At risk of sounding demanding or presumptuous, we’d like an A for effort. Here’s why: We took shots at pointing out that — and how — marketing should be simple here and here. To no avail. But since we consider quit to be a four-letter word, we’re back for another quixotic joust. Our lances, if you please, Sancho.
The latest resumption of our quest is inspired by this magnum opus: “Full Funnel Marketing: What It Is, And How To Do It Properly (With Strategies And Examples)“. Aside from the fact that the monograph in question comprises 5,273 words (not counting those embedded in graphics), which hardly qualifies as simple, this is all you really need to know about said dissertation:
Marketing [is] no longer a matter of bringing in as many leads as possible and handing them off to the sales team for qualification … two-thirds of the buyer journey [we love that kind of talk] is now done digitally [emphasis theirs], rather than in-person or over the phone.
Translation: Now that marketing has become digital (technological), as opposed to relational (human), the number of words required to describe marketing is equal to the number of spam emails required to bludgeon people into buying stuff.
Break it Down
What is, in fact, simple is the psychology that underlies the interminable palaver of the offending disquisition. That psychology, combined with a smattering of common sense, might actually get us somewhere. For illustration, let’s refer to the first diagram in the exasperating harangue:
The left side of the diagram represents the incremental stages of the buyer’s psychology. The right side represents the incremental stages of the sales cycle. The stages on both sides of the diagram remain true and constant whether you have to make millions of dollars in sales to cover the fortune you’ve spent on marketing technology or whether you simply talk to people. Regardless of the extent to which you opt to complicate the process — and notwithstanding the amount of money you choose to blow on spam-launching, lead-tracking software — it’s that simple.
Bon Voyage
The USS Funnel sailed quite some time ago. It disembarked right about the time bottom lines put the lie to vanity metrics, vanity metrics being the latter-day equivalent of reading one’s own press releases.
If you want to understand the psychological predilections of your prospects, talk to them.
If you do that — and simplify — you won’t miss the boat.
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Header image by GDJ, courtesy of pixabay.com.
