We recently chatted with Michelle Evans on the Rethink Marketing podcast about how to define and optimize your marketing funnel.
Michelle is a veteran marketing strategist, helping her clients design their marketing funnels for predictable success. In our interview, we discuss what is a marketing funnel, what are marketers are doing right with their funnels, where they can improve, how to get started, and more.
She also offers a free quiz on her website for marketers identify their ideal marketing funnel.
Nathan: Can you tell us a little bit more about yourself and what you do?
Michelle: Hey Nathan, thanks so much for having me on. Yes, well I am all about marketing, I love marketing so much because it is such a great way to get out there and to build your business when you do it right, when you do it wrong it could be a big pain in the butt. But I am all about helping coaches, consultants, experts, service providers and people who do online marketing or have online business figure out ways to get a consistent stream of business through their virtual doors.
And you know having people say, “Hey I’d love to talk about working together.” Because as you know you don’t have a business if you don’t sell something. And when you’re a service provider especially, it can be tough because you can be on these roller coasters of, lots of business, no business, lots of business, no business, if you don’t have a good system in place.
What is a marketing funnel?
Nathan: How do you define a marketing funnel?
Michelle: That’s such a great question because a lot of times when I talk about marketing funnels with people, they have one of two responses. Either they’re like panicked deer in the headlights, like that just seems really overwhelming and the technology seems overwhelming, or they just think, oh man, that just feels like it’s super salesy. And I have to say, you definitely can have really complicated, tech crazy funnels, or you can have really salesy funnels but that’s a choice.
I don’t teach my clients and my students to do it that way. What I love to do with marketing funnels is use them as a way to number one, attract the right audience who’s actually going to be interested in buying what you have. Because there’s nothing worse and Nathan I know you’ve been in business for a good amount of time, there’s nothing worse than spending a lot of time with somebody who doesn’t have a need, doesn’t have the budget and can never buy your product right?
So number one, a marketing funnel is designed to attract in the right people who have the need, who have the desire and who can ultimately buy what you have. The next step for a marketing funnel is to really invite them in, invite them to come closer and that’s opting in for something, for a webinar, for a PDF, for a video, you know who knows what you’re going to have them opt in for, it depends on what you’re selling.
But you’re inviting them to come closer, to lean forward, to give you that small yes that says, “tell me a little bit more about this.” And then, this is the part of the marketing funnel that I love. It’s the holistic part that gives you an unfair competitive advantage because you’re able to set the stage for three really important things. Why you or why your company? Why this offer is what they’re looking for and why now is the time where they can’t afford to wait.
So when you have the stage set for that, before you get into the sales conversation, the sales conversation is just so much easier, so much less friction, so much less having to chase and push, and so much more finding like, is this the right fit? Are we the right …? Is this the right step forward and how can we make this work for you? And then you just give them a clear next step, like this is how we work together.
And when you do a marketing funnel in that way, you attract the right people who are really engaged in what you’re all about. So it’s not just about selling, in fact it’s about serving first and helping them see why you, why this offer and why now. And you get these people who are so bought into what you’re doing, what you offer, why you’re so valuable that you, sales almost becomes just like the logical next step to just continue the conversation.
Episode Shownotes:
- Can you tell me more about yourself and what you do?
- How do you define marketing a marketing funnel?
- Why are marketing funnels important to your business?
- What are marketers or business owners doing right with their marketing funnels?
- How do I get started with a marketing funnel?
- How do I figure out the right kind of marketing funnel for my business?
- How do I build in predictability with my marketing funnel?
- Do I need to spend $$$$ in PPC and other ads to make $$ in a marketing funnel?
- How do you know how many leads you need at the top of the funnel to produce enough closed/won deals at the bottom to sustain your business? Any tricks or insights?
- What are some core strategies to building a marketing funnel that would work across industries, from manufacturing to higher education to insurance?
- How do I learn more about you? You also have a podcast, what’s the name?