Marketing jargon explained: the funnel

One of the most important concepts in marketing is the funnel. It’s also one of the most jargon-y. The good news is, it means basically what it says.

The marketing funnel.

There’s a process that people follow to take them from being merely anyone to a client. One way to describe this is the customer journey. If you read my blog on that, you might be having déjà vu. But bear with me. 

Marketing plays an important role in the customer journey. When it’s done right, it’s meant to actively funnel everyone toward becoming a client. Just like an actual funnel. It takes people at the top and encourages them down the path toward conversion, where they sign up to work with you.

One of the biggest things marketing can do is raise awareness of your business. (Some 77 percent of businesses say awareness is the biggest driver behind their marketing campaigns.) But awareness only gets you so far. Next comes consideration, which is where most people spend the most time for any business. They’re aware you exist, but might not sign up or make a purchase. Often, the conversion to client comes because a need or want arises. If you’ve already gotten them to the consideration phase, they’re more likely to work with you than another firm.

Content marketing, in my opinion, goes a long way toward making the funnel work for you. It’s an issue of substance over style. Any well-designed ad can alert people to your presence. But content can alert them to what you do and more importantly the value you add.

Let’s talk about value

One of the biggest mistakes most companies, but particularly advisors, make is to start the process as the bottom of the funnel. This makes sense: Companies want to sell things. But as financial marketing and tech guru Dani Favi recently posted on Twitter, “Expertise has no value to an audience who doesn’t understand.”

(When I asked her for permission to use her tweet, she credited this article, which I would encourage you to read… after you finish this article, of course.)

Basically: For a potential client to understand your value, they need to understand what you do. Content can help with this. You can work education into the funnel. This not only provides value to the client along the way, it also raises awareness of your firm, leads them consider working with you, and highlights your value as an advisor.

How this works

Consider someone who googles, What kind of life insurance should I get? If you have blog post on this topic, they might discover your article. Maybe they look up who wrote it and begin to learn about you and your firm; you’re in the awareness phase. Content created for awareness, and with anybody or everybody in mind generally has minimal (if any) mentions of products or services; its purpose isn’t to sell, and trying to sell at this stage can actually get in the way of building trust.

Now maybe that same person is wondering, How much life insurance do I need? and they come across another article you’ve written. After they finish that article, they explore others on your site. Perhaps a blog post on 529 that explores the advisor edge — why you can access certain 529 plans that they can’t. Now they’re starting to think: “She really knows her stuff, maybe I should work with her.”

Now “anybody” has moved to moved firmly into the consideration phase — they’re considering whether they might want to work with you. This is generally one of the longest phases. Content made for this group of people should start to include more product mentions, because it’s highlighting the various ways you can help. It’s meant to show why they should move from considering to a decision. This is where you might prompt someone who’s been on your page a long time to set up a consultation.

Conversion can happen a variety of ways. But one common mistake businesses make is thinking that marketing ends at conversions. Even advisors who focus a large portion of their marketing budgets on continuing engagement may be missing the point if they don’t reuse the funnel after conversion occurs.

Repeating the funnel with existing clients

Just engaging clients isn’t going to sell more products or services (unless you want to do a lot of work to earn every sale). So think about applying the funnel to existing clients. Can you raise awareness about the product or service you’re promoting, without trying to sell it?

Maybe you’re about to start offering insurance in your practice. You might start including notes about how insurance can help in various situations in your newsletters or client communications. Don’t mention anything about selling. You might begin talking about it enough that your clients start to ask you about it (you might even say they can set up an appointment to ask you about it). Then, when you make the move to offer insurance, you’re offering them a solution.

Without the initial awareness and consideration it could have felt like a cold call, or like you were “just trying to sell them something.”

It’s worth noting that content education makes this entire funnel more effective, because you’re not just dropping hints and creating recognition cues, you’re educating clients to understand the real value of what you’re offering. But we’ll talk more about why content marketing (versus generalized marketing) at another time.

Have questions on how content marketing could work for you?