The Marketing Funnel: 5 Tips for Getting Steady High-End Customers
When I think of funnels, I think of the Wizard of Oz’s Tin Man. He wore an oil funnel hat. And very nicely, too.
In marketing and sales, the funnel is used to describe the customer acquisition process. I love the funnel metaphor because, well, I’m so visual.
Salespeople and marketers have different ways of looking at the funnel, but I think we agree that your prospects and customers first come in at the wide part. That’s where they hang out in the beginning, until they get to know you. They may be curious about your product or service, but they usually aren’t ready to buy. Not quite yet.
As we entice them with samples of our stuff-small, bite-sized pieces of product at first-we create a relationship with them over time. They start to experience the quality of our offerings and begin to trust that we will deliver what we promise. Here is one way to look at the process:
5 Tips for Moving your Customers Through the Marketing Funnel
1. Identify your ideal customers, capture their interest and move them into the top of the tunnel. At first, they’re just looking around. They might visit your website. But if there is no compelling reason to stay, you’ve lost your chance to capture them. Offer something of value free in exchange for permission to stay in contact with them. We offer a free subscription to Marketing Hotspots with a bonus gift, “How To Be the Best Event Networker on the Planet,” on signup. Now we have gently pushed them into the top of the funnel and we can start the relationship building.
2. Offer some free choices at the top of the funnel. It might be an e-book, a free report, a tip sheet, a video, or any number of other freebies. You are doing two things here: identifying the people who can really use your product or service and, perhaps more importantly, filtering out the prospects who don’t fit your customer profile. Because if they are not interested in your free, high-quality product, they probably aren’t your target market.
3. Provide multiple options for customers to sample at the lower price points. This one is key. They have gotten your free stuff and signed up to be on your newsletter list. That means they want to keep hearing from you. So start giving them options to try your lower-priced products. They are not ready for your elite club membership package but they might be willing to try a test-the-waters product. At Cat’s Eye, we offer, among other things, a website home page design and copywriting critique and one hour’s worth of WordPress troubleshooting. Think of several products or services that would work at this price point.
4. Market some middle-priced products or services to your lower-end customers. This is where the gap most often happens. Be sure you have enough middle-level options. For instance, a 6-month membership instead of 12 or an introductory package of services. Market them to the customers who have been happy with your lower-end products.
5. Don’t ignore the customers at the bottom of the funnel. It is obvious that we should pay special attention to the customers who account for most of our profits, but I see businesses that forget this. In our attempt to get new customers, we forget that it’s a lot easier to keep our current ones happy. One business networking site I know of has started tweeting about their new members with links to their websites. Many of these members are coming in at the basic (free) level.What they should be doing is promoting the loyal members who bring them revenue-their long-standing paid members. So, give your high-end customers cool stuff. Help them promote their businesses. Feature them in a blog post. You have worked hard to get them. Be sure they know you appreciate them.
If you were to draw your marketing funnel-wide at the top, narrow at the bottom-what would your products or services look like at each point in the funnel?
I had the strange experience of reading my own obituary last week. I blogged about it here: Google Said I Died: Will That Be Bad for Business? Would love to hear your own story in the comments.
