10/04/2024
My TEDx Talk with Full Transcript
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Transcript
Good to meet other speakers and the audience. So, I think most of us here are entrepreneurs, and what is the biggest dream every entrepreneur has? It is to translate his or her idea into a successful business and make a profit. Going with the theme of dream, believe, and achieve, I'm here to present my presentation on how to be profitable using minimal marketing.
So, everything starts with a dream. Before an idea or a business materializes, it starts with a dream. And a dream actually has a destination. Nobody dreams just to start a business. They have a destination in mind, and that path actually takes them further. And every business wants to be profitable—who doesn't want to be profitable? In fact, profit is the fuel of your engine called business.
So, where does it start? It starts with the belief that, yes, my idea will click, and I can make it happen. So, you dream first, you have a path in mind, you have a goal in mind, then you believe that you can make it happen. That is the second step—that you believe. And the belief is so strong that you strongly believe that your product or service can actually solve a problem, fix a problem, make people's lives better.
So, there is a strong match between real product and market fit, and people start with that. Believe again comes from data, information, statistics, facts, and evidence—what is the current scenario of the market, what are the other competitors doing, is there a demand or not, and so on. The second thing is matching the market analysis with your own data—that is, the facts and analysis come. Figures, analysis come third; one is a plan. So, there is a very famous saying, "If you fail to plan, you plan to fail." So, if you don't have a plan, you're actually preparing for its failure. Planning is the most important factor for any business to start.
So, let's go back to our topic again—funnel marketing—and how do we become profitable. So, way back in 2000, having a website and search engine optimization was more than enough, and slowly the scenario changed between 2010 and 15, social media marketing, social media strategies became essential. People adapted back. Way back in 2015, eight years from now, paid ads became very prominent, and people adapted to paid marketing. But 2018 onwards, almost everyone started paid advertisement, and that's when only paid ads are not enough. You need to have a funnel plan. So, funnel marketing came into the picture roughly around 2018.
And let us understand what is funnel marketing in simple terms: your funnel plan, or if your marketing plan is like a Google map. Let's say you want to go from here to the airport. So, when you put it in your local map, Google gives you 2-3 options. You can take this route, you can take that route. It will take let's say one hour here, one hour and 20 minutes here, there is a construction, etc. So, let us understand and let us imagine if you start Google Maps, and Google says, "Please start after one hour; I'll tell you where to go." That will not work because it's a predefined plan with alternatives. Same thing is a funnel plan. Same thing happens in a funnel, where you have a plan, you have a roadmap, your path at that party leads to profit.
Now, when we're talking about profit, all of us know that, you know, post-COVID, everybody started adopting digital marketing. It was no more an option; it was not a luxury; it was essential. Everybody started adopting digital marketing, and people have digital; everybody is digital. And what we understood during this season is, earlier, getting leads was easy to convert. Now, leads are not enough, and you need sales, and post-COVID, even I have seen from my experience, sales alone are not enough; you need profit. Unless you're profitable, you cannot sustain. So that is why the scenario changed.
So, to do this, we need to actually come to the third part. So, we need to draw a roadmap and have alternative plans, have different defined definite paths to our success, to profit. So, this typically looks like a roadmap. This is something very similar to Google Map, where there are paths leading to your ultimate goal, that is profit. So, this is called a funnel plan, funnel map, actually. And this funnel plan takes care of everything from your social media, from your search engine optimization, from your organic traffic, paid traffic to conversion.
So, there is a conversion path for all kinds of products and services, and normally we need to create this kind of path so that now there is clarity. So, funnel marketing, and the basic thing if I tell you, it starts from branding, where people start noticing you, people are aware of your product and services, and what problem it solves, or what how it makes their life better. Then we generate traffic to our mobile apps or websites. People fill up forms, people sign up. Then they convert. We constantly optimize our profit. So, there is a comprehensive strategy to idea to profit through funnel marketing.
If you go deeper into the funnel planning and funnel stages, the top of the funnel is making unaware customers or prospects who can be your customers. They become aware of your brand, they become aware of your product and services. In the middle of the funnel, we take care of nurturing their interest, engaging them, educating them, solving their queries. In the bottom of the funnel, we convert that interest into an action, that is a sale, and ensure customer satisfaction. Now, sales is not the end, guys, because all of us know when we go to Amazon, the first thing we check is not the price, we check the review. Not only will we take a decision, no matter how beautiful is the picture, no matter how much discount an Amazon product is giving, if the review is not good, we back off. So, customer delighting is the key here. So, just selling is not enough; you need to delight your customer, and that makes your process complete.
This is an example of a lead generation funnel. So, if you see, there are three types of questions at the top of the funnel. The audience or your prospect will see what do I need. Sometimes they're not aware, so when they're not aware, they'll be confused that what this product or services solves. The second level, when they are aware, they'll ask, "Why do I need it from you? Why not somebody else? Why not your competitor?" So, there, educating them is very, very important. The last level is, "Why should I buy it now? Are you giving me a good offer? Is it indispensable, or wherever needed?" So, that is where the bottom of the funnel comes into the picture.
So, as a profit, when we come to the last part, is the achieve. We got you profit. Whereas this five-step, I call it BLAST. If you see the first initials: Build, Launch, Analyse, Scale, Tweak. "Build" means you build your website, have your social media platform, content, and everything. Then you are ready with that. You "Launch" it, go to the market, and validate your thing. Once you launch it and go to the market, you "Analyse" the result. Which segment is working better for me? Which geography is working better for me? Which age group is working better for me? Which days of the week will be working better for me? So, you start analyzing. Once you analyze, you get the secret formula to "Scale". So, you start scaling. Once you start scaling, scaling again brings in a problem that you know whether your cost per purchase is going down or up, and all this thing happens based on that, again you "Tweak". So, this is a cycle, and through this, you can actually achieve profit here.
So, if I summarize my talk, these are the six steps to profit: 1st, validate the idea with data, not just an assumption. Conduct competition research, comparative research, basically, so see what others are doing. It's easy to duplicate an idea, add your own flavor, or fix something that your competitor is not doing, and you are done. 3rd, create a Funnel Plan, which is the roadmap. 4th, launch & gather feedback. That is very, very essential. Everyone who is buying, their feedback. Everyone who is not buying, their feedback. If they bought, why did they buy? If they did not buy, why did they not buy? If you know the ups and downs, you are done. The last one is continuously optimized for better results, and this cycle again continues.
So, here is a thing that I would like to quote here, my father used to tell when I was just starting my career: We only earn people in life. If you have good people in your life, you are rich; otherwise, the opposite. The same thing applies to business. If you have a good team, if you have good customers in the sense they are happy with you, if you have a good product built by people, again, everything is people-oriented, so, good people in life. You are rich; otherwise, the opposite. So, funnel marketing involves people, and they only make a profit. So, it is a people-oriented thing. People only make it happen.
So, what next? What is changing? A serious observation that I have had: that demo marketing is overwhelming. What was happening in 2020 during COVID, after COVID, is not the same. The market is changing, everyday dynamics are changing, people's behavior are changing, people's buying patterns are changing, buying capacity changing. So, we need to adopt that, we need to listen to them, and constantly upgrade ourselves.
The second thing is, do you think your marketing strategy to align with current trends and customer needs? The third one is, as always, for myself, for every entrepreneur, I wish you something. So, there is a saying called, "If there is light at the end of the tunnel," means even if it is dark for you, when the tunnel ends, there is light. So, if I say, "If there is light at the end of the tunnel, there has to be profit at the end of the funnel." So, wishing you all the profits and have a great entrepreneurship journey. Thank you.
Presented by Shibaram Mishra, Founder of Profit Funnel & Founder of Buzet Web Digital
In this enlightening presentation, delivered with a mix of personal insights and professional expertise, we embark on a journey from the initial dream of ent...
