WebSitesOfNote

Understanding the funnel: " I've been talking about funnels for almost ten years, but realized I hadn't blogged on this... so here goes. Traditional marketing divides the world into two groups:prospectsandcustomers Customers are traditionally undervalued, and prospects are all treated the same. As marketing got more sophisticated, some prospects ended up being treated a little differently than others. Someone reading Field & Stream, for example, is a more valuable prospect to a bullet company than someone reading Bass Fisherman. Missing from this demographically-based analysis is the idea that people can change. They change their posture, their attention and their attitude. And as the knowledge they receive increases, their value as a prospect changes as well. I think marketers always knew this, but they haven't been able to do much about it. Until now. The Google funnel is easily measured and if you're marketing anything to anyone, you need to understand it (this idea is so powerful it's now built in to Google's free web analytics program, Urchin). Imagine someone out there, surfing on the web. He is a prospect of your fishing bait company in that one day, he might become a customer. He's at the top of the funnel. Now, he types 'bass' into Google. Through that action, he has self-identified as a better prospect. He's moved down the funnel and become more valuable to"