article, I wrote last December 2018 called,
Good Bye Sales Funnel and Hello Marketing Lifecycle, and I put up here on the screen
somewhere. I make apart piece by piece. Why the sales funnel is dead? First, the sales
funnel doesn't really describe the way marketing works, or even should work anymore. When the
concept of the sales funnel came out, it was 1924, and the internet didn't actually exist.
Think about that for a second. The AIDA model or the awareness, interest, decision, action
stages of a sales funnel were first proposed in a book called Bond Salesmanship by William
W Townsend in 1924. Here is what Townsend actually wrote in his book in 1924, which
gave us our illustration of today's funnel. The salesman should visualize his whole problem
of developing the sales steps as the forcing by compression of a broad and general concept
of facts through a funnel which produces the specific and favorable consideration of one
fact. The process is continually from the general to the specific, and the visualizing
of the funnel has helped many salesmen to lead a customer from Attention to Interest,
and beyond. Does that sound like something our customers even want from us today? John
Hall, a cofounder of Influence & Co. one of the biggest content marketing agencies that
made the Inc. 500 list has said this on Forbes. Right now, the marketing funnel as we know
it accepts just about anyone and everyone, filters them through qualification processes,
then spits them out at the end without much of a pating word. Too many companies see customers
as gatekeepers to wallets; meanwhile, customers feel ignored at best - and insulted at worst
- when the journey ends. In my article from December called Goodbye, Sales Funnel, I developed
and produced on the right blog an original concept called the marketing lifecycle. This
lifecycle represents a much more modern version of today's buyer's journey. The marketing
lifecycle concept has started to go far and wide getting republished on content marketing
institute, the Martech Advisor, Marketing Profs to name a few publications. The term
itself marketing lifecycle isn't new. Ardath Albee, an industry leader in content marketing,
has talked about this on the Mercado blog. In her post titled B2B Tech Marketers Make
the Shift From Funnels to Lifecycles, she says this, marketers must shift their focus
from buying journey funnels to full-on customer lifecycle management. What's important to
remember is that today's typical customer journey is far more unpredictable than the
customer from just a decade ago. Take a look at what our buyers are doing today. For example,
40,000 people are searching Google every second. 84% of buyers trust online reviews. 47% of
B2B buyers read 3-5 blogs before they talk to a salesperson. And 77% of Twitter users
feel positive about a brand when their tweet has been replied to. A typical buyer's journey
looks a lot more like a set of footsteps that can go anywhere and everywhere instead of
just one pathway down a funnel. These footsteps can go back and forth depending the amount
of decision makers, the amount of time they have to make a decision, and so on. The sales
funnel has really put an incorrect slant on our buying audience because in the end, it's
not a metric, it's not a number, it's a real human that's buying from us, and we tend to
forget that. We only look at is that funnel. As marketers, it shouldn't be all only gold
to grab the attention of our buyers. Get them into our funnel and then push them down towards
decision stage. It's time to quit looking at our customers as if they're a number a
metric, a gatekeeper to a wallet. So what does it look like when we're guiding someone
who is potentially a buyer through these lifecycle stages? Let's talk about the four stages I
have in the marketing lifecycle. I'm gonna give you a brief overview, and then talk about
how to develop content that builds awareness, interest, the decision, and then ongoing loyalty.
For more, definitely go read the video transcript I'm going to have published on my blog for
this video. You can get a recap of all these main points in that piece.
So number 1, Awareness. This as well as the four stage loyalty are
arguably some of the most important stages to focus on. In awareness, you're pushing
your brand out there, and you have to put on some serious effort to make your place
known in the industry. Focus on having a house where you can publish authority building content
from. This is a great website and a consistent content schedule. Consistency, quality, and
quantity, all will play in to this stage. Trust building content is really the queen
and the queen rules the house. Avoid being promotional at this stage because you're gonna
turn your leads off if you are. So focus on adding value in the awareness stage. Create
content that earns that love and trust. Shed new light on a tough subject. Provide an in-depth
answer to a big question your audience members have. Your number 1 goal here should be to
provide value consistently. Content creation through authority building blogs, original
research studies, social media content, published books, eBooks, lead magnets, and email campaigns
that are focused on adding value. It should be a big focus of your content creation at
this stage. The importance of consistent consecration alone is something that warmer marketers are
identifying. It's actually a key trend right now. 56% of marketers have reported an overwhelming
increase in content creation budgets and expenditures according to CMI's 2019 Benchmark Report.
So moving on to stage 2 in the marketing lifecycle, this stage is all about interest and intent.
This is when someone is engaged and are potentially interested in working with you. Your goal
here should be conversation. Conversational marketing, have wide chat apps on your website,
ready to capture those leads that are ready to talk, have clear contact forms positioned
at the right places on your website, have CTAs attached to your awareness building blogposts.
After leading my agency Express Writers for more than 8 years now and saving over $4 million
closed in sales, the number one biggest factor we see that moves our leads from interest
and intent into decision is conversations. Without that real live conversation typically
held over the phone, leads just don't buy, nothing, in my opinion. The trust and report
that's built through a real live human conversation. Setting up a great team especially in your
client's support and specials departments is key here. Offering coupons is another way
to get leads to move forward in these stages, and email marketing is huge as well in this
stage. You can also create a guided eBook or lead magnet that helps your ideal prospect
right at the point of when they're considering you and your services. So why us? A case study
on how you've helped a customer, things like that make for great content that enables the
decision factor to move forward. Stage 3, Decision. This is when your lead is ready
to buy. This is the action stage. This is where revenue and sales happen. A great portfolio,
examples of work you've done is excellent to have and showcase in this stage. Having
a process, tools, a team in place for building that quote quickly, getting that sales quote
over to that person that's ready to buy, that's all a big factor in this stage. Testimonials
and reviews from other happy customers also work extremely well to build trust to enable
your leads to move into this stage. Number 4 finally, Loyalty. This is a stage that's
often skipped over or sometimes not even included in the sales funnel. This is when you've satisfied
your customers, they're delighted, and they're ready to send referrals to your way, or come
back to buy again. Royalty stage is all dependent on your service and your products. How much
do you go above and beyond in delivering tiny service, great service, outstanding deliverables?
You need to connect with and delight your customers on a regular basis in order to build
this stage. Remember, you customers' loyalty can often reflect the strength of your brand.
To continue to build royalty, reach out to your customers. Sometimes, we will send handwritten
notes with a signed copy of my book to customers that we've worked with and really enjoy serving,
we'll send gifts, we'll check in on them personally, and let them know how much we appreciate them.
Those things can really help build royalty. Remember, loyalty is most dependent on how
well you serve your customer. So your products and services must be strong to really build
this stage. You can also increase royalty by connecting with your buyers on social media,
following them, retweeting them, Instagram DMing them, watching their stories, this one
increase their likelihood of tweeting at you, mentioning you, and even taking the time to
write a tweet about how much you've helped them. So stay at the top of their mind by
engaging with them on social media after they've become a customer.
So that's a wrap on the four stages of the marketing lifecycle. As we conclude, I wanted
to share two reminders about the landscape of today's buyer. A new social media study
has shown that 99% of millennials say that ads do not impact their buying decision at
all. Given the statistic, I think we're starting to see the importance of content marketing
becoming today's new marketing. Content marketing itself is worth over $400 billion. It's proven
itself as time goes on. Customers engage with great content. They love it when we focus
on helping them and solving their needs before you even try to pitch them a product. Creating
valuable content that reaches our buyer at their place of need is respectful marketing.
It's not simy, it's not pushy, it's not tacticky, and it's what our customers want. It's crazy
because when you think about it, content strategy itself is only a decade old. The script has
really flipped on today's marketing. History is in the making in our industry right now.
My last reminder comes from last year when I studied our first $1.5 million gross sales
year. As I studied the patterns of our customers that year, I noticed something scary. Conventional
KPIs for marketing success can sometimes detour and take focus away from what it takes to
actually grow real revenue. For example, one of the biggest metrics in earning our day-to-day
sales at Express Writers is the conversations we're having every day with whom and how well
those conversations went. We have someone on the phone who's representing us well, who
is speaking to our customers the way I would according our standards and has excellent
knowledge of our services, the call tends to go very well. And, if we've said no to
opportunities and leads that might not be our perfect, we can make more room for those
yes's for our perfect fit clients. But conventional KPIs don't focus on conversions. Instead of
metrics that sometimes mean nothing like follower account, bound rate, sure, those things might
be important, but do they really matter to bottom-line revenue? Sometimes, many times,
not. I hope this video inspires you and shed some
light on this tough topic of our customers' sales journey. If you've questions or thoughts,
I'd love to hear from you on this topic. You know what to do, leave your comment and let
me know what you think. If you enjoyed today's video but haven't subscribed
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I'll see you back here for more informative education in this industry of content marketing.