The Blah Front End of Your Marketing

It was Thursday morning. Mark, a sales and business executive who works with small to large businesses, was excited to launch his marketing campaign to a group of people within his database. His goal was simple: to fill his calendar with appointments from people who received his email and proceeded to request a meeting.

A carefully crafted email was written, edited, designed, and sent. There was anticipation to begin seeing the meeting requests trickle in. Within 20 minutes after sending, over 64 percent of the recipients had opened the campaign email, and half of those had clicked a link in the email to see more. At first sight, a marketer would say this was a very good list.

However, there was a problem. The main call to action was a meeting invite, and there were no meeting requests.

What was the problem?

Was it a bad list? Was the email poorly written? Was it sent at the wrong time? Did they not like Mark?

It was clear the problem wasn’t a traffic or conversion issue.

The problem was a broken sales funnel.

A broken sales funnel is the same problem and frustration experienced by most businesses. The reason Mark’s campaign wasn’t working was something obvious but often missed. He wasn’t giving the people in the campaign a result that would change their life.

He had correctly identified the audience. He was clear about the desired result. He knew where they were, and that they opened the email.

However, missing in this marketing campaign was something very critical, THE BAIT. He missed providing what was important to the customer. He missed giving them something they wanted.

A business is NOT about products and services. A business is about what result you can get for your customer. Once you understand this concept, the outcome can change. The first step though, focus on what your customer wants and then structure the steps correctly where the customer will naturally go down your breadcrumb trail and be where you want them to be.