Marketing is like dating: how to take your prospects from Tinder to ‘Netflix and chill’

Marketing is much like dating. There are a series of steps and events that must take place in order for a relationship to develop and get more serious.

Let’s say the ultimate goal for dating is eventually to find a partner and get married. Generally speaking, the way you reach that end goal is by going through a series of steps and events. It might start with meeting someone at a party or bar, or through a friend. You might offer to buy that person a drink, share a conversation, or talk about star signs. If things go well and you hit it off, you exchange phone numbers.

After this, an ‘offer’ is generally made for a first date, perhaps dinner and drinks. Then a second date, perhaps a movie or a walk through an art gallery as you begin to get to know each other better.

You start dating. Things get more serious, you get engaged, and ultimately married. While there are certainly a lot more things that happen along the way, you get the picture. It’s a process, with a varying level of commitment along the way to reach the desired outcome.

Business is much the same. However, most businesses are out there asking people to marry them on the first date, or even worse, at first sight!

What do I mean by this? Instead of capturing a lead by using a high value content offer, building value, educating your prospects, and only then asking the prospect to buy, most businesses are out there screaming at the prospects to buy straight out the gate.

Right from their advertising and ads they’re screaming, ‘We’ve got the best range and the best service… ‘Come and buy our stuff’.

From working with thousands of businesses over the years, this is the biggest mistake I see them making. They’re walking into bars and asking people to marry them.

This is the completely wrong approach.

What you should be doing instead

Whether you’re advertising on Google, Facebook, Instagram, or YouTube, the very first step in the process of taking disinterested wanderers and turning them into your most valuable dream clients is getting eyeballs on your ads.

And getting eyeballs on your ads should be just one step in a sales funnel designed to turn complete strangers into high-paying clients.

A sales funnel is a step-by-step process that helps lead prospects on a journey that makes them want to hand over money. The first step is attracting leads, then you would offer something valuable in exchange for their contact details so you can then begin to nurture those leads and build their interest and engagement with your business.

When you are deciding which marketing and sales tactics you want to employ for your business, you shouldn’t spend money on anything unless it is part of a sales funnel – unless you are happy to waste your time and money, and limit the effectiveness of your marketing efforts. For example, you could spend huge money on generating a deluge of traffic to your website, but if that does not convert in to sales enquiries, then there won’t be much return on your marketing spend.

Each business’ sales funnel will differ in length (how many steps are needed) and in the tactics that are most effective for them. What doesn’t differ is the fact that when a sales funnel is designed well, it will absolutely transform your business so you can sell like crazy.

This article contains excerpts from recently launched bookselling book ‘Sell Like Crazy’ by Sabri Suby. The book is available through Amazon.

Sabri Suby is the founder of Australia’s fastest growing digital marketing agency, King Kong, and author of Sell Like Crazy. The book covers all facets of digital marketing and illustrates the path to success with real-life case studies where Sabri has used the exact same selling system to supercharge their business.