“Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is, I don’t know which half.”
John Wanamaker (1838–1922)
That quote from marketing pioneer John Wanamaker describes a truth every marketer deals with. Sometimes more frustrating is that credit for a sale is often given solely to the last touch point—that last contact the buyer has with the seller.
For example, you see an ad on Instagram for a pair of fancy running shoes because Instagram knows you are a hard-core runner. You notice the shoes but don’t interact with the ad—you don’t “like” it, you don’t comment, you don’t go to the seller’s Instagram page or website—you just scroll on by.
But you keep thinking about the shoes. Maybe you see an ad for them on TV or in a runner’s magazine. Perhaps you’ve looked at them in a store or seen a running buddy wearing them. You get the seller’s emails, and you see the shoes in the emails, too.
The next email from the seller comes and you decide to click on the link for the shoes and buy them online.
Credit for the sale goes to that email. But it wasn’t just that email that persuaded you. You saw the shoes in ads (which marketers can sometimes know or guess that you’re part of the audience). You saw them in person (which marketers have no way of knowing). And you saw them in emails (which marketers know).
You moved through what’s called the sales funnel and were completely unaware of it.
One Message, Many Times
Was your decision a result of some of those contacts? All of them? Marketers can’t know. Even we buyers can’t always tell.
That’s why marketers don’t put out an ad once in one place. They put that ad in many places, many times. They create a series of ads for the same thing, and put that series out in many places many times. It’s why marketers use social media, websites, emails, and ads in different media.
And they often rely on soft metrics, such as opening an email or clicking “like” on a post, to trace your movements through the sales funnel, trying to trace your path from awareness of the product to interest in it to purchasing it.
The sales funnel works for freelance editing businesses, too. What brings a client to you? Where does your prospective client become aware of you? What do you do that makes them interested? What finally persuades them?
You can’t always know, so you want to connect with them more than once and in more than one place.
The Freelance Editor’s Sales Funnel in Action
Don’t worry, it’s not as complicated as you might think. Editor Amy J. Schneider once had the rare opportunity to trace a prospective client’s path through the funnel: when a prospect emailed her, she asked how they heard about her, and the prospect was unusually aware of the path they took.
First, they reported, they found Amy in the ACES freelancer directory. The prospect had a well-developed criteria for an editor, which made it easier to choose likely candidates from a list. Amy seemed like a good fit. They became aware of Amy.
Directory listings aren’t usually enough to persuade someone to hire you, though. The prospect then checked out Amy’s LinkedIn profile (which she does not link to her in the directory listing). This demonstrates their interest in Amy: they wanted to know more about her.
Finally, the prospect went to Amy’s website. Now you want to move prospects from interest in you to a desire to work with you. Your website is where you can do this best, talking about the client’s problems and how you can solve them. We like to purchase from people who understand our problems and seem like they can solve them. Your website allows you to do this.
When that last touch point is successful, prospects move to the final phase: contact or purchase. After viewing Amy’s website, the prospect emailed her.
Finding clients is never about one touch point; it’s about many touch points. It’s about figuring out the places clients usually look for editors and being there. It’s about being easily found, even when you’re not always sure where clients are finding you.
Often, clients are only able to tell you the last point where they found you (usually your website), but it never hurts to ask. Any hints about where they saw you helps you determine which half of your advertising is working.
A version of this article originally published on May 24, 2018, on Copyediting.com.
