Do You Funnel Your Business?

By Scott Stratten

Do you have a funnel for your business? If you've ever tried to pour a liquid into a small opening (i.e. your car's oil) you know that if you don't use a funnel, the liquid spills all over the place. I see the same thing happening with the visitors to most websites.

When you arrive at most places on the net, there are many things fighting for your attention. Every link counts as one, every banner, picture that's click-able, every course of action is a choice. How many choices do you have on your business website for me to choose from? I've counted some sites with as many as 70!

When someone comes to your site, you should have a funnel set up. A large intake that brings people into your business, and you control the future contact. The first contact should be easy to do and cost nothing. Hence a newsletter or a ebook/report on a subject. However, you should only have one funnel, one way to get them into your world and slowly approach the end goal = buying from you.

Let me explain. On Un-Marketing, my funnel is my newsletter. Every person who signs up for it has entered my marketing "funnel". Every other week you get a newsletter from me with quality information. When the time comes for you to consider working with a marketing coach/consultant, I'm in front of you and *poof* a sale can occur. The whole point is all of my potential customers come through here. There is the odd person/client I get outside of this ezine, but the majority of my clients, and in-turn their referrals come from being a subscriber to this ezine.

Every time I write an article that gets published, the byline leads people into my newsletter funnel. Every time I speak somewhere, I lead them to here. Without this funnel, just like trying to change your oil without one, people would spill all over the place and potentially leave without doing a thing.

What is your funnel? At a trade show, where are you trying to bring them to? At your store, what can be appealing to most of the people that come into through your door?

If you're going to make your newsletter the thing to use, make sure it is "sold" to people by stating the benefit to them. Too many newsletter sign-up areas on sites simply state "Sign-up for our free newsletter". Who cares?!?! Most have no cost anyway, why would I sign-up for it? State the reader benefit... will reading it save me money? Higher revenue?

Without a funnel in place, you're spilling potential customers.

Scott Stratten is the President of Un-Marketing, a firm that works with business owners to help them become customer magnets. He uses proven methods of successful marketing to increase awareness and sales both within a company's current customer base and new ones. He recently appeared in the Wall Street Journal, USA Today and Fast Company and his articles have been published all over the world. More information about Scott or Un-Marketing at www.un-marketing.com

Published in Networking Today November 2008