Michael Jordan said, Get the fundamentals down and the level of everything you do will rise. Now, that's an interesting quote to read and, you know, spew on a YouTube video, but what if you were to really integrate that? Like, what if we went back to fundamentals on a regular basis, or at least a semi regular basis, and made sure to sharpen the saw? That's what I'd like to do in this video. I want to talk about the marketing funnel. And I realize that that's such an unsexy topic. So much so that I know I'm not going to get as many views as I should. Because the title alone isn't really going to capture enough interest. I should think of a good clickbait title. But, I think this is one of the most important paradigms for you to integrate. it's such a critical framework. And I love frameworks, by the way. Frameworks are just really, you know, generally very academic, but really easy. Lenses through which to view things that make decision making simple and the marketing funnel is is one of those frameworks that if you Use it helps you with every single marketing task you take on it's a phenomenal utility when, again, when it's fully integrated. So I'll stop selling you on it. Just, just come with me a little bit on this journey and I'll see whether or not I convince you. The first thing that I want to make sure that we're just aware of cognizant of acknowledge is the fact that the marketing funnel is not an invention. nobody created this. It's an observation. It's the logical sequence through which a human being naturally. Traverses on their way to making a purchasing decision. And if you wanted to, you could zoom out and stop calling it a marketing funnel and just call it a decision funnel and then say it's the logical sequence to which people walk through in order to make any decision. But because we're in marketing, we're gonna refer to this as the marketing funnel. Now the stages of the marketing funnel are, variable. You'll see a lot of different ones. the nomenclature changes. The funnel that I like is Awareness, Interest, Consideration, Intent, Evaluation, Purchase. Six stages of the funnel. There's three primary facets. There's top of funnel, middle of funnel, bottom of the funnel. And so because there's six stages, each of the facets gets two stages. So at the very top of the funnel you have awareness. And the funnel tapers. Right? So the people that are at the top aren't all going to move. People at level one, let's say if awareness is level one, aren't all going to move to level two, which is interest. And not everybody at level two will move to level three, which is consideration, et cetera, et cetera, so on and so forth. That's why we call it a funnel because accounts for the dilution that is kind of the natural atrophy of the interest that you're going to see people experience. Now, I'm going to walk through each of the phases and then talk about how we use those phases in our marketing, in our decision making, in our planning etc. the very first... Phase awareness. This is the top of the funnel and what's interesting is this is what people generally think of when they think of content creation Like if you set a brand new business owner or honestly a tenured business owner That's never done content creation If you sat somebody down who's relatively new to content creation and and you started brainstorming topics for them They'd go straight to the tippity top of the funnel, you know, right like what is Google Ads? What is a Google Ads agency? How should you show like it's just all the stuff it's the 101 let's So what's interesting about the awareness stage specifically is this is where we serve customers who have yet or are becoming problem and or solution aware. Now the reason that I think this is so interesting is because the funnel as a visual doesn't do this justice. This is. Everybody, like if you were to really visualize the funnel at true scale, it would be this massive, you know, expanse, almost infinite expanse, the size of the universe. And then it would immediately taper down because the difference between awareness and interest is is massive. And part of that is because. huge disparity between those that are problem aware and those that are solution aware. And both problem aware and solution aware exist within the awareness category. Now, if somebody's problem aware, it's like, Oh, my foot hurts. I don't have enough money. I can't attract a spouse, like I'm problem aware, right? Like my foot hurts, but I'm not yet solution aware because my foot hurts could mean so many things. It could mean diabetes. It could also mean that I'm cold, there's a million reasons that my foot can hurt and I'm not trying to be flippant or, waste your time with humor. But, taking things to those extremes is really necessary from a marketing perspective because you don't always realize how difficult it can be for people to connect a problem with a solution. And you're working backwards, by the way. You're looking in the rearview mirror and saying like, I have this perfect product that solves these problems. Why don't these people with the problems realize that my product is going to work for them? Well, you need to connect that. one of the questions to ask yourself, and if you want to treat this video like a workshop. Which you could. The first question is, is how, why, and when do people first become problem aware? I'll use my real estate investing experience as a background. If I'm buying houses fast for cash, that's my offer. So you want to sell your house fast for cash, I'll buy that house. What's really interesting about that is when you're problem aware, generally speaking, the problem isn't the house. The problem is something else. The problem could be relocation, job loss, divorce financial issues You could have home problems that begin to open up some of what the, the, the global picture looks like. You know, like if you're having financial issues and all of a sudden your roof caves in. Well, that's a house problem, but the real problem isn't the house. The real problem is the finances. But now the, the solution... becomes potentially, Hey, sell your house. If you sell your house, we can get you out of this problem. But because I know what problem aware looks like as a real estate investor, I can begin creating content around that specific problem. So, I'm in an area where I know that people are relocating often, this happens a lot with members service members which honestly gets a little predatory. I don't love this. facet of the real estate. Not that I'm judging, but long as it's done well, you can actually be really helping people out of a tight spot, but it's not always done well. But with, service members, they bought a house or in the house and all of a sudden they get orders and you gotta go we're shipping you across the country. And They're now problem aware. Gosh, I have to go, I have to move. And that's a big problem for a bunch of reasons. But one of the reasons is I have this house and, but then now there's a bunch of questions. It's like, do I sell the house, lease the house? Do I try to like short term rental et cetera. And so if I wanted to serve that avatar, what I would start to do is create content around what happens. what, Solutions exist when you have orders to leave. one of the, ones that was really significant for us when we were fixing and flipping houses was divorce. And so we created a bunch of content on properties, the sale of a property through the lens of a divorce. you're problem aware, gosh, you know, I'm getting a divorce, this is horrible, this sucks. And then I, we can move you to being solution aware. Once somebody's solutions aware, solution aware, that's when the funnel actually begins its taper. It's not just, you know, this massive extensive of people. It begins to kind of maintain continuity with the visual. And the solution aware is a lot easier to speak to. This is where I'd strongly encourage you to begin. Managing misinformation. Because people that are solution aware, they might know too much, and they might know a bunch of stuff that they shouldn't know. You know, for instance, if you have any Google right now today, try this for me, Google any medical issue, be like, my spleen hurts when I touch a potato. Google's gonna come back with AIDS and cancer. Like, every medical issue ever, this is a ubiquitous truth, is AIDS and cancer on Google. So if you have whatever it is, my hair turns, Purple in autumn when I watch Gilmore Girls, like, oh, that's AIDS for sure, or cancer. So, that's one of those solution aware situations where you want to make sure that you're like, hey, this could mean a lot of things and we need to talk about, what that is. And, to put that maybe in better perspective I can't tell you how many people come to me thinking that, They need traffic when they don't actually need traffic. They need, better conversion or better sales or better offers. So they're solution aware, but they actually might be aware of the wrong solution. Start managing misinformation from the very beginning. So again, if we're treating this as a workshop begin asking yourself, How, when, and where do people become problem aware? And very often, problem awareness can happen way before solution awareness, way before solution awareness. I'm lonely happens way before I'm willing to go on a dating site, but if you're that dating site, you want to kind of figure out, well, when does, when does the, the acknowledgement of loneliness actually... kick in because that's, that's a potential catalyst and that's a catalyst that you can use in order to get in front of somebody if you wanted to help them with that problem. map it out. When do people become problem where, and then when did they become solution aware? And what does that timeline look like? That timeline is going to be really, really critically important. Next stage of our funnel is interest. the awareness content in the interest content kind of bleed into each other. Sometimes they're difficult to tell apart depending on know, what kind of business you're in. what I like to say is the interest based content is just like awareness content, but with more details. Because if you weren't interested, you wouldn't have kept reading or watching or, engaging, whatever whatever the content is. So awareness content top of the funnel tends to be kind of hands like, Hey, you know, we've got information here. If you want it. And then interest content is, oh, they're starting to actually engage, they're starting to dive deep, they want to know more, they want to get into the details, they want the triple PhD dissertation they're interested. I am interested. Now what they're interested in needs to maintain continuity with where they came from an awareness perspective. This is where your funnel gets very three dimensional. Because if I started talking to you about... Property from a divorce lens. Well, that's awareness. But then when I move you to interest, I can't just move you into Oh, you're interested in selling your property. Great No, I need to move you into interest, but again, maintaining that lens. It's like, know, in the event of divorce, we need to see if you have a trust in place, that makes things a lot easier. If you can do a quick claim deed, was this in one person's name before, et cetera, et cetera. so realize that maintaining continuity is important. But you don't have to do it all right out of the gate. Instead, just pay attention to your analytics. And top of the funnel analytics is still really easy to get a hold of because you're not trying to track individual users. So what you can do is you can start to say like, Gosh, my awareness content crushes here, this level of analysis. a mechanic. I've got all of these services. but people are really diving deep on the oil change stuff for whatever reason. I'm gonna maintain that continuity as I create the interest based interest is like awareness content, but with more details. And that's why those two live inside of the top of the funnel together. Now, once somebody has moved to the middle of the funnel, they've moved into consideration. This means that it's no longer a problem. It's now their problem and they want to solve it. So like, I have a problem that I'm actually. Potentially interested in solving. I'm considering solving this problem. I might not be considering solving the problem with you, but I'm considering solving the problem. And this is one dangerous phases of the funnel. It actually might be one of the most dangerous phases of the funnel. If you're heavy, heavy, heavy into sales, because Salespeople look at consideration and they see somebody at the extreme bottom of the funnel is ready to buy. A salesperson misinterprets consideration to an extreme. And you'll actually see this a lot in dating. You'll see there are people, men and women, who are excellent salespeople. They're good closers, let's say. And good closers will take... Even the slightest sign of potential, maybe this is an option for me and they'll go for the jugular. And then depending on who they're working with, potentially scare them off. be cautious with the consideration phase. They're not ready to buy. They're considering all their options. As a matter of fact, this is a really good opportunity for you to build content around. You versus, and you'll see SaaS products do this really, really well, but anybody could do this. you versus other competitors, you versus alternatives. Show them, help them with their consideration. This is where, details, product information, charts, offerings. This is, where you start to really break down what's included, what's involved, how long it takes. This is the nitty gritty. And. Well, I'll get to why this stage is so important in a moment that I don't want to shy him along myself, but that's the consideration phase. And then the second half of the middle of the funnel is intent. Intent means, you know what, I've considered it I'm gonna solve this problem. Like I am definitely going to make a purchase with somebody at some point. That doesn't mean with you and that doesn't mean now. Right? With somebody at some point. And the intent phase is a pretty short phase. That's when they start to build their short list, schedule appointments, they move into evaluation. So, one of the things that's really important to understand, because now that we're at the bottom of the funnel, I want to talk to you just a little bit about we went through the top of the funnel which is awareness and interest. We went through the middle of the funnel, which is consideration and intent, and realized for a moment the funnel exists with or without you. If you don't create this content, that's fine. Maybe you don't want to. Maybe you shouldn't. Maybe you're in an industry where you don't have to. So many industries are like that, by the way. The automobile industry is one of them. The automobile industry does not need to create top and middle. Content. Some of them do, but people are going to buy a car no matter what. But that's the issue, is if you don't create the content, somebody else will. And that's somebody else's narrative that they're imbibing and being indoctrinated with. So the funnel again is, it's not something anybody invented, it's an observation. These are the steps that people naturally walk through in order to make a decision. And if you don't want to participate in those steps, fine. But then you're at the mercy... Even if you can get in front of them, even if you can intercept them in very, very, very often, you can, by the way, you're at the mercy of everything they've learned at the top of the middle of the funnel. And it's really, really, really hard to unlearn folks, right? Like once somebody has kind of committed, especially once they're in the evaluation states, they kind of know what they want or think they know what they want. And you're going to have a hard time backing them off unless you have the content that allows. That gives you that opportunity. that's even true if they were never exposed to your content. If you capture somebody, they're at the bottom of the funnel. they've come to you with a bunch of, misnomers, misunderstandings just, just they're on the wrong page. If you have the top and middle of the funnel content that they should have been exposed to ready and accessible, that's a way better approach than you just trying to talk them out of it. if I tell somebody, Hey, it can take up to six months for your Google ad campaign to fill in, 50 percent of all Google ads campaign, it can take up to six months for your Google campaign to prove concept and up to 50 percent of all Google ads campaigns fill in the first 90 days. Me just saying that. That sounds a little, you know, like, all right, man, you're trying to burst my bubble and you're being cautious, but if I send you the articles or the videos that I have on that topic and kind of show you that, hey, we've built a lexicon of knowledge around this narrative my ability to buttress my argument against other people's arguments improves. It's not guaranteed, but it improves. So the top and middle of the funnel are going to exist with or without you. But we'll get into the bottom of the funnel. This is, and this is where most businesses go, by the way. this is at least where they start. They just go sell some stuff. and this is also, by the way, marketing bridges the gap to sales. So the bottom of the funnel, depending on, you know, if you're e com, it's still mostly marketing. It's, there's a little sales involved, but it's still mostly marketing. But, you know, if you're, lead gen, info products high ticket, whatever this is maybe mostly sales, right? And then depending on where you are, you get to decide your distribution between the two. It could be 80 20 one way or the other. For evaluation. Especially if you're high ticket, this is where they're probably going to want to talk to somebody. At an absolute minimum, chat in, drop a ticket, but more likely schedule an appointment, hop on the phone. And you need to know that. You need to know, oh, the evaluation phase, they're expecting X. Now, you can reinvent the wheel, by the way. We saw Elon Musk do that with cars. People bought Teslas online, without ever talking to a human being. And if you told me he was going to do that, I'd be like, there's no way that works. Bam! Look how stupid I am. So, you're allowed to break the rules, but... Yeah, I tell my children this. You can break any rule you want, as long as you're willing to face the consequences. It's good advice for me, too. You're allowed to break the rules, but be really careful, especially when you're spending a bunch of money driving people to an evaluation phase. This is generally where they want to talk to somebody. From an e com perspective, or, SaaS even, or, online buy, this is where they start watching demo videos, actually utilizing the product, downloading things. This is where they're getting very active and interactive. This is where they want to use it, see it, feel it, touch it. Their own, how am I going to play and interact with this? And then of course, at the extreme bottom of the funnel is purchase. they bought, you won, congrats. End zone dance. Here's the thing. Don't abandon them here. Don't leave them here. So many businesses do this. It's more businesses than not, to be honest with you. And I think it's because our, day to day purchase experiences have taught us that. Oh, you checked out, you know, you go to target, right? And I'm at target and I need to get iced coffee and toothpaste. And I grab my iced coffee and I grab my toothpaste. And then I, go to the checkout counter and then I leave target. And once I've checked out, Target's Obligation to me is over. They'd take away the air conditioning if they could. Right? Like, when you walk in, it's like, Oh, how can we help you? And they're usually pretty good about helping you find things, and you've got all these signs and directions and aisles, and they're at your service. Check out. Thank you. Have a nice day. And have a nice day means GTFO. Bro, you are wasting my time now. And that's true for, you know, stores and restaurants and no matter how friendly somebody is, like, you know that your purchase experience is over and they want you to move on. And we've done that with And I think that that's a flawed model because generally speaking, we're not target, I think if we were to continue and I think the target has some ability, there is some improvement opportunity. Let's say that they're not taking advantage of. And so many retailers are seeing this, but then every now and again, there's a retailer that really does follow you home and make you feel like, Oh man, Ikea does this really well. I feel like I know Ikea has their problems, but. Yeah. When I buy something from Ikea and I bring it home to put it together the support available to me after the fact is pretty good. it's not nothing, especially given what they charge. So after somebody buys, justify the purchase, make them feel warm and fuzzy, love on them, over deliver if you can. I like to say give first, give last, give more. Give them more than they expected. This is really easy to do with info products, by the way. I mean, sometimes it's as simple as like an ebook or a mini course. Just be like, Hey, you know, here's my bestselling book. You can see it on Amazon. I wanted to give this to you. I really appreciate you doing business with me. And I don't know. I just thought maybe this would be helpful, whatever it ends up being. Use the purchase as an opportunity to build the relationship. This is especially true if you're in any service industry. You should shock and awe them. Overwhelm them with value. This doesn't mean that they need to get a gift basket, by the way. This just means that they need to feel like, Oh, they're for real. You know, when somebody signs on at Solutions Aid, I hope you don't mind me. Pat myself on the back. Our onboarding process is insane. It's probably the thing I'm, one of the things I'm most proud of at our agency, especially from an infrastructure perspective. You sign on with Solutions 8 and you go through this onboarding process and it is rock solid step by step, click by click, point by point. And there's a dedicated onboarding manager there to help you. And it's, polished and seamless and easy. Especially given how difficult a process it is naturally. That's shocking. All right there. That's a massive, you know, we actually invested in the onboarding and so many agencies are like, Oh, we got their money. Awesome. But that's why the average age of agency retention is four months to my 14. Right. So, so don't stop marketing after sales. And I think you already know what that means. A couple of observations that I've made is, all businesses. Start at the bottom of the funnel, you know, you start a new business tomorrow You're gonna have to build bottom of the funnel content Naturally, if you start at the top of the funnel, by the way, you're procrastinating. It's not even a business You're just a blogger. So all businesses start at the top of the funnel or at the bottom of the funnel When they've mastered the bottom of the funnel, they move to the top. They're like, all right, cool, we've got everything we need at the bottom of the funnel, which isn't hard, depending on what it is that you're selling. I've described it. We did it. We're ready to go. We're ready to sell. I've got the contracts, the agreements, the case studies, and as much as they exist. Then they move to the top. So businesses lock down the bottom of the funnel. They start to get the top of the funnel. And some businesses do that really, really well. The weak link for everybody is the messy middle. It's the consideration intent phase. Which again is really dangerous because a lot of people misinterpret consideration for purchase intent. And it's not yet. It's not. So, what you need to do is connect the problem with their problem. There's Scott Benham. He's a fractional COO. Really, really brilliant guy. I got to work with him a couple of times. He taught me... The, how to overcome the three biggest objections in sales. The first objection is, does this work? Second objection is, does it work for people like me? Third objection is, does this work for me? That's kind of the funnel. Kind of. So, so help them connect those dots. And one of the best ways to do this, by the way, is case studies. Case studies, testimonials, user stories, implementation reports, product reviews. Show them the stuff. This is how it works. Demos. Show them in action. and the more specific you can get to them. I'm a dentist, I'm watching your generic Google ad. Tutorial. All right, cool. but if it's for dentists, right instantly, it's like, okay And then if we hear line of demarcation, by the way, they start taking notes I love anytime I'm talking doing a workshop a class whatever And you can always see you're watching the crowd and then all of a sudden you see this and then everybody or if you know Now they've got their laptops up some old Everybody's head drops and they start typing. That's why I just always try to make a mental note. I'm like, okay spend more time there That's what they wanted to hear they're not writing it down, it's not interesting enough. Be really careful about losing the funnel to somebody else. Be really careful about only poaching other people's bottom of the funnel because even if you get that customer, they've been taught by someone else. They have bad habits, misunderstandings. And be really careful about gated content. I hate gated content. I tell Google, anytime Google now gives me content that makes me subscribe, I don't want to hear from these people anymore. Everything you've got, pricing, specs, terms, requirements, integrations, put it out up front. My pricing is public. I'm one of the only agencies that does this. I cannot tell you how much this serves me. We don't negotiate. We don't have to. and people know. right on it may be either it's like, oh gosh, that's expensive or manic, you know That's actually really accessible given how good they are put all your info right out front put your skunks on the table as they say and Build out your funnel build out your funnel serve the funnel and then as you were walking through any Marketing endeavor running ads. You're building creative. You're whatever it is. You're rebuilding the website every New step every phase every asset. The question is as well Where are they in the funnel? And sometimes you'll have assets that serve every stage of the funnel. That's awesome. Good for you I feel like the pricing page is a lot like that actually but ask yourself that question because it changes the paradigm it changes how you speak to your customer changes the words that you use How much jargon you're relating how long something is? Where it links to where it goes the offer that you're making This is going back to my Michael Jordan quote get the funnel miners down and the level of everything you do will rise This is one of those fundamentals that you're like, gosh, why did he just spend 30 minutes talking to me about something that I've known about for my entire marketing life? Well, you know, you've known about it, but were you doing it, were you actively working on trying to integrate the funnel into your business and making sure that you're speaking to people at every single stage in the funnel? Probably not. Probably not. Right? Me neither. Egg on my face. Like I don't, I don't do this nearly enough. It's actually, if you really look at our most recent videos, we're moving to the middle of the funnel in a lot of ways. Mostly because we're running out of Google Ads stuff to talk about. Anyway, I hope this was helpful. I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments. I shoot a video every day. I'll see you tomorrow.