the funnel-killer - pepper...
TRANSCRIPT
The Funnel-Killer: The Revenue Tower™
is a New Framework for Modern Marketing.
Did you know that the funnel model was first illustrated in the early 1960s? Good ideas stand the test of time, and this was a great idea. It
has served us well, but technology dramatically changed the
way buyers and sellers interact. Rather than having to rely on
advertising, salespeople and trade pubs, buyers acquired new
ways to find and filter information. They began researching
solutions themselves and became very selective in who they’d
talk to. And it happened fast. It’s hard to fathom, but 15 years ago
YouTube was a startup and there was no such thing as an iPhone.
In the age of the customer,
marketing is more critical
than ever, yet marketing ROI
is stagnating. Competition
and substitutes are almost
universally more prevalent.
Buyers have more power,
and platform and device
proliferation continues
to intensify. Marketing is
more complex and the
marketer’s job is only getting
harder. Ray Kurzweil is a
director of engineering
at Google, and also a
renowned inventor and
futurist. In 2001 he wrote:
“We won’t experience 100 years of progress in the 21st century—it will be more like 20,000 years of progress.”
Today, nearly 20 years
later, his prediction is
right on the money.
Don’t think for a minute
that the rate of change
for you as a marketer
will slow down either.
Today’s Reality: It’s human nature to prefer the ability to “buy” versus being
“sold” to. And buyers have the tools they need to do what they’ve
always wanted to do. That’s probably why 67% of the typical
B2B buyer’s journey is now done online (according to research
company Sirius Decisions), and before they contact any suppliers.
We already knew that two-thirds
of new B2B relationships are buyer-
initiated, but this statistic is even more
enlightening. It means that not only
do buyers control the first one-on-one
communication with your business, but
they do it very late in the process.
It’s become more important than ever for
marketers to be able to reach and influence
prospective buyers where and when they
are doing pre-purchase research, and
on their terms. Today, it’s as much about
not losing opportunities as it is about
AIDA (awareness, interest, desire and
action)—the basis for the funnel model.
Content marketing addresses this new reality and helps power the Revenue Tower™ model, but
succeeding here is getting more difficult too. Why? The production of content continues to increase
exponentially, but the ability for your audience to consume that content doesn’t. We’re all people and we
keep getting busier. But with more content being pumped out every day, it’s getting harder and harder
for your content to have an impact. It has to be better, it has to be more targeted and it has to be
presented in a more novel way. In short, we say “Content is critical, but creativity is the new king.” If
you’re interested in learning more, ask us about the Pepper Group Content Matrix™. It’s a great tool to
identify thousands of creative content ideas, formats and distribution channels.
So What’s Wrong With the Old Funnel? As today’s buyers perform significant research and make up their
own short list before they’ll contact any sellers, marketers don’t
even know that their company was eliminated. In simple terms,
buyers are not the ones being funneled anymore. It’s the sellers!
Here are some other reasons why the funnel model is out of date:
It’s marketing-centric, not buyer-centric. Buyers have much more power
now. The funnel was developed before they gained control of the process.
It’s linear and isolated. In the time it takes a web page to load, buyers bop around between
all the funnels—yours and all of your competitors’—and move up and down at will.
It’s overly acquisition-focused. Sometimes the most effective marketing
dollars are spent on current customers. In the funnel model, once they pop
out of the bottom as customers, they’re no longer important.
It kicks people out. The low cost of communications today means you don’t have to
shun those who aren’t likely to buy right away. They can still be great referral sources,
brand advocates or future customers when they move to another organization.
It misses the feedback between customers and prospects. Your prospects are listening to your
customers for reviews, recommendations and experience. This should be considered and enhanced.
It ignores the value of strategic marketing. There’s nothing in the funnel about brand
messaging or credibility. The harder buyers are filtering sellers, the more critical this becomes.
It assumes that more in equals more out. In the old days, you could make twice
the cold calls and get twice the customers. It’s not that simple anymore.
It implies that gravity is on your side. It’s laughable. Today, you have to work harder than ever to
keep people engaged and moving forward. There’s no force working for you. In fact, it’s the opposite.
A Better Model— The Revenue Tower™ Working with our great clients, it became clear to us that the 1960s-era framework
of viewing the marketing process as a funnel was out of date. We searched for a
better model; however, the alternatives we found were either overly complicated
or not applicable to B2B. Top of Funnel, Middle of Funnel and Bottom of Funnel
(affectionately named TOFU, MOFU and BOFU) offered improvements for sure,
but they didn’t go far enough. So we developed our own.
By combining decades of experience with insights and data from hundreds of B2B organizations, the Revenue Tower was born.
First, note that the Revenue Tower isn’t isolated and it doesn’t
rely on gravity. Marketers have to attract and elevate. Creativity
is king in getting people’s attention and getting them in for the
first time, and then it’s a continual effort to keep them coming
back and moving up. The tower doesn’t narrow either because
it’s not about kicking people out. Marketing automation and CRM
technologies help ensure that expensive resources are applied
efficiently, and low-cost communications can keep your company
on the radar of referral sources, brand advocates and future
qualified prospects (and even future prospective employees).
Foundation
Showroom
Visitors
Initial Engagement
Leads
Ongoing Engagement
Relationships
Sales Enablement
Opportunities
Customers
CustomerRetention
SalesEnablement
OngoingEngagement
InitialEngagement
Showroom
Strategy
Important New Sections The basic top of funnel, middle of funnel and bottom of funnel
tactical sections remain, but to add clarity, we’ve renamed them
initial engagement, ongoing engagement and sales enablement.
At the very bottom, underground if you will, there’s a strategic
messaging foundation. We’ve found unequivocally that a solid
foundation creates better results so the framework reinforces
that notion. Also, there’s a “showroom” section. These are the
elements that impact perception, positioning and credibility,
and help ensure prospects don’t filter your company out of
consideration during that first 67% of their buying process.
Each section contains tactics that have been
carefully identified and grouped together.
As resources are always limited, the key is
to select the priorities in each section.
At the top of the tower are the customer retention and growth
tactics that are so painfully ignored by the funnel model. The
rooftop is where your loyal customers enjoy the special treatment
and exclusive benefits that they deserve. They’re the people
leaning over the railing telling those below to come on up.
Foundation
Showroom
Visitors
Initial Engagement
Leads
Ongoing Engagement
Relationships
Sales Enablement
Opportunities
Customers
CustomerRetention
SalesEnablement
OngoingEngagement
InitialEngagement
Showroom
Strategy
Here is the Revenue Tower™ from the bottom up: strategy A tower has to rest on a solid foundation. This includes your target
audience and personas, offering structure, value propositions,
positioning, channel strategy and overall messaging. It also includes
the internal communications plan and important elements like
core values and vision. These are the things that your prospects
don’t see directly, but they’re the foundation of your marketing
program. It’s about identifying “why” you’re in business, making
sure your employees are on the same page and communicating a
consistent message, and putting a good plan in place. The key at
this level is market awareness and strategic vision. With a strong
foundation, you can build a bigger tower that creates more revenue.
Here is the Revenue Tower™ from the bottom up: showroom This is your digital and physical presence. It includes your
graphic identity, your physical environment and your website. It
also includes social media platforms, third-party endorsements
and any other content you’ve distributed or made available for
search engines to index. If a buyer comes across your company,
they’ll get a quick impression at this stage. Based on what
they see, they’ll either keep moving (forgetting that you exist),
or they’ll look a little further. The key here is credibility.
Here is the Revenue Tower™ from the bottom up: initial engagement This is about lead capture. Some of the tactics at this level are
things like search marketing, targeted ads, trade shows and
direct prospecting. Actions might include downloading a
whitepaper, signing up for a webinar, following your company on
LinkedIn or setting up a demo. And remember, this isn’t a linear
or predictable process. An individual could go right from initial
engagement to a sales meeting, or two years later they might
send you a referral. The key here is to identify enticing offers.
These offers, packaged into attention-getting creative campaigns,
should be created to drive action and start new relationships.
Here is the Revenue Tower™ from the bottom up: ongoing engagement Nurturing a large number of relationships is more important than
ever. Some buyers expect to see ongoing proof of your company’s
leadership and value before they’ll contact you. In other situations,
someone may be perfectly happy with his current supplier, but a year
later something changes and now he’s looking for a new solution. Or
maybe someone doesn’t have buying authority today, but down the
road she moves to a new company and does. Tactics include things
like special events, ongoing email communications, social media
interaction and marketing automation campaigns. The key here is
creating and sharing quality content on an ongoing basis to keep
your company top-of-mind and build your brand image.
Here is the Revenue Tower™ from the bottom up: sales enablement At this point, you’ve made contact with a qualified prospect
and your sales team is working to uncover needs and turn
them into a customer. Tactics here can include door openers
to help get the meeting, sales presentations to enhance the
communication of your value and benefits, and proposal tools to
create better efficiency, quality and persuasiveness. The key is
to create and share powerful insights that will demonstrate why
the prospect needs your solution, and why they need it now.
Here is the Revenue Tower™ from the bottom up: customer retention The top floor is where your customers are. Now, they’re finally staying
in your tower. You want to build them a rooftop garden where they’ll
like to hang out, reinforcing to your other customers why you’re great
and telling all the people down below to come on up! Marketing to
current customers is an area where many marketing organizations
fall short, but sometimes the biggest opportunity is in marketing
to current clients—not only to increase loyalty, but also to expand
the relationship and sell additional products and services. These
tactics include things like creating ongoing reports demonstrating
value and progress, creating customer events, and educating
and providing new insights. The key here is special treatment.
Foundation
Showroom
Visitors
Initial Engagement
Leads
Ongoing Engagement
Relationships
Sales Enablement
Opportunities
Customers
CustomerRetention
SalesEnablement
OngoingEngagement
InitialEngagement
Showroom
Strategy
There are hundreds of tactics
marketers can employ. This
framework helps identify
the priorities while making
sure every important level is
covered. It helps demonstrate
how to use content marketing
as a force to draw people
in and move them up. And
finally, it helps create an
integrated and strategic effort
that will drive the biggest
impact from your marketing
investment possible.
Pepper Group is a full service B2B marketing agency who
routinely leaves “good enough” behind, and replaces it with
“never satisfied.” Never boring; always fresh; forever urgent—
we’re a finely tuned team of seasoned marketing professionals
dedicated to applying the best of digital, design, video and new
communication technology to help you achieve your goals.
Our holistic approach combines best-in-class strategy and always-
evolving digital marketing expertise to provide exponential
results. Pepper Group will provide the resources you need to
build a strong Revenue Tower™ and power your marketing efforts.
We love what we
do, and have been
recognized as one
of Chicago’s Best
and Brightest
Companies to Work
For™ for seven years
in a row, and ranked
#10 among small
companies as a “Best
Place to Work in Illinois.”
Our clients tell us,
“Pepper Group gets
it,” that we take the
time to understand
their business at a
much deeper level
than any other creative
services firm They say
our solutions are not
only inspired in their
creativity and execution,
but are perfectly
suited to our clients’
unique situations
and audiences.
We move people—your
target audience to take
action, you towards
your goals, and our
employees forward to
continually learn and
grow. We’re proactively
engaged in the success
of our clients, our
team and ourselves.
If you’re interested in talking with us about your marketing,
please contact George Couris at 847-907-3380,
or email us at [email protected].
Spicy Marketing bySeasoned Professionals
© 2020 Pepper Group