There is no gravity in a sales funnel!.
Prospects do not fall down a sales funnel in an orderly manner, defined by some marketers picture of their customer journey.
Prospects climb up a chimney that gets narrower and more difficult the higher you go. There are points of friction, decision points, diversions, and often life just gets in the way. When a prospect falls out, sometimes they return, at another time, to another place in the ‘chimney’, and sometimes are never to be seen again.
At each point in the climb, the marketer has to get a ‘mini-yes’ from the prospect. Are they going to continue the climb to a conversion? Or is the friction greater than their motivation to climb further?
There are 3 points of extreme friction you need to address as prospects climb
- Why should the prospect engage with you? This may be a PPC ad, a download, simply looking at a second page on your website, or not throwing away that brochure you mailed them. This is the first major point of friction, and conversion rates at this point are usually in single figures.
- Why should the prospect buy this product in preference to any alternative solution to whatever problem they are facing? Most problems have many potential solutions, and many suppliers, so you need to be able to demonstrate why the solution you offer is superior to alternative solutions.
- Why should they buy the product/solution from you, rather than one of your competitors? If the only answer to this question is price, you have just lost.
We kid ourselves if we think of this process as ‘gravitational,’ exerting gravity downwards towards the transaction. The process is the reverse of gravity, there is pressure from many angles to squeeze prospects out of the chimney, and it takes sustained effort to support them in their climb.
