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. 

Marketing, at its core, can be broken down into three questions:

1. What do you want your company to say?
2. Who do you want to hear it?
3. Why are you the expert on how to say it?

That’s it! It’s as easy as 1-2-3. The easy part, hopefully, is figuring out what you want your company to say. The tricky part is figuring out how to tell the right people, and how to establish yourself as an expert.

What you say is important. How you say it is even more important. As a company, you should ideally know how you want to represent your brand. In other words, you should know your ‘Why.’ And once you know your ‘What’ and your ‘Why,’ the only other question to ask yourself is ‘How?’

Tone matters. Knowing the voice of your brand is imperative to effective marketing. Brand voice, or tone, is the distinct personality of your company as a whole. How do you present yourself in your marketing on the whole? On your website? With social media? In email marketing? What makes you, you?

Tone is what differentiates your company from every other company, both in your industry and outside of it. Whether it’s via a website, a social media post, or even a message on a billboard, you are communicating directly with your customers or customers-to-be. So, what should that communication consist of? How should it sound? Or read? How do you want to present yourself to the general public? To figure that out, to develop your brand’s voice and effectively utilize it in your marketing, there are a few key points you should consider.

Know Who You Are
What kind of company are you? Are you a law firm that wants to maintain a professional, yet approachable image that attracts clients from a variety of backgrounds? Are you a coffee shop who isn’t afraid to push the envelope and proclaim yourself ‘The People’s Choice for Local Coffee?’ Or maybe your company is a leading resource for housing finance that produces television commercials designed to educate, inform, and entertain? Are you serious or more light-hearted? Do you focus on ‘Just the facts, ma’am,’ or do you give yourself some room to play? Either of these are fine, but it’s important to know what kind of company you are and then brand yourself accordingly across all mediums.

Know Your Audience
It is just as important as knowing who you are to know who your audience is. Who are you marketing to? Knowing who your target audience is (are they older or younger? Male or female or both? Professionals, consumers, or the general public?) and then crafting your tone to appeal to them is a science that takes a certain amount of trial-and-error. Location plays a big role as well. In Wyoming, especially, people are proud of where they live and utilizing certain keywords and phrases that invoke that sense of civic pride are a good way to maintain and grow your audience.

Be Authentic
This is a work lesson, but also a life lesson: When you know who you are and are confident in who you are, it’s a lot easier to be authentic. People like authenticity. They’re drawn to it. And when you’re not being authentic, they see through it. Because of this, it’s important to find out who you are as a company and then portray that to the best of your ability with your content. Audiences value authenticity, and if they trust you, they are more apt to buy whatever it is you are selling.

Be Adaptable
Of course, being authentic does not mean that you should not be adaptable. While you shouldn’t shift your tone or alter your voice with each passing trend, you should be willing (and able) to evolve as your company grows. As new ways of marketing become available, you should be able to take stock of your company and decide if there are new directions to follow. This goes for your written content, imagery, and more. New ways to market your company come up every day and no, that doesn’t mean you should create a TikTok account just because everybody else is doing it, but you also shouldn’t be afraid to do things like that if it fits with the tone of your company.

Be Consistent
This is, arguably, the most important item on this list. Being consistent in all aspects of marketing your brand is imperative. Whether it’s maintaining the proper imagery or color schemes across all mediums, or utilizing the same tone in the things you write, consistency is key when it comes to proper marketing. You don’t want to be overly humorous on Monday and super serious on a Tuesday. Consistency in what you say and how you say it will frame your brand in a way that is both familiar and intriguing to your audience.

If you’re a client of The BARK Firm, none of this information should be new to you. We work with a wide array of clients and develop their branding, design, content, website and digital marketing efforts, making sure no client’s strategy is the same. There is no cookie-cutter marketing plan with us. We partner with our clients to discover, develop, and define their tone, their voice. Your voice matters, and The BARK Firm can help you find it.