The backbone of marketing you cannot afford to neglect.
The Blogfather goes off on a ChuckleVision/advert jingle tangent before reining it back in to tell you why you really need to sort out your purchase funnel, sunshine.
Firstly before we crack on; the title of this blog is to be read, until it’s stuck in your head, to the theme tune of ChuckleVision.
So, all of you with me now;
‘Fah-fah-funnel vision,
Fah-funnel vision,
Fah-fah-funnel vision!’
Why aren’t there many great jingles in ads anymore? I don’t know, but one thing’s for sure; I’m still a secret lemonade drinker (R. Whites…R. Whites).
More brands should look at bringing them back, and there is tonnes of research to back up why they should, from many including the likes of WARC.
Like us, Dave Trott is a big advocate of the jingle. Because a good jingle ends up entwining advertising into the everyday use of language, with everyday people. Last year he shared this great cartoon on Twitter to demonstrate this:
Great Scott! This blog has started on a helluva big tangent. Will it ever find its way back to the subject in hand? Who knows?
Ah, now it has.
Purchase funnels. Talk to me.
Called “the backbone of (planning) marketing” by the one and only Prof. Mark Ritson, a purchase funnel could be your not-so-secret weapon in competing where the industry isn’t and taking the huge opportunity to secure future sales for a fraction of the budget. Tomorrow’s custom, tod… errr, tomorrow. Certainly not today, being the all important point.
But that’s just one reason why you should build a customised funnel. There’s so much more, including:
It allows you to estimate revenue/sales (and opportunity) at all stages of the funnel
To accurately calculate the conversion rates between each funnel stage (where’s the biggest hole to fix?)
How to speak to the CFO about slippery, elusive things like “brand” and “awareness”
Taking the time to do some proper research, brand tracking and purchase funnel building allows you to accurately set objectives and demonstrate the real financial value that marketing represents and generates.
Here’s a stat that may be an eye-opener for you; up to 95% of your business’s customers are not in the market for goods and services at any one time*. So as soon as someone signals they’re in the market at the bottom of the funnel, it becomes like tons of pigeons around breadcrumbs. Hundreds of arrows shooting for the same bullseye. Or like flies around ssss…something sugary.
Too many marketers struggle to justify what they do. Been there. But to quote that dude Ritson again: “Build them a funnel and show them that marketing and sales are one and the same thing, separated by time.”
Let that sink in. The same thing, separated by time.
Mark whangs on (in a good way):
“Going around the country, the first question I ask Marketing Directors and Brand Managers is; Where’s your brand tracking? Show me your data, that measures your brand equity for the last 12 months. Only 1 in 10 have it, and that ratio is not improving. You are not a brand manager unless you have some kind of brand health or brand tracker. It costs about 15k to do it properly if you are not ripped off by a research agency.”
Building a purchase funnel is the first focus of a series of talks we are holding, called ‘Reclaim Marketing’s Seat in the Boardroom - Part 1.’
At this event, you are 100% guaranteed to not meet Mark Ritson. But you will meet one of his students and advocates, …Gasp! Founder Giles Edwards. He’ll take you through tons of valuable stuff, such as:
Why research underpins everything
How easy it is to build a customised purchase funnel
Stuff your CFO will love
The fact that virtually none of your competitors will have one (As Ritson says above, only 1 in 10 do)
The event was actually meant to happen this week, but because of the pesky rail strikes, we’ve had to a) postpone it, and b) thought it best to make it a 2020-style virtual conference rather than one of those new, back-in-vogue physical events.
Which is a shame, as we had planned to open the physical event with Giles coming on stage to the theme tune from ChuckleVision carrying his own flip chart with a colleague whilst saying ‘to me, to you’ and knocking those of you in the aisle seats on the back of the head for some proper slapstick japery.
We can’t do that now. Shame.
But Wednesday 20th July is the new date for your diary.
So to paraphrase Field of Dreams, which starred the late, great Ray Liotta; If you build it, they will come…round to your way of thinking.
You can sign up for the event here.
You know it makes sense.
*The Ehrenberg-Bass Institute; How B2B Brands Grow. July 2021.