The 3 Most Important Words In Marketing

An interesting discussion has popped up on Twitter. Dharmesh Shah started the whole thing on his excellent blog, HubSpot's Inbound Internet Marketing Blog, when he posted Marketing Tips In Exactly Three Words (MktgTriplets). In his own words:

For some reason, I’ve been obsessed with trying to condense ideas into as few words as possible.  I find the wordsmithing oddly enjoyable... So, I thought I’d take a stab at distilling down some advice into “marketing triplets” (marketing advice in exactly three words).

Shah listed 47 "triplets" of his own, including:

1) Spark a conversation.

2) Dissect your data.

3) Hire a writer.

4) Don’t spam people.

5) Say something useful.

6) Try something new.

Shah's followers on Twitter have added many, many more three-word phrases, so I started thinking about what I would add to the conversation. And instead of coming up with a list, I challenged myself to come up with just one triplet. What would be the one three-word phrase that I think would distill down as the essence of marketing? Here's what I came up with:

Fill The Funnel.

Why so important? Simple. Your list of customers and prospects is your most valuable asset. Without that list, nothing else happens or can happen. We all know the age-old adage, "Build a better mouse trap and the world will beat a path to your door" is bogus. You can have the most amazing mouse trap ever designed, but if nobody knows about it, nothing happens. Your success is in the list.

Fill The Funnel.

Customers die. Customers go out of business (even long-time important customers, as so many of us, including me, experienced in 2009). Customers find a new supplier. Our bucket is always leaking and if we aren't regularly filling the funnel with new prospects, then we eventually get to experience that oh so positive word spin of Negative Growth (what idiot came up with THAT one?).

Fill The Funnel.

New start-ups scratch and claw to find customers. They pull out all the stops to get people to notice them; breaking the rules of the game so people will give them a chance to present their new product or service. Old, fat companies often don't. They ride the momentum of current customers keeping them alive and not taking the same risks that got them there in the first place.

Fill The Funnel.

Continually chasing new prospects forces you to stay fresh, interesting, and valuable to your marketplace. Every year brings new marketing and communication tools, so you must stay on top of learning. The same marketing strategy that brought you success five years ago is dull, boring, irrelevant, and worst of all, IGNORED today. In order to even be able to fill the funnel today, you've got to be none of those things.

This is going to be my new mantra for 2010 and a phrase that my clients and readers are going to hear from me over and over.

Fill The Funnel.

Comments

[Ian]

the problem with filling a funnel is that stuff just goes straight through - all it does is direct the stuff and slow it down slightly.

Wouldn't

Top the Tank

Be more accurate?

[Steve Miller]

Ian,
I think you're talking semantics here. Filling the funnel to me is getting new names into a system or on a conveyor belt, if you will, that has a specific set of steps designed to identify good prospects, build relationships, and ultimately create new customers or clients.

Anybody else care to comment on this?

[Reg]

All sales involve a numbers' game. The more numbers you have, the more sales you'll make. We all need to add new customers/accounts to our numbers. We also need to get rid of the dead wood that is holding us back.
You're on to something. Thanks for this.
Indeed "Fill the Funnel."

[Promotional Products]

Steve,

I think you're on with Fill the Funnel. Its a good, catchy phrase which could really catch on. This is a fresh way of looking at Twitter that I haven't thought about before. Thanks

[Dave]

If I had a dollar for every one who says it is just a numbers game I would be a millionaire 10 times over. With over 30 years experience in sales, not just Mom and Pop but getting the ear of the Fortune 500 CEOs gov, and educational verticals, I will chime in with my, NSHO, yes it is about filling the funnel, however more than that, qualifying and selling what the customer needs, so if you have a lot of numbers and they are not quality, qualified prospects, you only have numbers, not prospects.

[Steve Miller]

Lighten up, Dave. Your "...30 years experience..." has jaded you.

In a direct mail campaign, nothing happens until the targeted prospect opens the mail.

At a trade show, nothing happens until the targeted prospect stops in the booth.

In any marketing strategy, NOTHING happens until the first step is successful. I'll repeat. NOTHING happens until the first step is successful.

Everything you mentioned - qualifying and selling what the customer needs - are necessary steps in creating and maintaining long-term relationships. But the ability to do those is completely useless if you aren't filling the funnel first. You can't qualify somebody if they don't exist. You can't cull out truly good prospects if they haven't entered your funnel FIRST.

"Fill The Funnel" are the 3 most important words in marketing. Without that, nothing else happens.