Uh-oh, what is this – some empty new marketing term?!
Hear us out though…
B2B marketing has largely boiled down to a game of:
- Getting as many buyers as possible into the funnel
- Making assumptions about where they are on the journey
- Adding friction throughout to move them through and convert
Perhaps not the words you would choose, but we see versions of this all the time.
And what else do we see?
Acquisition costs going up. No compounding results. And funnel thinking as the blocker.
Pushing people through a funnel that doesn’t even really exist is a ridiculously expensive proposition, especially now that the economy is limping and channels are saturated.
But this is the approach. And at the end of it, we celebrate the revenue from it. Yay, revenue! Really? But it’s not making us better at customer acquisition.
That’s why it’s clear to us that a new marketing orientation is needed.
Remember our last newsletter on habits?
Setting buyers up to develop habits around consuming your stuff is the key to avoiding friction.
Low Friction Acquisition works when:
- Distribution scales and sustains
- Aha moments actually move buyers
- Core value is experienced pre purchase
This isn’t easy to accomplish, but it’s refreshingly simple.
Fix your distribution problem with an emphasis on building habits for buyers. It’s about one primary form of distribution.
Lead buyers to aha moments from these habits. It’s not about that generic “provide value” advice – it’s about aha moments.
Understand that the job is ultimately to have buyers experience the core value of the business – before they even buy from you.
That’s low friction.
And from what we’re seeing with the companies we work with, that’s how you now acquire customers.
By the way, we’re far from experts on first principles even though we snuck it into the subject, but if you’re interested in learning more about that mental model, we highly recommend starting with this comprehensive piece from Farnam Street.
Bye funnel. Bye friction.