This post is based on a podcast with Sangram. If you’d like to listen to more #FlipMyFunnel Podcast episodes, you can check them out here and listen to this episode below!
Have you (or a friend) ever tried to close the deal after just one date? How’d that go in the long run?
Probably not well, and you (or your friend) probably never repeated this tactic.
Yet perhaps you are constantly repeating this strategy … in marketing.
If you rush through the courtship phase of a buyer’s journey with no flowers, no chocolates, no sweet nothings, then you are a one-night stand marketer.
I went to a conference some years ago and heard from a Google evangelist. His words struck me. I realized that I was employing the tricks of a one-stand marketer.
Since then I’ve learned from my ways, and I use this list to make sure I’m not going back to old habits:
1. You Focus On Leads Not Engagements
We’ve all heard the statistics numerous times. Anywhere from 90 – 99% of leads go untapped. So we need to stop using a high number of leads as a reason for excitement and start using engagement as the new metric.
Don’t misunderstand me: I’m a marketing. I love marketing, and I love writing ebooks. But honestly, who reads the whole thing from end to end? I don’t even read the ebooks I write from end to end. Reading ebooks is not engagement.
Here’s an example of engagement: When I go to #FlipMyFunnel conferences, I make a list of the individuals I want to spend time with. Some on the list are customers, some of them are not , but all of these meetings, dinners, lunch dates, etc., are for conversations that have absolutely no agenda. True engagement.
Of course in-person meetings may seem unscalable — but here are some other starter questions on how to measure engagement:
- How much time did someone spend on your website?
- How many actually attended a webinar and listened for 30 minutes?
- How many people from this account came to the website?
2. You Like Conversion Rates Not Conversations
As a marketer, I love getting alerts when someone fills out a form. It’s a dose of dopamine every time. But that can’t be the end of the story.
If someone downloads an ebook and nothing happens for 4-6 weeks, we’re missing the opportunity to make the next move. Can we take every conversion that we get, from a chat, webinar, white paper, etc., and then take it to a conversation?
Conversations are where the lifeblood is. People talk, exchange ideas, and relationship is built. As a marketer, this is what you’re after.
3. You Keep Asking for Registrations Instead of Paying Attention to Your Pipeline
Guess what? All organizations have a pipeline. Almost everyone at your company will be able to tell you what percentage of that pipeline will likely turn into customers. CFOs, CEOs, they all look at pipeline — it’s clearly important.
Except for marketing, right? Wrong. Why do we always think “pipeline is a sales thing”? Frankly, if nobody’s focused on the pipeline from your marketing team, then we’ve completely missed it. Focus on engaging with your pipeline and building conversations with them.
As a marketer, I get it: We love to say “we had a thousand people on this webinar.” But then no one turns into a buyer. They weren’t the right contacts. A webinar that has only 10 people from your pipeline beats a webinar with 100 or thousands of people if they are not the right customers.
4. You Love Customers But You Hate Prospects Who Don’t Download Your Ebook
Picture yourself in the buyer’s shoes for a moment. You are a frontline manager at an organization. You aren’t the CEO or even on the executive team, but they ask you to look into this product from ABC company.
So you go the website and download the ebook. Remember, the executive team isn’t downloading, you are. Now, because your name is on some list, you are called, emailed, and harassed about buying a product. How’s that for a first date?
Everyone hates downloading ebooks. I’m a marketer and I like making them, but even I hate downloading them.
Why not ungate some of that ebook content and truly share it? You can reproduce the content, make an infographic, blog, slideshare, video, etc. Not everything has to be gated.
5. You Send Emails. All the Time. To Everyone.
Here’s the old marketing way of thinking:
You send emails to a list of people. After 3 months you sit down and look at your engagement level; it’s maybe only 10 percent. So you think “let’s change the content,” and you go back and send more emails.
Now 6 months in, you look at your engagement levels. About the same. So you think “well, the time probably wasn’t right,” but now, maybe it is…? So you send out more emails.
Notice a trend here?
Consider this in a relationship scenario. If you kept sending unsolicited, unwanted notes to someone you were wanting to take out on a date, you’d end up with a restraining order.
So how do you enageme with customers? I am typically reaching out to marketers, so I go to LinkedIn, where I know I can find them. But this varies. Find out where your customer base is, and bring value to them.
Lastly.
Don’t be a one-night stand marketer.
No one likes to be spammed, harassed, or jump into bed on a first date. We all want some romance, and we enjoy being talked to as human beings, in our own language, on our terms.
Consider your potential customers with the same attitude: Instead of the old spam, build conversations that foster relationships, and love and engage your customers on their terms.
