Duct Tape Marketing Hourglass Lives

Many of you have been taught the concept of the marketing funnel. The basic idea is you gather leads into the top the large opening in a funnel and ultimately end up with customers at the small end of the funnel. The problem with this approach is all the focus is on the chase.

The real payoff in marketing comes from expanding your thinking on how to turn a lead into a raving fan for your business…a real advocate.

The Marketing Hourglass^TM is a key component of the Duct Tape Marketing System. The top half is similar to the funnel concept, but the expanding bottom half adds the necessary focus on the total customer experience all the gurus tell you to do.

Plus, it ultimately leads to more referrals and increased marketing momentum.

Let’s take a look at your current practices and see how this model comes to life in your business.

It begins with how you look at your customer relationships relative to your marketing tactics. The Marketing Hourglass is a tool which demonstrates how a prospect becomes a customer, and then a customer who becomes a referral source for more business.

The graphic below illustrates the seven stages of referral development and the corresponding touch points along the customer life cycle – know, like, trust, try, buy, repeat, and refer.

Every day I talk to business owners who try to go directly from their ad to the sales pitch, and then wonder why it’s so hard to close the deal.

By adopting the Marketing Hourglass you create a path to move a prospect from knowing about your business to trusting your business, to perhaps sampling low cost offers or trials, and ultimately to making a purchase. In this process the ultimate decision to buy from you becomes much, much easier for your prospect.

To start your thinking about the hourglass concept, and to determine any gaps you may have today, think about these questions:

What is your starter offering?
What is your free or trial offering?
What is your core offering?
Do you have a members-only offering?
What are you add-ons to increase value?
What is your “make it easy to switch” offering?
Who are your strategic partners for referrals?

Want to explore the concept of the Marketing Hourglass in more depth? We have a free ebook explaining the hourglass in detail. Click here to get yours.