Some of you may be familiar with the concept of a marketing funnel. But, a few of you may not have heard about this before. Let me briefly explain.

A marketing funnel is a visual diagram of the steps a potential customer goes through before they finally decide to commit and purchase your product or service. Believe it or not, the concept dates back to 1898 when Elias St. Elmo Lewis formulated the slogan “attract attention, maintain interest, create desire, get action” (i.e., the AIDA model).

Many funnels end at the point of purchase, but some versions have added additional valuable phases of retention and evangelism. They can become quite complicated, which probably does reflect the reality of how people evaluate options and make decisions (e.g., Forrester’s Funnel).

At this point, you might be wondering, “Why is he talking about marketing and sales funnels?” That’s a fair question.

If you’ve been reading my past newsletters and articles, then you are familiar with my concepts of:

• The P…