Funnels or flywheels? That is the question. 

Maybe you’ve heard of a sales funnel or a sales flywheel. Though there are differences between the two, the purpose of both is to better visualize and understand how your business is attracting, converting, and retaining customers. The important distinction between the two is that the funnel focuses on output while the flywheel focuses on input. 

What do I mean? While a funnel is widened to increase revenue (i.e.converting more users to customers), the flywheel puts the customer at the center to constantly attract, engage, and delight for increased revenue and turn customers into the business’s own advocates. 

Whether you choose a funnel or a flywheel to visualize a customer journey is completely up to you. However, understanding the flow of your marketing strategy and how it plays out with specific tactics is most important. This is how you can connect the dots between a marketing strategy and tactics that support and execute that strategy in a very real way. 

There are efforts companies make to increase revenue. That is the bottom line. How do we increase revenue and decrease costs? Now, when it comes to marketing, these efforts (or tactics) could be anything from email marketing, to a billboard ad, starting a blog, social media posts, press releases, and many many more. 

And every business is going to be different. Different products, services, target consumer segments, brands, etc. And with every unique trait, businesses get to pick and choose what tactics best support their marketing strategy and overall brand.

Now I’ve seen many many businesses choose their tactics based on gut feeling. It usually goes something like this. “Well, I need more phone calls so I’m going to buy a billboard and put my business’s phone number on it.” Or, “Well, we did a display campaign last time so let’s do that again.” 

Great. What has this accomplished? What has been produced from that effort? How does this tactic or set of tactics fit into your business’s marketing strategy? Whether or not it was successful doesn’t matter because it was a shot in the dark. Maybe the target was hit but who knows if it can be replicated or optimized (made better) upon. No matter what, that kind of thinking can be very short-term. 

Now I’m not saying there is any one marketing tactic that is better than another (generally speaking) but I am saying, think about the customer’s experience and take their journey into consideration when creating and executing a marketing strategy. 

Before a sale can occur, there are marketing and advertising touchpoints that need to be made to make an individual aware of your business’s offerings. People have to discover it and then move forward with expressing intent to purchase it. After the sale has been made, you need to think, “how can I encourage another sale in the future?” Whatever the timeline might be, think of how you can attract, engage, and delight your customers again and again. Keeping your customer at the center is what will create long-term growth and, consequently, increased revenue. 

So are you sure all your tactics align with your marketing strategy? If not, no worries, reach out to us for a free brand consultation. We are here to help amplify your marketing efforts.