Why I hate funnels.

by kevin • 13 years ago

113 31 13 years ago

spolu• 13 years ago

Funnel are shortsighted... Yep. But investors are too I presume?

JonLim• 13 years ago

In the games industry, especially with free-to-play, you can hate funnels all you want, but they're a necessity to understanding where your gameplay loops are doing well and doing poorly.

I've taken the long view that making a really awesome game leads to people wanting to give you money. However, my personal take on that is that it's just another way to spin funnels, in a less aggressive and predatory way.

If I'm mistaken, I'd love to learn why.

thattallguy3• 13 years ago

The process the author describe still uses "funnels" so I don't think you're mistaken.

What we do have to realize, however, is that the intention and language used to describe and execute "marketing", matters a lot.

The author outlines the difference (in his post, and the one's he links to)

-Content focused on teaching (adding value) vs Content focused on converting - Politely asking for emails/subscribers vs requiring an email - referred prospects vs captured leads

One post he links to has a great comment by Gregory Ciotti:

"It humors me how aggressive certain terms can be in this regard: "campaigns," "email blasts," it's like the marketing team is waging war with their prospects."

Language matters, it impacts our actions. From how we create strategies to how we interact with customers or prospects.

Everyone is in the funnel game right now, smart money positions against "everyone".

thomasfrank09• 13 years ago

I think the traditional funnel concept work just fine - as long as you do step three right.

Do many blogs and services spam their subscribers? Yes indeed - and I have an itchy unsubscribe button-clicking finger for those services.

If you change Step 3 to "Provide even more value", though, then you do indeed get customers that love you. And some of them refer their friends, who come in at the top of the funnel like everyone else - but with some preconceived good feelings towards you because of the recommendation they got from a friend.

Pat Flynn's newsletter is a wonderful example of how to do it right. Almost all of the emails I get from him simply give me more useful information - maybe 10% have ever been strictly promotional.

npsimons• 13 years ago

This can be extended to other mediums - I try to only do business with companies that have minimal advertising (such as Vanguard and USAA). Think about it for a moment: where does the money for television advertisements come from? If you're a current customer of a company running TV ads, you're being bilked, and if you're a potential customer, why would you want to do business with a company that will bilk you just to get more new customers?

badman_ting• 13 years ago

I just see them as realistic. Of the people who use the internet, only some will find out about you. Of those, only some of them will care. Of those, only some will be willing & able to pay, etc.

The thing about flipping the funnel upside-down is clever, but I wonder how much it has to do with scale. Word of mouth can be a great driver of growth when you're small, but what about after that? Plus, the same effect applies where only some will pay you. So I'm not sure how different it actually is.

I agree that trying to make money from stuff you built often involves doing things with various degrees of grody-ness. I think what the author has done here is to think about that in a way that he finds palatable, and that's certainly important. But I wonder how much of this is about changing perception rather than action.

codva• 13 years ago

Hating funnels seems sort of weird to me. Especially in this case, where it's just a model of an idea. There is nothing inherently evil about the concept of a funnel. He even makes that point when he turns it upside down and claims it as genius. The act of the trying to force people through the funnel on your timeline instead of theirs is where the problem is. And that act is going to be a problem no matter how you are modeling the customer acquisition process.

ergest• 13 years ago

I feel the same way. In fact the idea of "flipping" the funnel is not new. Seth Godin wrote an ebook on it: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2006/01/flipping_the... It's a lot easier for sales and marketing manager to think about conversion in terms of funnels, so a lot of analytics startups (kissmetrics, mixpanel) have it as a standard report. It seems that using a strong word like hate gets you attention; hence clicks.

kirke2• 13 years ago

Anybody see the background picture behind the article? I'm on my phone, can someone with means extract it and post it somewhere so we can see what it is?

kirke2• 13 years ago

Ah, Planet of the Apes. MailChimp. Got it.

petepete• 13 years ago

Me too; it's not often a site fails this badly on mobile

mixmastamyk• 13 years ago

It's a scene of one of the Planet of the Apes movies, where Charlie is kissing one. Why? no idea...

pbhjpbhj• 13 years ago

http://static.tinyletter.com/ben/2e3214dc-b891-4f73-b622-878...

SandersAK3• 13 years ago

I never understood these types of posts: Take something that is worthy of criticism (the abuse of funnels in user acquisition) and then use hyperbole to make them seem like the worst thing ever.

It's a tool to understand the progression of total audience into customers on a website. Just like CSAT and NPS are both valuable indicators of growth potential.

None of these things are the only thing that matters. And none of them are the best tool or methodology. Just like a spoon isn't the best accessory in the kitchen. That award obviously goes to the garlic press.

thattallguy3• 13 years ago

garlic presses ftw.

I agree with your point and yet still think posts like this are worth while. Many, many, people and businesses are so funnel focused these days, they've lost sight of the bigger picture.

Godin has been talking about this stuff for years, he's a master of hyperbole, and has had a big impact on many people because of it.

SandersAK3• 13 years ago

garlic presses - so efficient right?

I guess if they're good noise makers that get conversations started then maybe that's a net positive.

I just start to wonder if hyperbole is the most effective long term way to communicate - tho to use my own argument against me, i suppose deciding "most" is not the point ;)

brianr• 13 years ago

This is silly. Funnels are a useful abstraction to measure and optimize conversion rates in a multi-step process. How you optimize the steps in the funnel (i.e. spam or not) is up to you.

The "upside down funnel" is really an example of a viral loop, optimistically shaped to imply that loving your customers is guaranteed to bring you more of them. But that is still worth measuring, and once the referrals get to the "try you out" phase, it's worth understanding the process by which they become loyal customers. That's what funnels are for.

krisgee• 13 years ago

Upside down funnel looks like an old timey megaphone. Perhaps that's the analogy here, if you have time to shout your message you might as well shout it to a lot of people.

programminggeek2• 13 years ago

What he describes "the audience" is part of the funnel. The idea that you have a cloud of people just out there taking in your content or marketing or apps or whatever just means they are sitting at the top of the funnel.

You don't have to treat them like a meat grinder at all. You don't have to push every person "into the funnel". In fact, I would argue that's doing it wrong.

If anything, the funnel should be a set of gates people pass through, more like a filter that at each stage people are more likely the target audience for what you are selling.

For example, when you go into an Apple store, they let you hang out, play with things, and are generally pretty nice to you. They also ask you questions about your needs and wants in product and they steer you towards what they think might be the best fit. Thus, filtering you down to the right product. BUT, if you can't afford the actual purchase, they aren't going to force you into buying or badger you into something.

If more websites treated their funnels like a filter instead of like chute you are trying to force people down, the better off marketing would be as a whole. It actually makes the whole process better because you don't even try to pitch until they are ready to buy.

For example, on a current side project I don't even show pricing until people use the product. I don't even give them the opportunity to buy until they have shown that they will use it. I don't want angry customers saying they bought something that they didn't use and want a refund. So, we don't try to sell until people are happy enough using the product.

We will probably get fewer customers and revenue this way, but our customers will be happier and we will only have customers that use our product instead of people who are paying us because we are good at marketing to them.

GrinningFool• 13 years ago

IOW - "the funnel is really a filter". Which means it's not a funnel?

I agree, by the way, with the approach you describe. It's a lot more sane and will result with happier customers. I just think that you and OP are saying much the same thing.

programminggeek2• 13 years ago

I think we are too, but I think that saying that funnels are evil, bad, stupid, whatever is foolish. The funnel is still the funnel, but how you treat it makes a difference. Of course, that kind of nuance doesn't get you on the front page of HN either.

dsr_• 13 years ago

I don't know what your project is, but any time I see a website without a price clearly available, I assume it's (a) not something I can afford and (b) needs a hard sell.

You know, enterprisey.

Even if it looks like it's as nifty as good crusty wheat bread still warm from the oven with a dollop of butter melting on it, I'll go find it elsewhere.

RexM• 13 years ago

I don't like the term funnel, it's more like a sieve...

However, I do think it's a good way to visualize customers that come to your site, but don't end up converting. You can look at those percentages and try to make them better. Whether you decide to "spam the f*ck out of them" or do something more personable and humane is up to you.

mdc• 13 years ago

A sieve would just be a one-step funnel. If your engagement involves more than one step (sieves in series) then it's a funnel.

rodolphoarruda• 13 years ago

I like the concept. Using it to measure, evaluate and manage leads that fall into level 1 (widest part on top) is by itself a good thing. I once worked for a large company whose sales funnel had 7 stages/filters inside. Each one of them affecting of being affected by more than one organization. Dealing with it was a pain for most sales guys because it was easy to see where the opportunity was stuck in the funnel, but very hard to see why. I can imagine that smaller less complex organization could easily pull out a 3 or 4 level funnel, go with it and see its benefits.

calbear81• 13 years ago

We use funnels as a measurement of product quality all the time, especially in the context of understanding task completion rates and discovering areas for UX/interaction improvement.

The "funnels" that Ben seems to talk about are more about sales funnels where you keep getting pestered once you're a lead but in the context of most e-commerce sites, funnels are a great way to know if there's something about the site that's not working for people.

chipsy• 13 years ago

Re: People who are saying the funnel is still there.

This is entirely a perspective thing; the customers see messages and options, not a funnel. You only see a funnel when you think of it as one.

The author describes a deliberate avoidance of business philosophy based around conversion metrics. Hence if your thoughts are to push them back into the conversation, you immediately taint his purpose. Assimilating any one set of metrics into the prime position will essentialize the business into "make those numbers go up," creating a feedback loop that guides future decisions. That feedback loop subsequently creates its own conclusions about how to advance the business. If you break the loop and construct a different one, with different abstractions, you get a different kind of business. That's the big takeaway here.

bcoates• 13 years ago

It's not a funnel in the sense of the object that allows you to pour a wide mouthed bottle into a small mouthed one, it's a name for the graph of "how much crap is in your flow" vs "how many customers are still trying to use your awful UI" tends to narrow down sharply and visually resembles a funnel.

You're supposed to hate the funnel! The funnel is what stands between you and a good UX. The (impossibly) ideal funnel is a short length of straight pipe, where 100% of user intent is efficiently converted into action.

Why I hate funnels.

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