What’s the Best Marketing Funnel?
Got Funnel Madness? I’ve got the Medicine.
“The best marketing funnel” = HOT TOPIC in marketing and copywriting circles.
Along with NLP, open loops, how-salesy-is-too-salesy, etcetera, etcetera.
Recently, fellow copywriter Hillary Weiss wrote, “8 Observations from a Crumbling Niche — and how to Avoid Getting Crushed.”
I’ll summarize it for you:
“Your fancy schmancy marketing funnels ain’t workin’ so well anymore, because your customers are hip to the Game and can smell your pitch coming a mile away.”
She goes on:
“To fix this you need to do x, y, and z.”
What I found interesting is, in a roundabout way, she was advocating going back to the direct marketing fundamentals that have worked for the past damn-near two centuries.
THE PROBLEM IS, to the uncritical reader it sounds like the solution is to look for the next shiny tactic or gimmick customers haven’t fallen for yet.
Which brings me to why you’re reading this post.
Get on the prelaunch list for my new book, Dragon Energy: The Tao Of Personal Branding http://dragonenergy.meHave you seen the movie, “Enter the Dragon?”
There’s a scene right after the opening fight, where Bruce Lee’s character goes to meet his master, who praises his skill and questions him about the Martial Way.
This conversation is one of several in the movie when Bruce Lee expounds on Eastern Philosophy.
One statement stands out and is relevant to us today.
The Master asks, “What is the highest technique you hope to achieve?”
Lee replies, “To have no technique.”
So, if you ask me, “What is the best funnel?”
My response is:
“To have no funnel.”
Far too many of you are wasting your valuable time and money on convoluted marketing funnels when you should be focusing on the fundamentals.
Ben Settle calls this, “Principles vs. Tactics”. Ramit Sethi calls it, “Marketing Tactical Hell.”
What are these fundamentals, you ask?
Here are three:
- Get people onto a list
2. Sell them stuff
3. Sell the people who buy more stuff
Can you see how understanding this will help you apply it no matter the tech, no matter the channel?
I’ll go one step further and tell you about what I like to call “Transparency Marketing.”
You know you’re going to sell them. Your customer knows you’re going to sell them. Everyone’s just along for the ride.
So, why not just be up-front about it instead of trying to sneak the sale in after a 50 email sequence + webinar + retargeting rollercoaster of doom?
Author Mike Cernovich says sometimes his readers are on his blog for 3 years before they buy a single one of his books. Sethi says he has customers who read his blog for 10+ years before buying.
You think your funnel persuades them. WRONG. They persuade themselves. You just give them enough information for their confirmation bias to kick in and say, “Okay, NOW we can buy.”
The sale, therefore, is merely a function of contact and time.
So, Cernovich doesn’t give a damn if you buy his books the first time you visit. He continues to publish blog posts and links to his Amazon page at the bottom with a call-to-action. He doesn’t even bother with email marketing.
Settle just emails his list every day and sells something at the end, either his Email Players newsletter or an affiliate product.
This allows the two of them to run their businesses essentially as a one-man operation with minimal overhead. There is beauty in simplicity.
I think I prefer it to the funnel madness business owners and marketers are overcome by. Don’t you?
If you’re interested in making money with direct response fundamentals and NOT INTERESTED in being a “marketing funnel bro,” subscribe to my email list.
Get on the prelaunch list for my new book, Dragon Energy: The Tao Of Personal Branding http://dragonenergy.me
