How to Create Better B2B Marketing Funnels (Part 2)

In Part 2 of our 3-part miniseries, we speak with B2B marketing experts Kylie Lang (Quiz Funnel Strategist, Kylie Lang) and James Hipkin (CEO & Founder, Inn8ly) about the middle of the marketing funnel. During our discussion, Kylie and James talk to us about the importance of middle-of-the-funnel activities and how marketers can leverage customer validation as well as social proof to support the research and evaluation process of prospects. They also give us a list of tactics that marketers should STOP using, and provide us with insights into the activities that are effective and generate the best results.

https://youtu.be/ur6AQ3mf6_E

Topics discussed in this episode:

• The strategic importance of the middle of the marketing funnel [1:55]
  
  • Understanding the right type of content and platforms for your target audience
    
  • Have transactions of increasing value
    
  
  
• Some tips on middle of the funnel activities:[6:37]
  
  • Encourage interactions by having simple CTA in emails, use of SMS, and personalized videos (with tracking)
    
  
  
• How to repurpose instead of overproducing your content [16:39]
  
• How to create content that attracts and resonates with the right target audience [21:03] | [23:17]
  
• How to leverage customer validation and social proof [28:34]
  
  • Know where to look for your social proof
    
  • Place the testimonial(s) where they best support your main message
    
  
  
• Kylie and James share case studies on how middle of the funnel activities can be implemented successfully and generate good results. [39:17]
  

Companies & links mentioned:

• Kylie Lang on LinkedIn
  
• James Hipkin on LinkedIn
  
• Kylie Lang Website
  
• Inn8ly
  

SPEAKER

Christian Klepp, Kylie Lang, James Hipkin

Christian Klepp  00:00

Welcome to B2B Marketers on a Mission, a podcast for B2B marketers that helps you to question the conventional, think differently, disrupt your industry, and take your marketing to new heights. Each week, we talk to B2B marketing experts who share inspirational stories, discuss our thoughts and trending topics, and provide useful marketing tips and recommendations. And now, here’s your host and co-founder of EINBLICK Consulting, Christian Klepp. Okay, welcome, everyone to the B2B Marketers on a Mission podcast where you get your weekly dose of B2B marketing insights. This is your host, Christian Klepp. And I’d like to welcome everyone to part two of a three part mini-series about the marketing funnel. So for the benefit of those who didn’t tune into part one, I would like to introduce our guests who are both B2B marketing veterans, who are experts in their respective fields. So first off, Kylie Lang, also known as the quiz funnel, queen, and she helps B2B companies generate the right leads for their businesses through engaging quizzes. And guest number two is Mr. James Hipkin, an expert in all things around the creation, development and launching of websites, as well as the ecosystem surrounding that. So welcome back. Kylie and James.

Kylie Lang  01:14

Thank you very much. Good to be here.

James Hipkin  01:16

Great to be here, Christian.

Christian Klepp  01:17

All right, guys. I’m really looking forward to this part two conversation. So let’s dive in. Okay, so why don’t we continue our discussion about the marketing funnel and move the next step down. So basically, we’re going to the middle of the funnel. As we all know, that’s the part of the funnel that aligns with the activities that support research and evaluation that are designed to solve the customer’s problem. So first question, why do you both think middle of the funnel marketing activities are so important, and let’s look at this from a strategic angle. So once again, ladies first, Kylie.

Kylie Lang  01:55

Thank you. Okay, so for me, as we spoke about last week, I do specifically look at quiz funnels. So when I get to the middle of the funnel, my biggest aim is to build that know, like, trust factor with my audience. So I already know a fair amount about them from the data that I’ve gathered from the quiz. So for me, the importance then is that I use that data to strategically sent them information that is going to be relevant to where they are in their journey. Because when we look at audiences, most of us, as we said, last week, have got different subsets of our audience who were all at different points within their journey. So for me to send information to somebody who’s more at a beginning level, that’s too high level is going to immediately turn them off and put them off, and vice versa, too. So in the middle of the funnel for me, I also need to be thinking about the ways that people consume information as well, because we’re all different, some of us love to sit in, listen to a podcast, some of us love to tune in and do a 60 minute workshop that’s going to teach us certain things and then go away and implement them. Others of us like to read information, others of us like to download things and make lots of notes. So there’s lots of different ways that we like to consume the information that we’re given and the content that we’re given. So, to my mind, one of the biggest things I need to find out is which way do you like to consume your content so that I can deliver it in a way that you are actually going to use it, read it, listen to it, look at it, whatever that might be. And then take action on that to a point where you’re really open to that next stage, that next step in the journey with me. So for me, it’s twofold – it’s about understanding the type of content that’s going to be right for this person. And then also understanding the type of platform on which I deliver that content. So those two things together are where I start at the middle of the funnel.

Christian Klepp  04:07

Alright, that’s great, James?

James Hipkin  04:10

And for me, I want to build on what Kylie said about the know like and trust factor. If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will do. And the end of the funnel is about a transaction. The biggest mistake I see made is not tactically people are doing the wrong thing in the mid funnel that’s they’re not doing anything at all. The reality is you build know like and trust through transactions and interactions. It’s the old Hari Krishna model from the shopping malls. They’d give you a flower and if you accepted the flower, if you were, it was a transaction was an interaction and you were basically giving them permission to talk to you. It’s Psychology. The mid funnel is your opportunity to build, spots ways means all of the things that Kylie discussed, for your prime prospect to interact with you and what you’re looking for, as you draw them down the funnel, as you move them out of consideration into prospecting, you want to give them transactions of increasing value, the micro transaction at the top of the funnel might be as you know, liking a Facebook post or a LinkedIn post, it might be actually commenting on a LinkedIn post. That’s a micro transaction of increased value versus just liking the post. It might be sending a direct message to the poster. So these each of these transactions has a higher level of value, you haven’t actually executed the final conversion, but you’re building know like and trust through these microtransactions of increasing value. And so that’s when you’re designing your tactics and you’re designing the things that you want to do in the mid funnel, you absolutely want to consider all of the things that Kylie said. And the other side of that teeter totter is how do I give them opportunities to interact with me, because the more often they interact with me, the higher the degree of know, like and trust you’re gonna generate. And ultimately, you’ll get the conversion for the right reason.

Kylie Lang  06:37

Yeah, I couldn’t agree more. I mean, one of the other things that we have to look at when we’re looking at mid funnel, is really understanding how we can get them to interact with this. And I think one of the biggest mistakes I see people make is, especially within an email, too many calls to action. And of course, then that immediately confuses people. It’s like when you go into a restaurant, when there’s too many choices on the menu, you can’t make up your mind and you end up with menu envy. It’s exactly the same with an email, you give them too many choices. They don’t know which one to do. So we always need to make sure that when we’re writing any type of email that’s going to be delivering content that there is one call to action. And some of the best calls to action, we found that worked really well asking people to do something really simple. Like Click here to watch this video, hit reply and tell me what you’re thinking. Micro transactions. Exactly. microtransactions, which are also going back to strategy are trackable, because in this world of iOS 15, where the open rates of emails are somewhat skewed, something that you can track. And something that also gives you brownie points in the eyes of the email service providers is when they see people interacting with your emails, and an interaction is clicking and replying. And so this gives you those brownie points, which means that your emails, those precious emails that are actually going to help build that know like trust factor, they are actually going to be delivered into the inbox that the person that you want them to be live in delivered to, rather than going into junk, spam, promotions, etc. So there’s different reasons why this is a good thing. Something else that we tend to do as well, which can work really well but should never be overuse is the SMS. So when we are collecting people’s details at the end of a quiz for them to see the results, we always ask for the first name and email address. And then we have the telephone number or mobile number as an optional field. But we always pop in there for extra goodies. Add in your number. Most people do and most people put in the right email, you can then connect that up to something like click Send, which is an SMS provider and it will send them an SMS telling them to check their email for their quiz results. Oh, and don’t forget to check the spam. So that’s doing one of two things that’s reminding people that actually you need to go to your inbox because there’s going to be some goodies in there for you. And don’t forget to sit there check that spam folder to make sure that you receive that email and add it to the whitelist. Now like I said, those sorts of strategies shouldn’t be overused. But when used sparingly, immediately you see your success rate of your funnel in that mid funnel part of it go up, it gets better. So those are just a few of the little things that we do to help build that know like trust factor.

James Hipkin  09:43

And something that Kylie said that really resonated with me is video. Video in this day and age is so vital and that invitation to watch a video. That can be a top of funnel technique. It can be an excellent mid funnel technique, but to her point, you can track it. And view through tracking is a really powerful way to remarket to folks because in essence, what they’re telling you as a prospect is, I’m at a point where I’m really starting to get engaged in this process. So if you turn around and serve them, either a follow up email using email automation, or, you know, a remarketing ad on LinkedIn, to the people who viewed 75%, or more of this three minute video, that’s going to be received what as a welcome piece of additional information versus another ad. And that distinction is really important and really effective, because you’re drawing people down the funnel, you’re supporting their journey, as opposed to interrupting their journey. And as a result, that information is not seen so much as a sales message, it’s seen more as a value creation, opportunity, additional information that will help me make a good decision.

Kylie Lang  11:12

And it’s more personalized as well to that point. And another way that we use video is when we are looking at certain information that is being brought in from our quiz. So the data that’s coming in from the quiz, dependent upon certain questions, and the way somebody has answered them, will determine whether or not I use video as a personal technique. And what I mean by that is I don’t actually use bonjoro or BombBomb or any of those anymore, but I do use loom. So if my quiz takers have answered a certain question a certain way, and they qualify in my eyes, as somebody who is interested in somebody that would be a potential client of mine, then I will send them a personal video, I will look at those quiz results, I will do a video, maybe 90 seconds. I also have a little whiteboard with their name on it that says thank you for taking the quiz. And then at the bottom, it says the quiz queen. And obviously all I have to do is change the name each time. But it’s that level of personalization. It’s the care and time that you take to take a quick look at their website, see what it is they do, and give them a little suggestion, in my case as to how a quiz would help their business. But nine times out of 10, I get a response from those particular emails because they’re personal. I’ve taken time out of my day to do it. It’s a great mid funnel activity. And as I say, people like to feel special. And that’s exactly what that is doing. It’s not long, it’s less than 90 seconds. It’s not taking up much of their time. But it shows that I care.

James Hipkin  12:53

Right. And it’s a particularly I have a client who do this as well. And it’s particularly effective in B2B because the average ticket value is so much higher.

Kylie Lang  13:05

Definitely.

James Hipkin  13:05

So it’s worth the trouble wouldn’t really scale in a b2c situation. But if you’ve got a sales force, and you’ve trained them properly, and they’re using this technique, this person click this link watched this video, we know they watched 75% of it. We know that they’re a prime prospect, you know, send them a video, because people buy people.

Kylie Lang  13:28

They really do. Video shows your personality immediately. And when you use a platform like loom, it sends directly from loom and they have great deliverability. But it also turns that video into a GIF. Now there’s something about moving images in an email that just works. Because it’s not static, it catches people’s attention immediately. And I am a gif girl, I will use quite a few gifs in my emails. It’s just who I am. Loved video. Not for broad consumption. No. But it works so well. So it’s all these little tiny things that you learn about as you go along. That not only is about the video, but it’s about the movement in the email that goes through because it turns into a GIF. So there’s all these little things that you can do to add to the experience, make it a little bit more fun. It’s like occasionally using an emoji, it brightens up the email. No, don’t overuse that because it’s too much. But it’s all about what you can do to catch the eye and help people to do what it is that you want them to do. Point them in the right direction.

James Hipkin  14:40

And you’re building microtransactions The other thing that loom does really well is tells you through an email that the recipient has actually watched the video. Guess what? A phone call at that point would be well received. Yes. So these are these are all examples. As of as we start at the top of the funnel and move down into the deeper part of the funnel, you’re isolating the prime prospects and the people who are really moving into the prospecting phase. But you’re doing it in a way that is not slimy.

Kylie Lang  15:16

Yes, absolutely. There’s no cheesy car salesman going on there. It’s personalized. And you are meeting them at a point that they want to be met at. So…

James Hipkin  15:26

Talking about things that they’re interested in.

Kylie Lang  15:28

Yes, that’s right.

Christian Klepp  15:31

You mean things that they’re interested in, like jumping on a 15 minute demo call? (laugh) I love I love this, guys, this is such a great start to the conversation. I wanted to throw in a question, a strategic question, not necessarily unique to middle of the funnel, I would say this is probably relevant to the funnel in its entirety. And you’ve probably seen this. In your own experience, you’ve probably read about it on LinkedIn, but there are so many marketers out there. And in B2B, that tends to happen more often than not where they are working under the assumption that this is how the prospect or the consumer is consuming content throughout the different stages of the funnel. So what ends up happening, and you probably know where I’m going with this, but what ends up happening is they are spending so much time, resources and energy developing content that is not well received, or is not resonating with the target audience. So can you speak to that? And if you’ve seen that and why do you think that happens?

James Hipkin  16:39

Or another way of phrasing the same thing, Christian, it’s overproduced. Yes. You know, I tell you the stuff that I get the best reaction and the best engagement from is the most natural. You know, I toss together some thoughts and put them out there and then suddenly everybody’s involved, or I do a quick little, like, this is what I love about the loom thing. It’s not overproduced. No. It’s just natural and real and sincere and communicates authenticity. So you want to be looking at the content that’s working. A great technique that I like and advocated, actually just wrote a post about this on LinkedIn – repurposing content. You write a…. go back into your profile and look at your past posts, find the posts that generate engagement. Rewrite that post four or five times and then schedule it out over four or five months.

Kylie Lang  17:54

So simple, isn’t it, really, it’s…. Don’t reinvent the wheel. You know, if you write blog posts, and we do as you do, James, and those blog posts are generally they are between 1800 to 2000 words. So we will do two to three of those a month. Those are our social media posts. Those are the tips that we share. Because there is so much content in those blog posts, that that gives you five posts on LinkedIn in a week. But then I think the thing going back to what you were saying about transparency, it’s also about showing the person behind the brand, regardless of whether your business to business or business to consumer. And I’ll give you an example here. A couple of weeks ago, I went to my hairdressers, and my hairdresser has the most amazing way of making you feel special. Each of her customers gets treated differently. And for me, she always makes sure that there is an 80s soundtrack on. I love music, there’s always a glass of bubbles, or two, possibly three. And the whole experience is tailored to me. And I know that with some of her other clients, she does the same thing. Some of the old French lady she has, you know the version of French version of classic FM on and they get a glass of Pinot and it’s a different experience. And I was thinking about it in the car on the way home. And by the way, for the transparency part, I was holding a glass of champagne had my hair in foils and said to her take a picture of you Willie, I’m gonna send it to my daughter. Anyway, that picture the next day appeared on LinkedIn. I wasn’t looking my best clearly because I have my hearing foils. But the point being is that picture and the posts that I put on about how you need to treat your clients and give them that red carpet experience. Give them that customer journey that they can’t help but talk about. You need to be Nikki, my hairdresser. You need to give that experience that she gave and that picture and that post has been my best post to date, people couldn’t help responding to it, I also sent that same post out on email, I had quite a few replies to the email some more polite than others. A picture as you can imagine, but the point is, is people will respond to things that are real. If you can tell stories behind what it is that you do, I was able to relate that particular story back to what I do, which is sell quiz funnels, by saying to people that a quiz can do that for you, it can make each individual lead that comes through to you feel special because of segmentation targeting, etc. So I was able to relate that story back to what it is that I do without it being salesy. And with it having a horrendous picture of me for everyone to laugh at. I mean, what’s not to love. So things like that are the things that work because you’re being real, you’re showing people, the person behind the brand. And at the end of the day, we can all relate to a story.

James Hipkin  21:03

And listen to customers. But when you’re talking to people, I had a conversation earlier this week, with a two partners from a CPA firm. And this is classic business to business marketing. And they wanted to talk about a new website. Now, obviously, websites is what I do. But as I listened to them, finally I stopped and said, what’s the real problem you’re trying to solve here? And it turns out, it wasn’t the website at all. I mean, their website could be improved. But trust me, compared to many that I audit, it was okay. I mean, he said, Well, I need to get a better ROI on my digital marketing. And that turned into a whole conversation around effective digital marketing, effective marketing in general, how the website is important, but it is not. It is not the solution to their problem. Yeah. And that turned into a LinkedIn post, which hasn’t been published yet, but will be published shortly. I basically took that conversation. Because it was real, right. And if I figured, well, if this person is having this challenge, I’ll bet other people are too. Yeah, and this is this is great mid funnel kind of content, because you’re catching people as they’re in consideration and moving into prospect, and you’re doing it with messaging that they can relate to.

Kylie Lang  22:42

Absolutely. And I think to that point, as well, being relatable, has to be one of the biggest pieces of your funnel. Because if you’re just going to throw information at them without any personality behind it, without allowing people to sort of get to know you at the same time. It’s faceless. It doesn’t mean anything.

James Hipkin  23:06

If you’re trying to get know, like and trust, they have to know you, you have to be likable, and you have to be trustworthy. You know.

Christian Klepp  23:17

Absolutely.

Kylie Lang  23:17

Don’t be afraid to embrace who you are, you know, that really is one of the biggest pieces of this, you have to let people in, you can’t be afraid to talk about the things that you enjoy. And you can’t be afraid to put yourself out there warts and all. People respond to that. And again, it is about building the know, like trust. And I think one of the things I do see people do that is wrong is they’ll get them into the funnel. They’ll do let’s say five emails within their nurture sequence. And then nothing except in fact, silence. And you’ve put all that hard work in to getting them to that point. But then there’s nothing, there’s no weekly emails, there’s no nothing. So that’s where what we’re talking about at the moment with all of this other content becomes so important. I send two emails a week to my list. One of them is the story, one, similar to the hairdressing story, there will be lots of different versions of that. And the other one is usually a breakdown of whatever my blog post was, whether it’s, you know, an informational one, whether it’s more of a case study one, so they’re getting to learn something, and they’re getting to hear a story and get to know me. So that’s two different forms of content every week. And that’s how you build know like trust because some people are going to take a lot longer to make a decision than others. We all have a different way of buying. Some of us buy under pressure. Some of us are great at FOMO buying. Others of us like to take our own sweet time and we’re going to do the research and it might take months it might take a year. I’ve had people in my audience that have been there for three years and then suddenly, they’ve come and bought from me. Because of the consistency, yeah, that consistency of your messaging. And the stories that you’re telling, the likability goes up, the trust goes up, it’s all of those things. But the funnel is just that. It is what funnels them through, but you’ve got to keep funneling them through, you can’t let them drop off halfway through.

James Hipkin  25:25

And the trust piece, I want to just emphasize something here. Your mid funnel tactics, you want to be attracting the right prospects. But you also want to be repelling the wrong prospects. And why does that connect to trust? I have to tell you that saying no to customers, is one of the most effective trust building techniques. I mean, that conversation I was just recounting a second ago, I ended the conversation with something to the effect of, you know, I’d love to do business with you, I think I can help you. But the website is not the solution to your problem. Right. So I’m repelling them. But I’m doing it in a way that builds trust. Absolutely, so when they’re ready. Who are they going to turn to? When they’ve got some of this other stuff figured out? I never said the website wasn’t important. And I never said we couldn’t help them. But I said right now, this is not the thing you need to look at. And that balance between attraction and … What’s the opposite word? Kylie, the word.

Kylie Lang  26:46

Attract and repel.

James Hipkin  26:47

Yeah, attract and repel. Those are both equally valid pieces of the mid funnel structure. Yes,

Kylie Lang  26:54

I totally agree. We wrote a blog post a little while ago, and it has been our most shared posts called 10 reasons why you shouldn’t work with me. And it’s… it is doing exactly that the whole idea is to repel those people that I don’t want to work with, and attract those that I do. Because if you don’t have an offer, I’m not going to work with you. Because I can’t create a quiz funnel for something that doesn’t exist if you don’t have an offer, and you don’t know who your audience are. So we went through 10 different reasons why you shouldn’t work with me. And it’s been a really popular blog post for exactly that reason. Know, like, trust.

Christian Klepp  27:36

Fantastic, fantastic, folks, I’m gonna move us on to the next question, which is equally important, especially if this part of the funnel, right. So talk to us about…  the importance of leveraging customer validation and social proof to support the prospects research and evaluation process. Because that’s key too, isn’t it?

James Hipkin  28:05

Oh, yes. Yeah, reasons to believe. Getting… this is where you get to talk about your credentials and your capabilities. This is where you get to talk about the other businesses, other brands, the brands that you work with, if they’re recognizable and support your messaging, you know, those social proof factors are an integral part of the mid funnel activity. And it’s, you can actually use the concept of microtransactions to facilitate this. And that if you invite people to comment, if you invite people to send you a message, you can then turn around and use those messages as social proof for what it is that you’re trying to do. What is the,…. support the journey that your best prospect is on. Because they want that third party confirmation that you are who you seem to be.

Kylie Lang  29:10

Absolutely, I mean, we have definitely have several ways of doing that. But I think one of the most effective for me, has been when a client of mine launches their quiz. I write a story around it. So I talk about, for example, I had a quiz launch. A couple of weeks ago, the guy runs podcasts, and he’s got a podcast course. And I talked about all about the goal because that was the biggest thing for him was understanding the goal of his quiz. So I wrote an entire blog post around the goal of his quiz, how we brainstormed it, I broke it down, talked about different elements within his quiz. And then each time I do that, I send seven interview questions to my client for them to answer which I tack on the end of that particular blog post. And that blog post is then obviously sent out to my email list, we use some of those interview questions on social media. And we always get a sound bite from them to be able to use as well. And more often than not, they’ll do a video testimonial for me as well. So there’s all of that social proof, all packaged up within. It’s called really a case study. But I don’t call them case studies because not very sexy name for it. I prefer story. But it’s much more consumable from my readers point of view. And it helps them to understand the intricacies of what I do. So as well as giving me social proof,it’s also showing people that actually, what she does is quite intense. There’s a lot of strategy behind it. And there’s a lot of amusing moving pieces of this puzzle. So I’m also helping them to understand that hiring me is going to be a time saving thing, it’s going to be this it’s going to be that it’s going to be the other but it’s also social proof. Quite often, when we send out brainstorming documents to our clients, especially at the beginning, when we’re looking at coming up with quiz titles and what have you, I do a moonwalk through most of the emails I get back from them from that says, brainstorm, oh, my goodness, that was amazing. You’ve hit the spot, you know exactly. You’ve done this, you’ve done that. I always email them back and say, Can I quote that on social media? Please? They never say no. So it’s these look for things. Don’t always expect them to land in your lap, the social proof side of things, you’ve actually got to be really proactive with it as well, as far as taking screenshots of things. And what have you never do anything without asking somebody first of all, but often, you will have that social proof within your inbox. Because mostly your clients will send you little love emails telling you how wonderful you are and how much they’ve loved what you’ve done. Not all the time, but a lot of the time. So ask them if you can use that. That’s fantastic social proof.

James Hipkin  32:03

Right. I want to talk a little bit more about testimonials. Testimonials are just a goldmine. Yes. And first of all, I’m going to tell you what I often see, I’ll see a web page. Because then it’s got 15 testimonials and a carousel at the bottom of the web page, waste of time. You want to take your testimonials, you want to cut them up into short things, you want to put the testimonials on a page that support the page’s main message, you can use that same testimonial in three or four different spots in the website. But don’t use 15 of them. Two to three is tons. One, even if it’s really focused, is very powerful, and then use them elsewhere. I see people with all these wonderful testimonials on their website, but they never include them in their emails, they don’t include them in their social media posts. I mean, they’re great, just little middle of an email, you’re talking about a particular product to stick up a blockquote into the middle of the email, which is a quote from a customer about this product. It’s such a simple idea, but I don’t see it. You know you’re doing a social media post and the social media posts is nothing more than a one sentence or two sentence excerpt from a testimonial. That says so much about… and that’s such a powerful tactical work inside the mid funnel in particular. But it also helps you with your existing customers. Because good customers expect it. I mean, you’d never want to take advantage of that current customer relationship. And just reminding them that they’re not alone in making this wise choice. Other people thought this was a good choice too. Again, testimonials are a goldmine that often gets overlooked.

Christian Klepp  34:12

Absolutely, absolutely. And I’m sure both of you have been in the situation before where you’re talking to like new prospects, right? So potential new business and they ask for references and it’s always nice to have not just those testimonials but those relationships where you can call so on and so forth. And they say I am more than happy to be a reference if if this person needs my validation to make a decision to move forward with you. I mean it’s… I think it’s it’s such a wonderful situation to be in if you have clients that are more than happy to be your well your your brand advocates so called right? Yep, yeah. Fantastic. You know what, you guys have talked quite a bit about this already at the beginning of the conversation. So I’m gonna like, change this question up a little bit. What are some other middle of the funnel marketing tactics that you think B2B marketers should, for goodness sakes stop doing? And why?

James Hipkin  35:19

Stop sending the 15, 20, 25 page white paper.

Kylie Lang  35:24

Yes.

Christian Klepp  35:26

Yes, exactly.

James Hipkin  35:28

Oh my god. You know, the executive summary is a powerful thing. Understand the purpose of the white paper, which is to reinforce and to build your authority. If you if you need 15 pages to convince somebody that you know what you’re talking about, you don’t know what you’re talking about. And trust me, that’s what they think. So for God’s sakes, stop sending 15 page white papers, stop investing in them. A waste of electrons.

Kylie Lang  36:07

It really is. It’s a waste of time, money and effort, isn’t it? But I think to me, the thing that I would love to see people stop doing is emailing their entire list. Really don’t do it. It’s just it doesn’t work, you, you will start to see yourself sliding into spam folders and junk folders and what have you, you need to have a way of being able to just email your engaged subscribers because if you continually email people who aren’t opening your emails, that’s a red flag to your ESP or email service provider. So there’s a reason why you tag people as engaged and disengaged. And you put them through what we call a disengagement automation, where you ask them, Is this really goodbye? Do you really want to unsubscribe? And usually that’s the email that respond to, but sending blanket emails to absolutely everybody on your list is doing you more harm than good. So stop it, please don’t do it anymore.

Christian Klepp  37:12

Amen. Amen. And you know, we all get these, I got this a couple of months ago, where I was thrown into this email sequence. And it wasn’t, it was something that was not very relevant to me or my business. And I think probably after email number two, I wrote back and said, I’m not interested. And again, marketing automation. Then he kept the sequence going anyway. And he sent the third email and the fourth email and the fifth email, I think by the time I got to number six, he, he had some cheesy title, like, you know, Andreea Porcelli like a time to say goodbye or something like that, right? And he said, Well, it’s been fun Christian, could you tell me, is there anything I could have done, that would have changed your mind. And I said, you could have gotten to actually know me, instead of just throwing me into the sequence, because reading it, it was clearly templated. And he didn’t actually know anything about me or my business, which is why I was disengaged. And, you know, this happened so many times, every single day, at a cadence and speed that I probably don’t care to recall. But um, as far as long as that keeps happening, there’s opportunities for us. Alright, definitely make a difference in the world. Right, both of you have given some great examples, but maybe provide one each, an example or a case study, ideally, from your own professional experience that highlights how middle of the funnel activities can be implemented successfully, and generate good results.

Kylie Lang  38:49

Sure, okay. Well, I have one client who launched her quiz back in February, I think it was. And it’s been incredibly successful. But one of the things that we did, and I’m afraid, James, this was a PDF, but it was a very well thought out PDF, and it wasn’t 21 page white paper.

Christian Klepp  39:10

It was 20. (laugh)

Kylie Lang  39:11

But what we did was with the quiz, there were variants for three different answers. So three different answers meant that there were nine possibilities. So we created 27 Different PDFs. So that the way they had answered three of these questions, whatever combination of those three questions, they were then sent a very personalized PDF that gave them a solution that was totally personalized to those three particular answers. Now, I will tell you, it was an automation nightmare, and thank God for Active Campaign because I was able to do it and I did test it and we did get it done. The 27 different variations from one email, but the response from that particular quiz has been an unbelievable. So she’s had a conversion rate of something like 62% of people taking her quiz who have gone on to buy into her membership, which is unbelievable. But what’s even better than that, is that people are actually responding to the email with the PDF to tell to raise it just how impressed they are with that PDF and how they can’t believe that it was so personalized to the answers that they gave to those questions. So that’s taking personalization to a whole other level, I will admit that. Was it worth doing? Absolutely. And I would do it again, maybe not quite in that format. But for that particular client, it worked an absolute charm.

James Hipkin  40:54

Unfortunately, I was going to talk about exactly the same thing.

Kylie Lang  40:57

Oh, I’m so sorry.

James Hipkin  40:58

The scale and the numbers were a bit different. But we’ve run programs. In my past, I’ve run programs where we were getting into seven figures in variations on a 3 to 5 million piece direct mail package, which was a nightmare. But we were getting conversion rates into the high teens, on these programs. Think about that. This personalization aspect of things is so so important. Also, another client, the power of layers, is really important. You know, you’ve got, again, this looks like a funnel, it is a funnel, you’ve got people at the top of the funnel, and that’s where most of your people are. And then if you give them an opportunity to join a private group that’s deeper in the funnel, smaller people. But those you’re both building your building the know like and trust factor by doing this. And I’ve had a number of clients that I’ve counseled to do this, and I don’t like Facebook. So it doesn’t matter whether you like Facebook or not, it’s a very easy to use place where you can create private groups, but you can’t just create the group, you have to work the group. You have to actually put value into the group, you have to engage with people, etcetera. They if you do that, they will engage with you. Not all of them, obviously. But those techniques of taking advantage of the microtransactions of increasing value. I know I’m harping on that, but people don’t do it. And they need to. Those techniques I’ve done over and over again with multiple clients, and they always work. It’s a variation on the personalization idea. We’re not necessarily personalizing the message, but we’re personalizing the environment that these prospects are living in. And then there might be an elite group. I am part of an elite network networking group, which is the most valuable 60 minutes I spend every week. But it’s only about 10 people who are on this call. But there are 10 very high quality, folks. This group is by invitation only. And these are the layers. So layers is another way to consider personalization. And it’s a particularly effective in the B2B world. Because you’re busy executives are just that busy. So when they give you a moment of their time, make it valuable.

Christian Klepp  43:55

Make it valuable, make it count.

James Hipkin  43:57

Make it count.

Christian Klepp  43:59

Make it count. No fantastic, guys, we unpacked so much again today. And thank you so much for sharing your experience and your expertise with the listeners. And thank you so much for your time.

Kylie Lang  44:12

Oh, you’re welcome. I love that.

James Hipkin  44:14

So it was a pleasure. Christian, and Kylie. It’s great chatting with you always.

Kylie Lang  44:20

Thank you, you too.

Christian Klepp  44:22

Fantastic! Okay, folks. So now that we’ve covered the middle of the funnel in our discussion today, that leaves us with a final destination, which is the bottom of the funnel. So what happens when prospects reach this part and what should marketers be paying attention to? So tune in next week for part three of this mini-series to find out. Same time, same channel. So in the meantime, take care, stay safe and talk to you soon. This is your host Christian Klepp, signing off for now.