Marketing is about reaching your target customer with the right message at the right time.
How often have you heard a marketing or sales leader say they need a campaign to fill the top or bottom of their funnel? Well, the funnel is focused on winning new business and then moving on. The funnel doesn’t have room for your current customers.
There’s a new, more practical method to implement, and it’s not a funnel. In fact, the funnel is dead.
Who killed the funnel? The flywheel.
The flywheel is based on the buyer’s journey. HubSpot, an innovative sales and marketing platform, used the buyer’s journey to develop an inbound marketing methodology, which is the foundation of the flywheel:
Attract visitors to website using relevant content
Convert visitors into leads
Close leads into new customers
Provide best-in-class customer service, leading to repeat purchases, retention, and referrals
The flywheel is similar to the funnel, in that both focus on marketing to customers using a message specific to their respective progress along the journey. However, unlike a funnel, the flywheel is unending.
Surely you've heard the following a time or two:
It’s cheaper to keep a customer than to acquire a new one
Most leads come from word of mouth and referrals
We can't publish one blog each week about our industry
Shifting from the funnel method to the flywheel method requires more than a mere verbal commitment. Specifically, you must adjust your decision-making to align with the flywheel principles. Regardless, you choose how fast to spin the flywheel, and how large it is.
You'll want to ensure your team has the resources necessary to support the flywheel method. Specifically, your team must practice strong communication, customer-employee alignment, and thoroughly developed internal processes.
Let's start spinning!
Imagine having ongoing discovery calls with prospects referred to you by your clients. These referrals already know about the value you bring, the problems you solve, and the opportunities you present along the way.
You and your team initially got the flywheel spinning, but your customers keep it spinning. Specifically, they're pleased with your customer service, so they naturally send a steady stream of referrals your way. These concrete referrals understand just how great your service is, because they’ve heard it from multiple customers whom they trust.
With referrals, the sales process becomes much quicker than:
Cold email
Cold phone call
Digital ad
Exploratory call
Discovery call
Decision-maker buy-in
Close
Repeat
Sure, we've all made the mistake of delivering our elevator pitch to anyone who would listen. However, though everyone loves a referral, they’re not all created equal.
The sooner you shift to the flywheel method, the sooner you'll see results. Know who your best customers are, how you acquired them, and what problems you solve for them. The flywheel will continue to spin, allowing you to scale your business accordingly.
Contact Miller Creek Marketing for help developing your flywheel, as well as devising a strategy to keep it spinning!
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