Are You Wasting Time on the Wrong Marketing?

OK, I want to start by asking you an important question.
How much time do you spend on marketing each week?
Now, to answer that properly, we probably need to define what counts as marketing right in your eyes, right?
So let me maybe ask you this instead.
How much time have you spent creating content and being on social media?
And I’m guessing it’s hours.
This is like every week, right?
A fair amount of hours.
And then I guess my follow up question to that is, do you know how much business you’ve got as a result of that marketing?
Now, if you don’t, don’t feel bad because this is the exact reason I’m doing this episode because most people don’t.
Most people are currently obsessed with going viral, with reach, with awareness, but yet so many business owners are still struggling to sell and it really hasn’t made any sense to me.
Why are so many people obsessed with spending time on things that don’t make the money while completely ignoring the most valuable part of the sales and marketing funnel, where all the money is to be made?
So please stick with me as I investigate the question.
Are we all just doing marketing wrong?

Hello and welcome to Sniffing at the Bullshit, a podcast for ambitious entrepreneurs who want help wading their way through the bullshit jungle of entrepreneurship and then the tools, skills, and mindsets that are actually required for success.
I’m your host Sabrina Chevannes-Denman, the No Bullshit entrepreneur, right?
So let’s start with some marketing lingo basics first, because I swear that when I’ve chatted about this topic before, people thought I was talking about some like weird vegan diet and they got, well, confused.
So I’m going to clear things up a bit.
And yes, I will mention tofu, but that’s not what I mean.
So please let me try to explain.
In marketing, we’re often talking about funnel, right?
Essentially the flow of how people first come across you and then they go on to become your customers.
For example, the top of the funnel, which is the pit that’s abbreviated to tofu, is the widest part, like a normal funnel.
Just imagine a normal funnel going down.
So this is the bit where all the awareness happens.
And as with every funnel, the top is the widest.
And this totally makes sense here because you often cast your net out far and wide and spread the word about your brand, right?
But not everyone is going to like your brand.
But the idea is that you’ll find new people who will resonate and they will continue with you into the middle of funnel the MOFU bit, if you like.
So here’s where you start to build your trust with your audience.
And this is often called the nurturing stage.
You go more in depth about key topics, you personalize your communication with them, and you get to know you and your brand like on a more intimate level.
And to those who still like what they see, they will continue to bofu.
Yeah, the bottom of the funnel, as you probably guessed.
So now this is essentially where they should become customers.
This is where the actual conversion happens, and the people who have been on the journey make a decision finally to purchase your product or service.

So this funnel to me makes complete sense.
So I’m not saying we’re doing everything in marketing wrong, but The thing is, people definitely don’t buy from people instantly.
They first discover who you are, they stick around and they get to know you more, and then they decide whether they should buy from you.
So I’ve got no issue with funnels, but I do have an issue with where most people spend their time when it comes to marketing funnels.
I want to talk about this tofu obsession, right?
So I want you to take a moment and think about your own marketing and where you are currently spending most of your time.
Is it creating content and engaging on social media?
Because about a large chunk of your time is spent on this.
And you’re not alone.
Because in practice, most businesses, especially online, are massively overweight at that top of the funnel.
And yes, it is the top part and the largest and widest part for a reason.
But still, most content being produced is awareness content and most effort goes into reach and most success somehow is measured in likes, views and followers.
So it’s no wonder we’re doing this because this is what most people are doing.
And so many big companies have researched this too.
And I kind of went on this big research spree and I was looking for all the stats and, and other people have done the work on this so I didn’t have to basically.
And I found some really intriguing stats that I kind of want to read out to you.
So I found a bunch of these which I think are completely relevant.
So let me read some of these out.
Lead forensics, probably you’ve heard of them.
They are big like kind of lead generation company.
They’re all about trying to find leads.
They found that 83% of B to B content focuses on brand awareness and interest, 83% right on the on the on the brand awareness bit and hand on creative.
When they did their research, they found that 89% of B to B marketers that they spoke to are prioritizing awareness goals and even SEM rush.
They confirm that most of their marketers invest heavily in social and content where the main metric that they look at is reach.
So it’s crazy how much focus is on what is, you know, dubbed as vanity metrics, but brand awareness is consistently cited as the number one marketing objective by B to B and service based businesses.
And this is not done accidentally, right?
Awareness is visible, it’s easy to measure, it’s somewhat emotionally safe, and it’s totally rewarded by social platforms because think about it, social media platforms reward engagement, not sales, right?
So Tofu is essentially gamified by algorithms.
So I mean, there’s a massive problem here because this Tofu stuff just does not convert into sales.
Of course, it’s a meaningful step along the sales journey.
It’s a central step along the sales journey.
But this step alone is not going to bring new customers.
And that’s why I want people to stop focusing so much on justice tofu stage.
And I’ve been collecting more data on this bit too, because I, I know that this is going to make people feel comfortable because after all, everyone’s on social media, right?
And you know, we all need more exposure.
We won’t get our leads, etcetera.
That’s what we’re led to believe.
And I just want to share with you a few more stats on this.
So for example, most sites convert less than 5% of traffic, less than 5%, but that’s up stats on HubSpot and I’m sure those of you listening will know exactly who HubSpot are.
I love HubSpot and they’re fantastic and they do a lot of great research, but they have said that less than 5% of traffic converts on websites and that includes a tonne of E com sites.
So their stats are going to be much higher than service based.
So if I was to find one for just service based clients, I reckon it’s more like nought point nought 5%.
Because I see the data of of so many people I work with and some sites get thousands and thousands of hits, but they never really get get a client from it.
And it’s even worse these days because so many people now just generate their website copy with AI and then it speaks to absolutely no one.
So they’re not getting any conversion.
And this is somehow like another reason why they end up going to social media because I think their site doesn’t convert even though there are plenty of ways to get them to convert, but that’s obviously a conversation for another day.
Although it is totally connected because what’s about switching focus on the funnel?
But I’ll explain properly in a minute.
But the problem is, is that it’s a vicious cycle and people are trying to convert.
They think they’re not converting on the website.
So that’s for the game social media.
And let me let me just explain properly because I’ve got more stats to just focus with this.
So marketing LTB have said that the average full funnel conversion is only three to 5%.
So with all the effort that you’re making, you’re only getting a three to 5% win rate anyway.
So you have to start thinking about optimizing that funnel because that’s three to 5% for those people who aren’t optimizing it.
If you did optimize it, which we’ll talk about in a minute, it will massively increase.
You can’t be working with just a three to 5% win rate.
And and another bit is rule analytics have said that social media as a commercial channel alone often averages only 1 1/2 percent.
And then that’s including ads.
So targeted sales techniques are contributing to this and they still only get 1.5%.
Now imagine you’re shouting into the void like most people do on social media.
Your stats would be even lower than this.
So this is absolutely crazy.
And one more step I really want to stress the importance of is from Electro IQ.
They have stated that 96% of people won’t convert on their first visit.
So people aren’t ready to buy on 1st exposure, which should be obvious, right?
And therefore you have to keep reaching out to them before they actually turn into customers, which isn’t necessarily tofu, although people think it is.
And it can be obviously to keep showing up in their feed, but it really needs to be focused more on the MOFU stuff, which is where you actually help convert.

So let me talk about that because this is where sales actually happen, MOFU and Beaufu, which is what’s middle of the funnel and bottom of the funnel.
And MOFU is like this messy middle.
This is where people are aware of you and they roughly know what they what you do, but they’re not quite convinced yet.
So they’re asking things like, is this actually for someone like me?
Do do these people really understand my problem?
And the important one, can I trust them?
And also, are they any different from everyone else who’s claiming to be XYZ?
So this is the bit where things like case studies and examples of what you do, deeper, more personal explanations, longer form content that leads to conversations and specific emails actually matter.
And this is really important because going back to marketing RT BS research again, like they found, right, that people typically need 3 to 5 meaningful interactions before they’re ready to engage properly.
And when I was reading through this, it made me think about Daniel Priestley and his book Oversubscribed.
If you haven’t read it, it’s totally a great read.
It’s a great introduction to all of this, basically.
And he talks about this 711 four strategy.
Now maybe you know about Dan from his key personal influence stuff and you know it’s all connected.
But you know when he wants to become oversubscribe, he states that you need time to build trust and turn a stranger into a customer, much like what I’ve just been talking about.
But he states that typically a prospect needs to engage with 7 hours of content across 11 different interaction points in four different locations.
Now that’s a lot and hearing this stuff probably makes people think wow I really need to do more content and that’s why they end up focusing on the tofu stuff.
But that’s not what it means exactly.
Now think about it.
It doesn’t mean that you have to have 11 bits of content come up in people’s feed all the time.
No, it means you can send them an e-mail as a follow up to their comment on a post perhaps, or send them a link to a podcast, podcast you’ve done on our topic that maybe they’ll be interested in or even means have a coffee with them.
Like you know, like this is I said four different locations for star.
Like send them a link to an article that they may find interesting.
What it does not mean is that they’re going to sit down and watch 7 hours of your YouTube videos and scroll through Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok and instantly become your customer because that often is all just the tofu stuff.
It’s like they’re watching you from a distance so they haven’t actually connected with you properly.
Now MOFU is about building up the relationship.
So it’s much deeper than that creator versus audience thing.
And you know, I want to talk about BOFU because this is the bit where people avoid the most because the bottom of the funnel is the decision stage.
So it’s the most vulnerable stage, it’s where rejection is the most likely outcome.
And who’s going to want to feel that, right?
It’s much safer in the awareness zone.
So BOFU is where your customer or potential customer, a prospect is actively deciding, am I going to buy?
Am I going to say yes to this?
Is this worth my money?
And so for this to happen, offers need to be clear, your pricing needs to make sense, objections need to be addressed very clearly and honestly and transparently, and trust needs to be absolutely solid.
So this is definitely the stage where business owners often get uncomfortable because this stage is where you’re asking for money, you’re being really explicit, you often hearing no.
And so inevitably you find out if your positioning actually works, which is why people avoid the stage because it’s scary.
It is a stage that it becomes oh so real.
And just making some social media posts and hope they go viral feels kind of fun.
And it’s you’re detached from the real emotional part of it.
But the bottom of the funnel work, It’s real business, it’s real marketing and sales.
And so that’s the tough part.
So the key understanding here is that sales don’t happen because someone knows you exist.
Sales happen because they trust you, they feel understood, the offer is clear and the risk feels manageable.
And that’s all the middle and the bottom of the funnel work.

Yet most people are spending the majority of their time trying to attract new strangers instead of helping warm, already interested people to move forward.
And to me that’s kind of backwards because what you end up with is loads of awareness, decent engagement, familiar faces following you around for months or even years, but yet very little movement towards a decision.
And so when that happens, people assume I need more awareness or I’m not attracting the right people or even people just don’t have the money at the moment.
There’s excuses everywhere when actually the problem is just further down the funnel.
And that’s what’s led me to ask the question, are we just doing marketing wrong?
Because I’ve been working on a on this with a few clients lately and I’ve been asking them, what if we actually flip the funnel?
So this is probably the stage where I need to make a very important distinction to you.
This episode is not saying everyone should reverse the funnel from day one.
Because if you’re brand new and you have no audience or proof or sales history, then yeah, awareness still matters.
How awareness always still matters, right?
I’m definitely not saying stop the awareness stage.
I’m just saying spend less time there because flipping the funnel means concentrating more on bofu and MOFU rather than tofu.
I realize how silly it sounds, but this is, this is what it’s about.
And it only works for those who have been operating for a while, those who have an audience or network already, people who trust them and they’ve already sold before in the past.
And you know what, it’s really funny because when I hear myself listing out all those things, I’m thinking, damn, these people must have a queue of people lined up to buy from them because they have all these assets in place.
But somehow these people are still acting like awareness is the main problem and this is the problem I have with how we’re doing marketing and the message of the funnel.
Now if you’re thinking, well, I think that’s me, but I could still do with a lot more people knowing about who I am then I totally get you because I think that awareness is important like I said, but I also think there are some signals for when flipping the funnel could be a good time for you.
So you should seriously question your TOFU focus if you’re already at the stage where, for example, people recognize your name.
They have heard of you and your brand.
They may not know you really well, but they recognize your name.
You’re getting inbound messages or referrals consistently.
The same people engage with your content repeatedly.
You’ve already got a sales history, so you’ve already sold your services or products before in the past.
You’ve got proof of concept and people often coming to you saying things like, oh, I didn’t know you offered that and I followed you for ages and I didn’t realize you worked with people like me.
So these are all massive signals for me.
These are not awareness problems that you have.
These are clarity, positioning and conversion problems.
And so that’s when you absolutely need to focus on the middle and the bottom of the funnel.
So let me talk to you about what flipping the funnel really means, as I think it can be really easy to misunderstand.
So first of all, I want to clarify what it doesn’t mean.
It doesn’t mean skipping awareness, selling to cold strangers, or ignoring trust.
It just means reversing how you plan and prioritize your marketing, not how humans behave.
So for example, instead of starting with, oh, what content should I post, you start with what exactly am I selling?
Who is it for and what would someone say?
What would make someone say, yes, that is all the bottom of the funnel stuff.
And then you went backwards.
You start thinking, well, what objections need answering and what proof would reduce the risk of someone buying for me?
And also what content would build confidence on what I’m offering.
That’s then the middle of the funnel stuff.
And so only after that does the top of the funnel content make sense, because now awareness feeds into something concrete.
And I just think people are spending far too long talking about what they do at the tofu stage.
Well, it’s not even clear to most people.
And so then the MOFU and BOFU stages fail because we’re lacking clarity.
But when you flip the funnel.
You’re not just refining your offer and your messaging at this stage, you’re also changing what you spend your time doing.
Because right now most people spend 90% of their effort on Topher activity.
Things like posting, tweaking hooks, chasing reach, obsessing over the damn algorithm, essentially just creating content.
That’s what power we should be doing.
And they then they spend like 3 minutes on the part that actually makes them money.
So it’s really crazy that that’s what it looks like.

And So what does both your work actually look like?
Well, unfortunately for most people, it looks like sales activity.
I know that lots of you will find this icky, but if you’re an entrepreneur, you have to get good at sales.
It’s a massive part of what you do, whether you like it or not.
So you’ll be working conversion activity.
You’ll be asking people to take action and making it easy for them to say yes because this is the stage where you’ll actually convert people to real clients.
It’s where you have the real conversations and you learn the most about your audience and thereby you’ll be constantly improving what you do too.
So what does this specifically and really detail of what does it actually look like?
Because it’s all well and good people offering advice, but what do I need to do?
This is what I want to know.
What actions should I be doing?
Well, let’s start with MOFU because essentially that’s what warms them up to the BOFU stage.
So if the bottom of the funnel is where you’re asking for the sale, the middle of the funnel is everything that kind of makes that ask feel safe.
And so middle of an activity looks like things like nurturing emails, not the weekly here are my thoughts emails right as that’s quite tofu ish.
I mean, nurture that moves people.
Like, for example, those emails which are like if you’re stuck on X, here’s Y or here’s what to do before you hire someone like me.
And you know, proofs stuff like here’s a client example on how we got the results.
Or maybe even here’s the biggest mistake people try when they try to DIY this hint, hint, hire me instead.
And so those emails answer the questions of why you, why now, why it works and what happens next.
So those emails are fantastic for Mofie stage.
I also want to see things like content that handles objections.
So it’s still crazy content, but it’s very specific and intentional and it’s where you talk to the almost buyers, so to speak.
It’s the people thinking is this worth it?
Or what if it doesn’t work?
And what’s the process and things like?
I’ve tried this before but it didn’t work.
So your MOFU content are things like the objection posts.
It’s here’s how it actually works, breakdowns and like I said, if you’re not ready, here’s what to do 1st and really clear who this is for and who it’s not for.
So that’s the content you need to be doing, which works in the middle of the long.
Now I think the third one is the most important, which people forget about.
It’s relationship building.
And this is even more important for those who are running service businesses because for me, this is all about the middle, the final stage.
It’s where you do things like you invite people to a small event, you voice notes, the warm leads because you get closer to them.
You apply properly to comments, not just thanks, you actually insightful and engage and continue the conversation.
And then you DM people with conversations that actually lead somewhere because I feel like most people treat community like a fan club.
It’s all about them and it’s all about, you know, oh, they’re, they’re part of my community.
But real MOFU stuff treats community like relationships and real relationships will always be the real key to business.
So that for me is the main stuff in MOFU.
And then I’d say that the bottom of funnel stuff looks more like, for example, direct outreach to warm people.
Now, I don’t mean cold DM spam, I mean genuine outreach.
I mean people who have replied to those nurture emails, the people who comment on your post regularly, they’ve been on your side, they’ve downloaded something and they’ve asked you questions even, and they’ve even said actually, oh, I really need this, but then disappeared somewhere.
They’re the ones you’ve been chatting to in the MOFU stage, essentially.
And so you now narrow in on that conversation and get deeper about what they really want.
That is really, really key bottom of the funnel action bit.
Then essentially you’ve just got to jump on those calls, those sales calls, consoles conversations, you literally have to just book in calls and follow-ups and all that sort of stuff.
And, you know, you’re not doing that thing where you go, oh, let me know if you have any questions.
And then you just disappear, right?
Unfortunately, you do need to follow up.
You have to be able to get good at handling objections and send those proposals and checking in again.
And then, you know, getting rejected and get used to that.
And, you know, a lot of people lose sales, not because the lead wasn’t interested, but because generally the founder just got awkward and stopped communicating.
And I see all the time, which then leads me on to probably the most important bit, the place where the money is hiding.
And I think that’s the follow-ups.
It’s definitely the most underused activity in small businesses.
And it’s certainly where I’ve fallen short.
And you know why?
Because I’ve actually been distracted by all the tofu activity.
But if you just follow up in the right way, then this is how you convert the most accurately.
And follow up isn’t being annoying, which is what a lot of fantasy as it’s being a professional.
And it’s hard and it can be awkward because sometimes you have to ask the questions like did you want to go ahead with that or did you want to me to hold that spot for you?
Or then even asking clarification questions like what’s stopping you from deciding?
And is it timing or budget or clarity?
And you see, like you need to ask these questions and it’s hard because most people aren’t going to say yes on the first ask, but it’s not because they’re not interested, it’s because they’re too busy or they’re uncertain or scared.
So if you’re not following up, you’re basically relying on miracles to happen for them to just convert on the first go.
So I, I really could go on for ages in this episode because I really do think this is an important thing that we might be doing wrong in marketing.
I didn’t realize how long I’ve been speaking about this already on this episode.
So I’m, I’m going to have to do a follow up episode, which is ironic considering what I just said about how important follow-ups are, but I really do.
But I really wanted to include a practical section on what you can do right now to improve your funnels.
So I want to, I want to add that here and I, I will go back to the stuff in more detail another time.
So I want to just say that if you’re looking to flip the funnel and spend more time on this conversion stage, then I’m going to say that a good way to ration your time and efforts probably be something like 20% tofu.
Just, you know, you don’t want the content to keep the, that top fresh.
And I would say 40% on the Mofi bit.
So you’ll nurture your trust, your proof stage another 40% on BOFU.
And this is what people don’t do.
I want you to spend more time on the outreach, on those calls, on the follow-ups, on those conversion fixes.
I think that you’ll see massive results if you do this.
But remember, obviously this only works if you already have an audience.
But if you’re doing this, you’re already going to be ahead of most people because currently their split is looking more like 90% TOFU, 9% MOFU, and only 1% BOFU.
And then they’re wondering why they’re broke, but somehow they’re doing well online.

But I will say that if you’re going to work on the reverse funnel, then you absolutely need to improve your conversion points first.
This is like the making it easy to buy parts, right?
So you really need to do things like, I don’t know, rewriting your sales page so it actually speaks to someone specific, your target audience.
I want you to add really clear pricing or, or like starting from at least if appropriate, I mean to tighten your booking flow.
That means fewer steps and fewer barriers.
I want you to fix your inquiry form so it doesn’t feel like a damn job application.
Honestly, I just feel like there’s so many questions people make you go through and you lose people like that.
And I want you to add proof right next to the CTA.
So if you’ve got a call to action, you want people to book now or, or even buy now.
I want to see the testimonials, the results, the examples right next to it.
Because if someone’s ready to buy, but your process is confusing, then you’re going to lose them.
And while we’re at it, I think you absolutely need to work on proof creation in general.
So I said that you want to add proof next to CTA, but you need more than that.
You need things like case studies.
You need before and after screenshots you need Here’s what we did, and then the results.
Testimonials are really specific and not vague and FA QS that answer real objections.
And so many people avoid this part because it’s so specific and could get quite scary, but it’s genuinely what’s going to help you get those results that you want.
And so I’m going to set you a little bit of homework this week.
And because if you’re like sick of not seeing the leads that you won and you’re getting consistently burnt out from creating content, then please do have a go at flipping the funnel this week.
And here are some tasks I’m going to ask you to do to start with MOFU, the conversion content.
I want you to just write 1 case study post this week.
I want you to write 1 objection hand objection handling post, and I want you to send one nurture e-mail that points to one particular action.
And then for the BOFU tasks, I want you to follow up with 10 warm leads that you’ve never followed up with before properly.
See where that goes.
I then want you to DM 10 other people who engage with you regularly and start a real conversation with them.
And then I want you to tighten your CTAI, want you to make one clear offer only, and I want you to try and push it for seven days.
That’s it.
I don’t want you to make more content.
I want you to work on conversion and see how you get on.
So awareness is absolutely important, right?
It always is and it always will be.
But do you really need to reach more strangers right now?
Don’t you want more clients?
Because for most businesses, attention isn’t the problem, the conversion is.
And if you already have trust, credibility, and an audience and you’re still somehow obsessing overreach, then you’re stuck in that tofu bullshit.
So try flipping the funnel for just a few weeks and see how you feel.
See how much you learn from your target audience.
Make yourself feel uncomfortable with those both your conversations, but watch yourself grow in the process and I bet you’ll be pleasantly surprised with the results.
So that’s it for me this week and until next week, please do keep sniffing at the bullshit.