Sam Carvalho with Shauna Armitage on How to Create a Relationship Marketing Funnel | PoP 583

campaigns, competitive analysis, digital marketing, lead generation, marketing, marketing advice, marketing campaigns, relationship marketing funnel

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Do you use a relationship marketing funnel or the traditional inbound funnel? Why should you consider making the switch to a relationship marketing funnel in the time of social media? How can conducting competitive analyses help you understand your own business better?

In this reverse podcast episode, Sam Carvalho speaks with Shauna Armitage about How to Create a Relationship Marketing Funnel.

Meet Shauna Armitage

After obtaining two Bachelor’s degrees in four years, Shauna struggled to find work in the ailing economy of 2011 and turned to freelance writing. It didn’t take long for her to discover that her abilities as a writer were highly valued by marketers and only a year later, Shauna had taken a position as Director of Digital Content for an agency.

Wanting to create a more effective marketing solution for startups than the agency model, Shauna began stepping into the fractional marketing director role. Through her intensive approach, Shauna has helped her clients achieve results such as a 400% increase in website conversions and a 220% growth in sales.

She is the host of the Startup Renegades podcast, a raw conversation with founders about their business journeys and the growth strategies they’ve used to successfully scale their brands

Visit her website or Startup Renegades podcast and connect on Instagram.

Email: [email protected]

In This Podcast

Summary

How the relationship marketing funnel differs from the traditional inbound funnel
The relationship marketing funnel is more active than passive
The funnel and the campaign
How to complete a strong competitive analysis
Some marketing mistakes business owners are making
Shauna’s advice to private practitioners

How the relationship marketing funnel differs from the traditional inbound funnel

I think inbound is really tough these days just for the sheer fact that all the industries are saturated, so we could be putting the most valuable content out there and SEOing to our heart’s content, but that ends up being more passive than active. (Shauna)

With social media at the forefront of our connection systems, and the fact that people are going into physical stores less and are mostly searching for products online, relationship funnels are becoming more vital because people are making purchases based on connections and convenience.

A lot of consumers are more discerning with how they make purchases these days, so they’re really looking for brands that share their values. (Shauna)

When a brand or company can connect with potential customers over a value or principle that they share, that is what the relationship marketing funnel is about.

The relationship marketing funnel is more active than passive

Where the traditional inbound funnel has you attracting customers passively through blanket advertising and specials, the relationship marketing funnel is more active because you are focused on lead generation and brand awareness:

Whether you are doing strategic partnerships to get in front of somebody else’s audience, or
You are running ads to get in front of people,
You are working on getting that brand awareness done, instead of waiting for customers to find you.

Through the relationship marketing funnel, your conversion is not solely the sale but the lead capture which means: what is your offer?

What can you do that is valuable, so that your lead – the potential customer – gives you their contact information, and creates a relationship with you?

The funnel and the campaign

The funnel is how we communicate with them, how we get them into the ecosystem and how we [are] converting them into a paid customer, but then for the campaign: a campaign might touch on certain parts of the funnel but campaigns have all different goals: you can have a campaign that is purely for brand awareness and a campaign that is about sales. (Shauna)

A successful marketing campaign therefore will attract a potential customer one way or the other. It will continue that conversation and relationship with that customer after the initial purchase or connection.

The key to run any successful campaign is to make sure that you build goals for it, and that your marketing practices work around achieving that goal. These goals could be:

Brand awareness
To generate leads
To generate sales

How to complete a strong competitive analysis

Do a deep dive into their website:

What offers do they have?
Do you need to have a similar offer?
What kind of language are they using?
Who is the customer that they are talking to?
Identify what they are doing well and what they are doing poorly: this will give you a list of things to avoid and things you can take inspiration from.

Complete a competitive analysis at least twice a year. Often through a full competitive analysis, you learn that actually this person who you thought was working in your field, who may be offering a similar product, is actually marketing it to an entirely different audience. Therefore, you aren’t even competing at all.

In this way, you can also learn which audience is being marketed to and which one is being left out, or does not have a service provider for their needs. You can take this information into your own campaign and expand it to include these groups of people.

Some marketing mistakes business owners are making

1 – They wait to market until they feel ready.

2 – Not investing in marketing properly.

3 – Not being willing to go out there and find your people.

Shauna’s advice to private practitioners

Marketing is going to be an important part of growing your business no matter what your business goals are. Invest in making your brand stand out from the rest and help you to attract your ideal clients.

Useful Links:

Shauna’s free community listeners can join here.
Email Sam at [email protected]
Design Services With Sam
Apply to work with us

Meet Sam Carvalho

Sam Carvalho is a graphic designer living in Cape Town, South Africa, with over five years of experience in both design and marketing, with a special interest and experience in the start-up environment.

She has been working with Practice of the Practice since 2016 and has helped over 70 therapist entrepreneurs take their practices to the next level by enhancing their visual branding. She loves working with a variety of clients on design-intensive tasks and is always up for a challenge!

Follow Sam on Instagram to see some of her work. To work with Sam, head on over to www.practiceofthepractice.com/branding.

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