January 29, 2010, Newsletter Issue #247: How Not Having a Marketing Funnel Hurts Your Business Without You Knowing It

Tip of the Week

Miss Sally Jo Prospect knows she needs some help in her life, but isn't sure what it is. In her search for answers, she stops by your website and is intrigued with what you have to offer. Then she sees the price.


She doesn't know anything about you and doesn't feel comfortable spending that kind of money on someone she doesn't know, like and trust. So, she moves on to another website. This website offers her a free special report in exchange for her name and email address. The special report speaks to her needs, so she happily enters the information and downloads the report.


So, are you the business owner with the first website? Or the second?


Not having a marketing funnel in place is hurting your business in several ways -- whether you are aware of it or not:


1. First-time visitors to your business, who are not ready to plunk down the dough needed for your core services, will leave without giving you any way to contact them in the future. So you loose marketing and relationship-building opportunities.


2. First-time visitors who leave your site with a good opinion of you and the intention to come back later will forget where they found you and never come back. So you loose the sale that was probably only a few email messages away.


3. Without an array of products and services, you lack a way to court your prospects and slowly bring them into your fold. You may end up loosing customers that would spend good money with you in the future and keep tire-kickers who are just there for whatever free stuff they can get.


A marketing funnel is a tool, a technique and a business model that helps business owners build relationships with their prospects and clients over time. Your marketing funnel is like a path of breadcrumbs where the crumbs get bigger and bigger the longer you follow the path. When you develop a marketing funnel, you are building a path of breadcrumbs that your prospects can follow to become clients and your clients can follow to become raving fans. It is a gentle way to build up the "know, like and trust" factor for you and what you have to offer.


Each prospect that comes across what you have to offer will be at a different level of comfort in spending money with you. Having a marketing funnel filled with products and services that come at different price points gives you leverage to offer something to every qualified prospect that comes your way.


Without this marketing funnel in place, you most certainly  are missing out -- potentially even driving away -- those who could benefit from what you have to offer and contribute to your bottom line, as well. And that's how not having a marketing funnel hurts your business without you even knowing it.

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