How to Create Better B2B Marketing Funnels (Part 3)

We’ve finally made it to Part 3 of our miniseries, where we talk about the bottom of the B2B marketing funnel with experts Kylie Lang (Quiz Funnel Strategist, Kylie Lang) and James Hipkin (CEO & Founder, Inn8ly). During our conversation, Kylie and James elaborate on what B2B marketers should be focusing on from a strategic perspective. They also talk about what mistakes to avoid, explain the importance of personalization, and provide actionable steps aimed at increasing conversions and reducing churn rates.

https://youtu.be/0-E778dl-js

Topics discussed in this episode:

• What B2B marketers need to focus on at the bottom of the funnel from a strategic perspective [2:13]
  
  • Show don’t tell
    
  • Conversion vs. elimination
    
  
  
• What marketers should NOT do at the bottom of the funnel [11:43]
  
  • Not using transactional emails and thank you pages effectively
    
  • Don’t leverage personalization enough in their communications with customers
    
  
  
• The role of personalization [17:43] | [22:50]
  
• What marketers can do to increase conversions and reduce churn rates at the bottom of the funnel [28:01]
  

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 three of a three part mini-series about the marketing funnel. So I’m joined today, once again, by two marketing veterans. And I’d like to say, first of all, thank you to both of you for all the time, and expertise and experience that you’ve imparted to this audience throughout this panel discussion that’s been incredibly interesting and insightful, to say the least. Well, let me just do the introductions. Once again, we’re joined by Kylie Lang, also known as the Quiz Funnel Queen, who helps B2B companies to generate the right leads for their businesses through engaging quizzes. And Mr. James Hipkin, who’s an expert in all things around the creation, development and launching of websites as well as the ecosystem surrounding that. So once again, welcome back, Kylie and James. 

Kylie Lang  01:23

Thank you. 

James Hipkin  01:24

Happy to be here. Looking forward to this.

Christian Klepp  01:27

Indeed, indeed. And, as we were just discussing, just before I hit record, I mean, we have covered so much ground in our panel discussion regarding the marketing funnel. So we started at the top of the funnel, which obviously focuses on raising awareness for companies, products and services. Then we moved on to the middle of the funnel, which is aligning with the consideration stage of the buyers journey. And now we are going for what they call in North America, hitting the home run, which is the bottom of the funnel, which focuses on content and activities aimed at helping companies to close the deal. So let’s kick off this conversation by talking about what B2B marketers need to focus on at the bottom of the funnel from from a strategic perspective, please.

Kylie Lang  02:13

Well, I guess for me, one of the things I have started focusing on more and more is show don’t tell. So from my perspective, I much prefer to tell stories and let people see the transformation, not with me telling them about the transformation, but my clients telling them about the transformation. So to give you an example, every time I launch a quiz for a client, I now make sure that I write a story about that particular client, about their journey, about what happened at the very beginning, all the way through to the moment when their quizzes launched, what were the challenges they faced, what was it that they wanted to achieve. What were their goals, what was the strategy behind it, but by telling it as a story, rather than me, talking about what my service is, how it’s going to work, what it’s going to do for you how it’s going to be amazing, et cetera, et cetera, you’re telling it through the eyes of somebody who has actually been there. And it is so much more powerful, and there’s different stories that are gonna work for different people. So generally speaking, within your audience, especially if you use a quiz funnel, you’re going to know the various different things that your customers do, whether they are coaches, whether they’re service providers, whether they’re selling a product, whether they are… they have a course, or a membership, etc. So you can target those stories. So they directly relate to the niche that that particular person is in. Because if they’re a coach, and they do one to one coaching, are they really going to be that interested in how somebody who’s got a membership decided to launch their quiz? Probably not. But the idea here, as I say, is show don’t tell. It just there’s a reason we had that at school, it was always the case of bringing in whatever it is you want to show people to show them, don’t just talk about it. So that for me is one of the first strategies that I always look at implementing.

James Hipkin  04:19

And building a little bit on that and a slightly different angle to the same point. If the middle of funnel, if the top of the funnel is about attraction, and the middle of the funnel is about consideration, the bottom of the funnel is about prospecting. Recognize that the journey that your potential customer is on, they need to make a decision. They probably have one or two, maybe three different choices that they need to select from. So when you’re… and a lot of this happens on the website, this is where my particular expertise gets involved either a marketing landing page or the website in general, you want to support that buying decision and recognize that they’re in a prospecting mode now. They want to make a choice. So don’t tell them what they’ve already know. Tell them what they need to know, in order to make a good choice, and choose you. An interesting concept here is while we’re trying to drive for conversion, the other half of that conversion coin is elimination. So while you want to convert the best customers possible, as efficiently as possible, you also want to eliminate the customers who aren’t a good fit for you and what you’re doing. And oddly enough, that elimination exercise is a trust event, we talked about know like and trust being very important in the mid funnel, it’s also important at the bottom of the funnel, you want these folks to make this purchase decision for the right reasons. So that they’re completely confident in what they’ve done. And there, there’s a high level of assurity, that this is the right path for them. And keeping that in mind strategically, as you choose the words and choose the offers and choose what you’re going to highlight to Kylie’s point about show don’t tell. You have to recognize that where the customer is in their purchase journey, and support that. When you support that you’ll start getting the right customers for the right reasons.

Kylie Lang  06:55

Yeah, I couldn’t agree more. It’s certainly I see big mistakes made on landing pages, the wrong things being said, people talking about rather than talking about the benefits, they talked about the features, which is something that you know, it is one of those things we see happen all the time. And it doesn’t seem to matter how many times you say, we don’t seem to rather resist talking about what those features are, or whatever exciting product or service it is that we’ve got, instead of talking about the benefits, painting the picture, because you’ve already built that know, like trust factor with them. And as you quite rightly said, now we’re at the point where we want to really hone in on attract or repel. That is the key here is attracting those right customers and repelling the wrong ones. I had something like this happened quite recently. And it was somebody that had reached out to me, she’d been on my email list for quite a long time. I didn’t know her personally, I just looked up to see how long she’d been in my audience for. But as I was talking to this person, when we were on a discovery call, I realized very quickly that this person was not my ideal customer. And so as we were talking, I realized that the things that I was saying to her weren’t resonating with her either. And it was one of those moments when we both kind of looked at each other. And although neither of us said anything, the conversation came to an actual close, and neither of us actually followed up with each other. And it was that moment where suddenly I went, oh my goodness, I have just literally gone through the attract and repel scenario of repelling someone who is just not my ideal client. They don’t get what I do, I would not enjoy working with them. And I think something else that we’ve talked about in the past, James, is the fact that it’s not just having somebody to work with, not just enjoying working with them, but all those other things that happen around it. And I know certainly for me, a lot of my work does come from referral because I am a one to one person. That’s what I do. And so therefore there isn’t necessarily that opportunity to have repeat business. So by attracting the right people who absolutely love what you do, want to shout it from the rooftops, tell everybody else about it as well. That is all part and parcel of that strategy that you were referring to, Christian, when you’re talking about actually getting to that bottom part of the funnel and things you should be thinking about.

James Hipkin  09:26

Right. And a technique that’s really effective at that bottom in the attract versus repel exercise is to echo the quiz at the top of the funnel by using an assessment survey. Yes, the assessment survey is a lot richer, it takes a lot more time. It takes a lot more consideration by the prospect. But at the end of it, the right customer will have convinced themselves that you are the best choice for them by virtue of the thought process they’ve gone through as they complete the assessment survey. Another technique that’s used that salespeople particularly should be aware of, is don’t think of it as a discovery call necessarily. Think of it as an enrollment call, you’re trying to enroll this prospect into your ecosystem, into your set of solutions. And the it’s a semantic subtlety. You know, discovery calls can be very effective as well. But this is more about recognizing where they are and the information you already have on this person. Kylie, you looked up how long that person had been with you. You, you know, you knew that they had information about what you were doing, at least they’ve been exposed to it. So the conversation you were having with them was more about is, are they a good fit? And the enrollment call is a very effective way to do that. It’s a different name for the same event. But it has a slightly different meaning to it.

Christian Klepp  11:11

Yeah, no, those are some really great points. And I’d like to go back to something both of you said, so if we’re talking about like, not focusing on the features, and focusing instead on the benefits, spending a lot of time also at that part of the funnel, continuing to qualify and assess those prospects. What other things do you see out there that… you look at that and you tell marketers, for goodness sakes, please stop doing that at the bottom of the funnel.

James Hipkin  11:39

I tell you it’s…

Christian Klepp  11:41

Here we go.

James Hipkin  11:43

Consumer, that your prospect, their interest in what you’re doing, their interest in solving their problem looks like a bell curve. And that conversion event, that first sale is not at the end of the bell curve. It’s at the middle of the bell curve, it’s where their interest is highest. But their interest does not just vanish, once they’ve made that purchase. And this is the biggest missed opportunity that I see is that the sales process is set up, all they’re rewarded on is the closing the deal. And then all interest in the customer vanishes. Whereas their interest in what they’ve just done remains high. They’re looking for confirmation that they’ve made a good choice, they’re looking for confirmation that you know, you value their business, what you’re looking for here is to take this opportunity to lift the relationship beyond the transactional into the emotional, so that there is value being created, that goes beyond the functional benefits of the product or service that you’re selling. And that the best time to do that is immediately after that first sale. And yet it’s a missed opportunity, so often. Transactional emails. You know, nobody thinks about transactional emails, except the person who’s receiving those transactional emails, they’re paying attention. What a great opportunity to build that relationship to create value that goes beyond the functional and transactional benefits of whatever it is you’re selling. It’s such a simple idea. I rarely see anybody doing anything effectively with transactional emails.

Christian Klepp  13:44

So poorly executed, and I think that’s the point. So poorly executed.

James Hipkin  13:48

Yeah, you have to send them, you have to send them an email saying, you know, here’s your link to download your thing. Whatever it is that you’re selling.

Kylie Lang  13:55

It’s not just that either. It’s thank you pages where I see such a big missed opportunity. In fact, I’ll give you an example right now, literally, that happened yesterday with one of my clients who is about to launch their quiz. We were running through the various different things, and they are running to a waitlist for their course. That’s how they’re doing it. And I was checking through everything just to make sure it all worked. And sure enough, when the person submitted the form, or I submitted the form as I was testing, it took me to one of those little pop up boxes that said, thanks! And that was it. Yeah, there was nothing. So of course, I sent a very nice email to my client, just sort of reminding them that this is a very important piece of real estate. You are missing a trick here. We need to capitalize on that excitement. They’ve just got onto the waitlist. Now they haven’t even bought yet. So it’s even more important that you keep that excitement and that is enthusiasm and you keep them nurtured. And the first thing we want to make sure that we do is give them a little bit of an instruction on “Don’t forget to check your junk mail.” We all know there’s issues, getting emails to be delivered and not into spam and promotions and all the rest of it. So use that as an opportunity. Absolutely do a video, show how excited you are that they are on your VIP waitlist, or they have just purchased your course or they’re now part of your membership, or whatever it might be and tell them what to expect. Don’t have to be long do they, James.

James Hipkin  15:33

And give them something. You know, tell them, hey, we’ve enrolled you in our email newsletter, you will get a welcome email. And in that welcome email, there’s going to be a link for a free download for whatever. You know, even though you know everybody’s hard drive is clogged up with PDFs they haven’t looked at. The gesture. The fact that you’ve acknowledged them, you’ve said you are important to me customer. And you’ve given them something surprise and delight. I mean, it’s…

Kylie Lang  16:07

Oh, yes, I love that.

James Hipkin  16:08

There’s simple things but people don’t do it. They don’t take the trouble. Thank you pages are super valuable real estate. And not just on a waitlist, but on a sale as well. Because the sales… Another common thing that I see mistaken on the internet, bless them. People use marketing funnel and sales funnel interchangeably.

Christian Klepp  16:36

Oh, yeah,

James Hipkin  16:37

They are not the same things. Just what we’ve been talking about is the marketing funnel, drawing people in, bringing them along, developing know like and trust, converting the right, attracting the right customers, repelling the wrong customers. The sales funnel is what happens after that first sale. Customers like you often like this product, or, you know, here’s a limit for a limited time only,  you can upgrade your purchase to this other offer, or, you know, downgrade it. You know, get the other offer, but it’ll pay for it in three easy payments. I mean, there’s so many things you can do in the sales funnel. Because that’s when you think about that bell curve, again, that I was talking about. Their interest is very high. They want to know what you have to offer. They want to know what else you have to offer. So that thank you page, thank you pages, email that, again, it’s a transactional event. But it’s such valuable real estate,

Kylie Lang  17:43

It is. And something that you can do you know, when you are sending people to something like a waitlist, which you know, is quite a normal thing. When you’re building a funnel and you’re… you’re having excitement, and then you do X amount of launches per year. With those videos, I quite often suggest rather than giving people something like another PDF to download or a worksheet or a checklist, we send them homework. So they act because this does one of several things. It keeps them engaged, it gives them something to do and it makes them email you. So you can actually start to have this conversation with them. So  you set the seed in the video on the thank you page, you keep it very, very simple. This is not you know, school homework that’s going to take you hours to complete. It’s supposed to be something fun, that really prepares you for what’s going to happen when the waitlist opens. And then you follow that up with emails, reminding them about the homework, and then giving them examples of how somebody else approached that homework. It’s all about keeping the lines of communication open, making sure they feel nurtured. And as you said, hitting them in the happy spot where they are right now because they’re so excited about I’m on the waitlist for I’ve just bought XYZ. One thing I saw somebody do not so long ago was for a membership. I signed up for a membership. With Active Campaign actually, it was somebody who I greatly respect and admire. And Active Campaign is a huge part of my business. And this was a membership and it was an expensive membership. You know, it’s a substantial amount of money each month. One day after I’d signed up for that membership. First of all, the email I got was brilliant. But one day later, a personalized Bonjoro came through to me mentioning me talking about one of the pain points this person knew that I had because of the way I’d responded to something. And I was so impressed with that I’ve been suggesting to other people to add that into their funnels as well, because it was so personal. It wasn’t a pre recorded thing. It was completely personalized to me. And it again it made me want to dive in quicker and start on this membership and get excited about it. Because it was really capitalizing on the way I was feeling at that particular moment. I thought how well done was there.

James Hipkin  20:03

Yeah, personalization is so, so vital. Another tactical thing that can be done against this strategy is oftentimes, particularly in B2B, you have the sales process… sales team is bringing the customers in and bringing them all the way through to the conversion event. And then you have an account manager, who is going to take over the business at that point and manage them going forward. This is a pretty common scenario in a B2B situation. I had a client who listened to what I was saying, and I said, Look, do a quick little loom video or a zoom recording, with the sales guy making the introduction to the account manager, both of them on the screen at the same time talking to the customer by name, and then email that to the customer. You know, it’s, again, it takes a little bit of trouble. But for B2B stuff, where the average ticket value is going to be a lot higher than a B2C situation. My God, that transition time that transition, making that personal, and going to that extra extra yard makes such a difference in converting this from a transactional relationship to a relationship with value.

Christian Klepp  21:34

Absolutely. And that thank you to you both, because you just answered the second question about the role of personalization. Because that’s something and I’m glad you brought that up James and, and Kylie too, because it’s something like, you know, I was reading about it on LinkedIn again this morning. And you know, how often the personalization aspect gets, tends to get overlooked in B2B, right, even to a certain degree in B2C but, and there’s been articles out there, there’s been like very, I’m gonna just say, passionate exchanges on this topic. Because there’s a camp that says, Okay, let’s get as many leads as we can. And there’s another camp, I tend to be part of that camp that says, let’s focus on quality leads that are the right fit. And for that, you need personalization, back to the point that you both are making,

James Hipkin  22:30

Right, and personalization is even more vital, when you’re making the transition from somebody being a prospect to somebody being customer. And another aspect of personalization that I can riff on this for just a little bit.

Christian Klepp  22:47

Please, riff away.

James Hipkin  22:50

The tone of voice that’s used in a sales marketing world tends to be generic, tends to be very, you know, proud and excited and confident. That same tone of voice is often not appropriate, within customer communication. Because it leaves the impression that you don’t know who I am. You’re not talking to me in a real voice, you’re not talking to me as if you know, we have a relationship. Because the customer thinks that they have a relationship with with the company. The customer knows that they’re a good customer, one of the relationship marketing principles is good customers expect to be rewarded. And I noticed I said rewarded, not bribed. And part of that is talk to…

Christian Klepp  23:47

Significantly different.

James Hipkin  23:48

Oh, yeah. Talk to me like I’m a normal person, talk to me like you know me. Don’t talk to me, like we, you know, we just met in the bar, you know. And yet marketers do this all the time, they use exactly the same tone of voice in their sales communication as they do in their customer communication. And it’s a simple change. That makes a big difference.

Christian Klepp  24:13

I’m curious, I mean, like, you know, thanks for sharing that. But I’m curious what both of you think about why are people in the B2B world so eager to quickly skip past the personalization aspect and dive straight into the transactional part.

James Hipkin  24:29

What gets measured gets done. You gotta fin…. You know, the biggest people talked about the conflict between sales and marketing. The real conflict is between sales, marketing and finance. And, you know, finance is extremely important. And it’s extremely important that that the business be profitable and that these costs be managed and all that sort of thing. But as soon as Finance starts to measure the wrong things. The wrong things get done. And if they’re being measured on on pure sales volume, number of transactions, that sort of thing, you know, versus being measured on lifetime value of the customer, longevity of the customer, you know, how many… what’s the customer product profile look like? You know, what percentage of your customer base are buying one thing from you, what percentage of your customer base are buying two things from you? What percentages buy? If those sorts of things get measured, and people are rewarded based on that, versus simple transactions, you will see a significant change in the way everybody, marketing, sales starts to think about the whole process. So that’s, that’s a really, it’s a, it’s a silent killer for a lot of companies is the you know, the wrong things are being measured. Alright.

Kylie Lang  26:08

Yeah. I mean, I would tend to agree with that as well, I, I’d say that’s probably the main driving factor behind why personalization isn’t seen in B2B scenarios in the same way as it possibly is in B2C. And, of course, you know, you are looking at all of those different teams that all have to answer to different people. And when you’re a much smaller company, you can afford that time you can do that personalization, you don’t get lost in the numbers. And that’s a whole different ballgame altogether. But I don’t really have anything to add to that. I think James put that incredibly well. And I’ll let you have the final word on that one.

Christian Klepp  26:50

Yeah, no, I mean, I totally agree. I mean, it’s, it tends to be like, everybody is getting pressure to deliver. And that interpretation of how you deliver tends to be something quantifiable. And the easiest way to measure that progress? I’m not gonna I’m not gonna say success, because that’s, that’s been thrown around very loosely these days. But the way that you show that progress is okay, these are how many leads we brought in. This is how many companies we have called today, for instance, right? I mean, I’m oversimplifying it now. Right? Yeah. So moving on to the next question, which I know is, tends to be a little bit broad. But let’s, let’s look at this from a top level perspective. Okay, there’s many buzzwords or key words when it comes to the bottom of the funnel, but two that really stick out are conversion, and reducing churn rates, ok. So talk to us about what marketers can do to increase those conversions and reduce those churn rates at the bottom of the funnel.

Kylie Lang  27:56

Oh, go on James, you look like you’re about to say something then.

James Hipkin  28:01

The best way to increase conversions at the bottom of the funnel is to increase the quality of the prospects at the top of the funnel. It’s these, this the marketing funnel is a reflection of reality, we were chatting about demand generation at the beginning. And I made the comment and I stand by it that if you want to improve demand, solve a real problem that lots of people have. If you’re solving a real problem that lots of people have, you’re going to attract high quality folks into the top of the funnel, you’re going to use the techniques in the mid funnel to build that relationship. And then at the bottom of the funnel, you’re not only going to convert them efficiently, but you’re going to convert a customer that has long lifetime value. You know, a customer who is willing to buy more things from you, who will stay with you longer, who will pay full price because they understand the value that you’re bringing to their business or their their life. They’re customers who who you don’t have to bribe though, and they’ll advocate for you. They’ll tell their colleagues about the great experience they’ve had working with your company. You know, that’s how you reduce churn. You know, and focusing. The other thing, and I alluded to this before when I was talking about finance and what gets measured gets done, measuring the quality of your customer base, and using that to drive customer communication. There’s an old analytic technique out of the direct marketing and catalog world called RFM. Recency Frequency Monetary, the customer that bought from you most recently who buys from you most frequently and who spends The most money with you is the customer most likely to buy from you again. And every customer base has this, these characteristics. And if you start focusing your customer communication on the people who score high in all three of these metrics, you’re not only emphasizing your offer to people who care, you’re also eliminating the people who don’t care. All of marketing in the world is not going to change somebody’s needs state if they don’t need your product very often. Marketing is not going to change that.

Kylie Lang  30:46

No, I totally agree. And I think for me, when it comes down to this bottom of the funnel action, I agree with James, and something we’ve referred to already, it is about personalization. It’s about knowing who they are to be able to know how to sell to them. And James, you talked about this very briefly earlier on, the assessment style of quiz and using that in order to really draw them in, we’ve seen that use so successfully, because it comes down to the investment of time and getting to know that person so well, that everything you send them at this bottom of funnel stage is so completely and utterly targeted to them. Exactly. So as long as they’ve, as you said, as long as they’ve got that need and requirement in the first place, then actually buying from you is a no brainer. It was always a question of well, who were they going to get it from, and if they feel that invested, because you’ve taken the time to not only provide them with something that like an assessment that makes them go so much deeper themselves, and really think things through. But then when you’re using that information back at them to package, whatever it is that you’re selling in a particular way, that is one of the most powerful things for conversions. That will bring your conversion rate up. So for me, it’s always about knowing that customer journey, and really understanding who that individual person is, so that you can literally personalize everything that you put in front of them. That for me has given me the biggest conversion rate with anything else. But it’s all part of the same thing. And it does start with attracting the right quality person, as you said at the top of the funnel. But then once you’ve attracted them, you’ve got to take them on a journey, you’ve got to give them an experience, which is obviously what we talked about in the middle of the funnel. But then as you reach this bottom of funnel stage, it doesn’t stop there. It’s about taking all that juicy data that you’ve gathered on them all those emails you’ve seen them answer and actually taking that information and making it personal. That to me wins hands down every time.

James Hipkin  33:08

So give them don’t tell them what they already know.

Christian Klepp  33:12

Exactly.

James Hipkin  33:13

Because by doing telling them what they already know, you’re telling them that we don’t really know you.

Kylie Lang  33:18

Yes, that’s right, exactly.

Christian Klepp  33:21

Both of you brought up such a great point. And it brings me back to an interview I had with a gentleman a couple of months ago. And this is somebody who was in the SaaS space responsible for customer success. And you probably know where I’m going with this story. But SaaS tends to have a reputation for always struggling with churn rates. So and what this particular person was talking about, and it wasn’t a situation unique to his company alone, they’ve managed to solve the problem. But what he said he’s seen in the space happened so often is that the salespeople are so focused on closing the deal. And then they put the client through this very standard onboarding where there is very little personalization attached to it. There is very sporadic communication throughout the tenure of the of that contract. And the only time they start drumming up a conversation, again, is when it gets close to the renewal stage. Right. And what tends to happen just quickly to this person’s point was, then the client says, Well, I don’t want to renew. Right, that’s when they pick up the red phone and call Batman. Right. So and they help.

Kylie Lang  34:32

Going to overdrive Yes.

Christian Klepp  34:34

And basically, and to the guest’s point is like when you’ve reached that stage, clearly the system has failed.

James Hipkin  34:42

Right. One of the in the five relationship marketing principles that I wrote back in the 1990s. The fourth one is continuously reinforce the reasons to purchase it. It’s so important… And again, this is where what gets measured gets done that conversation circles back here. There’s an old axiom that that people have probably heard, but I want to put an underline on it. The most important sale is not the first sale. It’s the second sale. Amen. And if, if your systems and metrics are being set up, so people are being rewarded based on the first sale, guess what, there won’t be a second sale. But if your systems and metrics are set up to reward based on the second sale, you will have a much higher quality of customer people will pay more attention to the customers, the customers will feel rewarded, and the business will be rewarded.

Kylie Lang  35:51

It’s all about your client experience at the end of the day, isn’t it. It’s providing that experience for them. I mean, something we always do, as a matter, of course, is whenever a new client comes on board, the first thing I do is send them a very, and I mean, very short 15 second video of I’ve got a little whiteboard. And I have a little piece of writing on there, which says you know, I’m so excited you’re on board, and they’re expecting this from me, there’s a little bit of Abba dancing going on. And I send that to them, just show them how excited I am. And they love it every single time I get a response to those emails sent. That was the funniest onboarding video I have ever received in my life. And I changed them up and make them all different. They’re never the same. But it’s just that personalization. Because one of the questions I asked in my quiz is what’s your favorite episode. So I can take that piece of information. And I can use that back at them as they decided to come on board with me. Now that is taken to the extreme. It’s not a particularly B2B scenario. But it’s an example of how people can feel like you value them that you’ve taken the time to do something that is totally related to them, showcases your personality, and lets them know that you’re excited that they’ve come on board, and they’re going to be part of this quiz journey with you or with me. So there’s so many little things. And there’s so many the nuances that you can plug in not all of them have to be like that, and personalization to that degree. But something that we’ve implemented in my digital course company is a week after somebody has enrolled. And we actually have emails that go out to them that say, how are you getting on? what module you up to? Do you want to hop on a call with one of our mentors to talk about anything? And again, it’s just that whole, you’re not just one of a number, we’ve taken your money, you’ll do the course. And we’ll hopefully you’ll stay on and become part of a membership. It’s more than that. We want them to have an amazing experience. We want them to feel like they can ask us questions. That the decision to enroll on that course was the right one. So that when another opportunity comes up, when we’re selling something different – another course or access to a masterclass series, or whatever it might be, it’s a no brainer for them. They want to invest further with this, because everything we’re doing, and I think for me, the key word here is special, we’re making them feel special, we’re giving them what we call the VIP treatment so that they wouldn’t even consider enrolling with anybody else for anything similar to what we do.

James Hipkin  38:36

The other thing is, in this ongoing communication, and this is particularly relevant for B2B businesses. Most B2B businesses have a range of products and services. Yes, most of their customers have no idea what the range of products and services that this company offers. There, they bought one thing. If you’re using your ongoing customer communication, as a platform for information, you’re not selling, you’re informing and looking at your data. You’ve got okay, so there’s this, this customer who has this that has this profile. And then we have these other customers who have very similar profile, but these other customers have also purchased this and this. So go back to the customer who’s only got one thing, then tell them about the other things and you know what happens? People go oh, I didn’t know that you offered that. Right. I didn’t know that you have that product. I didn’t know that that service was available. I need that.

Kylie Lang  39:47

I’ve literally just experienced that. Literally. I have. I won’t hide it. I’m 51 and yep, I bought some pills to manage menopause. So these wonderful bottles of pills arrived. And sure enough, within two weeks of me having received them, I got this email saying: Did you know we also have this supplement product that goes with this, which will help with weight management during menopause. And it was so well done. And they followed up with me twice and showed me not selling it to me. But showing me stories of how other people same age as me going through the same thing as me had combined these two products to have XYZ result. Now of course, what did I do, I whipped up my credit card, I bought the weight management pills to go along with the other pills. But it was so well done, it was seamless, I didn’t feel like I was being sold to. And I dissect. I’ve kept the emails because I was so interested in the process. And everything they’re doing is following up with me, giving me different stories giving me different examples of things. And sometimes it’s just something simple. Like a quick tip about did you know, if you had lemon juice first thing in the morning mixed in with your water, it sparks your metabolism, or however they put it. They weren’t selling me anything, they were just giving me a quick tip to help me start my day. But all this information, and I know that they’re not sending it because I’ve got a different email address to register for their marketing stuff. This is my sales email address. When I’m actually a customer, I’m getting different information.

James Hipkin  41:26

So you look at the tone of voice. Two streams of communication…

Kylie Lang  41:31

Totally different.

James Hipkin  41:33

It will be totally different. Doing it well. Because the tone of voice that you can use and should use in a sales situation needs to be distinct. Still needs to resonate with your brand. But when you get into a customer communication thing, don’t use… use a friendlier, more personal tone of voice and you know, more supportive, you’re not selling, you’re supporting. You’re informing, you’re not selling, you’re informing.

Kylie Lang  42:01

Yeah.

James Hipkin  42:02

And it sounds like subtle, and it is subtle. But it’s very effective.

Kylie Lang  42:12

I think there’s two words supporting, not selling. That’s exactly what they were doing. It’s supporting and informing. And that has been prevalent across this whole, I think maybe eight week journey I’ve had with them so far, exactly everything you have described, I don’t know whether or not you’ve had a hand in this particular thing. But everything that you’ve described is what they’re doing. And as the person on the receiving end for once, rather than the person that’s actually creating this stuff. It’s been a fabulous journey. And I will write a five star review. I am very happy with the way they’ve on boarded me and all the rest of it. It’s been an amazing experience. So now I’ll tell other people about it, because I think it’s fantastic.

James Hipkin  42:57

And there. This is where… This is how good customers contribute revenue to a business five ways. And it’s… but you have to work at it. It’s not… it doesn’t happen by magic. There’s no magic involved. You need a strategy. You need to be committed to this. You need to be recognized that the your best source of future value is your existing customers. And then push that… it knowledge back out into your prospecting world, because the knowledge you gained from supporting your existing customers, informs what you’re doing at the top of the funnel.

Christian Klepp  43:38

Yeah, that’s absolutely right. Absolutely right. Guys, we could have gone on for another 10 hours just talking about this stuff. I mean, you’ve given us so much already in this session. Right? We’ve started with the looking at this from a strategic perspective. We’ve talked about the well let’s call them the bad habits that people should get run off, not just at the top of the funnel, but throughout the different stages. Right? You highlighted some brilliant case studies and you know, Kylie, thank you for sharing that story. Right. Just another great example about like, you know, how a little bit of personalization can go a long way. Right?

Kylie Lang  43:38

There is not enough money in the world to make me do that LIVE. And I wouldn’t…. anyone else do that either. But it does have to be superduper, that is my absolute favorite. So thank you for that. So you guys can reach me at Kylielang.com. That is where everything quiz orientated happens. And as Christian has introduced me, I’m a quiz funnel strategist, strategist being the key word there. So I don’t just create quizzes, I create the entire strategy, as well as the funnel. That is all I do. It is quizzes and quizzes only. So these things work for pretty much any product in any industry. But if you want to have a chat, come and see me and take my quiz that Kylielang.com

Kylie Lang  44:20

Yeah, definitely.

Christian Klepp  44:21

So folks to wrap up this panel discussion, I’d like to say first of all, thank you to both of you for once again, being so generous with your time and sharing your experience and expertise with the audience. So please, quick introduction to yourselves, and how folks out there can get in touch with you and Kylie. Another bonus question for you. Which ABBA song are you going to sing before we wrap this up?

Christian Klepp  45:01

Thank you.

James Hipkin  45:11

And my business, we design and build websites for businesses, we do large corporate websites, and we also do websites for smaller businesses. So best way to get a hold of me is go to sixsecondsorless.com. And I will give you a free website audit, we’ll go through the six ways to engage website visitors in six seconds or less. And I’ll dissect your website, your homepage, particularly usually we talk about the homepage and the about us page against those principles. And then this always spins out into other conversations around who is your best customer, what is the journey they are on, the things we’ve talked about in this little mini series, absolutely need to be reflected in your website. And keep in mind, your website’s the most important digital asset that you own. And most of them are not up to the task. So take advantage of this. Go to sixsecondsorless.com , book some time on my calendar. And I’ll be happy to talk to you about your digital marketing and your website and how you can maximize the impact of what you’re doing online.

Christian Klepp  46:56

Fantastic. Fantastic. So once again, Kylie and James, thank you so much to both of you. Take care, stay safe and talk to you soon. This is your host Christian Klepp, signing off for now.