The Problem with Email Funnels

// The Funnel

I sign up to marketing funnels all the time - I see something I like on Instagram or on Youtube and I'm straight in, like a rat up a drainpipe. I've signed up to your funnel because what I wanted to see was going to be valuable to me. I never sign up because I’m dying to be sold to - but because I’m curious.

I think there is a bit around the fact that I want to see how people structure things, what hooks they use and I love to see whether they’re as good as they say they are.

And, to be fair, a lot of it is good.

Genuinely useful, smart stuff and from day one, I get a killer insight. Day two, another thoughtful breakdown. Day three, a juicy framework. It all builds and builds. One golden breadcrumb after another and I usually stay interested (if it's good) until Day 3..

But then, I stop reading.

Not because it’s bad. Not because I don’t care.

But because… life.

// The Problem

I'm on of those people who has a million browser tabs open (something that only seems to have arisen in the last 6 months by the way, before that, I'd close down my browser at the end of each day) and then there's work and lots of 'things' I promised I’d “come back to later.”

That email - the fourth in your sequence - however brilliant - is sitting unread in a dusty corner of my inbox, next to all the others that were meant to change my business, life, Instagram or anything else which feels important to me.

I want to care. I meant to follow along. But the funnel didn’t account for one crucial thing: me.

And I think this is the point I want to make - when that person was designing their email funnel, that juggernaught process of mapping out delays, content, headlines and then what happens to that prized email afterwards, I wasn't who they were picturing.

They didn't take into account my headspace, my energy levels - and they probably didn't account for my actual behaviour as a real life human.

Some of the stuff I read is useful and I can see why someone would think that an email funnel would generate interest but (and this is the crux of it) does anyone really get past Day 4 and still wait for the next email?

I have, only once, designed an email funnel for myself - not for this newsletter and not for anything related to what I'm doing now - I designed it for my COVID baby, SalesChange and it included videos, text and at the very end, there was going to be a PDF to download.

I never launched it - it never saw the light of day because I just couldn't get it right in my head. So I'm not writing this article with experience of designing and then launching an email funnel because I think they're extremely hard to get right, I'm telling you all of this as a consumer, a subscriber - someone who's on the other end of the 'funnel'.

// The Vision

So many marketing funnels are crafted for a hypothetical version of us - the perfectly attentive subscriber with 10 minutes carved out each morning and a fresh cup of coffee in hand and whilst that's a goal of mine (which will never ever happen) - the kind of person who never misses a step, always clicks through, and takes notes like they’re sitting in a masterclass of email goodness - they don't exist.

The real me? The real you I'm guessing too - We skim. We save. We forget.

I'd prefer to binge-read six emails in one go (maybe) or even better - one long email (on reflection, I am now at odds with this statement and wonder if I'd get to Line6 and bail out thinking 'this is too long'.. As a subscriber, I mean well, but I'm tired, I'm going to be constantly distracted - the other evening I tried to watch Casey Neistats latest Youtube video which was 9minutes long - before I had even got to 4 minutes in, I'd had to stop and pause the video 5 times to respond to questions, demands from the kids or to stop my dogs from eating the cat - you see, I'm managing way too much and your 5th email just isn't going to get me.

All of this then makes you ask the question: what good is a perfectly written funnel if no one’s got the bandwidth to receive it?

// The Solution?

I don't think I'm here to say kill the email funnel - I still believe in getting people to exchange their email address and for you to then use that email address to try and sell to me - but it has to be thoughtful, sequenced communication (I know, ironic because that's a funnel) but maybe we need to rethink how we’re showing up in those inboxes.

What if instead of drip-feeding five emails in five days, we sent one brilliant message every two weeks - we get them into a newsletter format? People will say 'yeah, but that's too long a gap and I need them to BUY MY THING!' but what if we didn't do that? What if we didn't sell and instead, we showed up like any other regular email newsletter?

What if we gave people the choice to consume it how they wanted - watch, read, listen on EVERY email in a funnel?

What if we stopped pretending our audience has time and started designing with their actual attention in mind or delivered a course instead?

I'm a perennial purchaser of 'courses' - the £79 course market is making a killing from me because I love them - it allows me to pay a nominal fee, so I feel invested and then watch, listen and (very rarely) make notes on the chosen subject. I like courses because they're structured like an email funnel but they go deeper and they deliver more information (and more often than not, they're video)..

That’s the kind of marketing I want to make. And receive.

I'm not saying I'm going to build a course, I'm not but what I am saying is that email marketing shouldn't be a 'thing' that you do because you want to sell something - why not try and sell something up front and then use their email to keep them up to date with what's going on (a bit like a normal newsletter).

I'm thinking - you generate interest and you push them to your course - they purchase the course (or I will, it's what I do) and then you add them to your email newsletters - these newsletters are like little blogs which continue to build trust.. and so the cycle continues.

What these email newsletters (in my vision) don't do is 'build trust' - they don't get someone to move from 'interested' to 'I"M BUYING YOUR STUFF MATE' by drip feeding them 'value' one day at a time..

I want the 'email marketing funnel' that feels good even if I only read one email because that one email comes from you, not a sequence and I know it's from you because it's got 'you' in it - not a blanket version of 'value' which again, I don't ever have time to read.

Because in a world of constant noise, maybe the best funnels aren’t the ones that say more - they’re the ones that know you need connection.