The effectiveness of short, direct-selling funnels will continue to decrease.
When I want a plumber, I don’t need content marketing.
I go to Google, find a plumber, he comes to fix the pipes, and the day has been saved.
Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.
I know the problem. I know the solution. I just need the cheapest and the fastest option.
But most of us don’t sell plumbing.
The customer is not ready to buy. They have a problem, yes. And yet they are not keen to buy. Yet.
Direct selling funnels only cater to the hungry prospects who want to buy right now, like how I was eager to buy plumbing services. But when it comes to gradually building relationships, they fail.
The funnel length is extremely small – in many cases, just two steps. A Facebook ad followed by a sales page, for example.
Another problem with short, direct-selling funnels is that everyone else does it, too. Competition is high. Standing out is difficult, and Return On Ad Spend (ROAS) is going through the roof.
This makes me wonder if the answer lies in lengthening the funnel. We build a longer customer journey that allows us to spend more time with our prospects, gradually building trust, changing their beliefs, and pulling them towards your product.
Maybe it’s a landing page that has an opt-in form, not at the top but at the bottom of the page, almost forcing the reader to read the entire page before they sign up. Or a series of emails where the offer is revealed only after four emails.
This would need tremendous copywriting/storytelling skills. But this hard journey is worth exploring to stand out from the noise.