Paul Woods

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… before I start - get your mind out of the gutter!

When I talk about the funnel… I am talking about the journey from the great unwashed masses that are your target audience, to those who have seen the light and handed over their purchase orders/credit cards.

The slipperier the funnel… the more likely it is for a suspect to go through the journey of prospect -> qualified lead -> opportunity -> sale.  If you are really good and lube up the funnel, it can dramatically reduce your cost of sale, and accelerate your sales cycle.

But…

If your funnel isn’t slippery… it can cause all sorts of problems.  Like prospects who once were interested in your product walking away to your competitor… or the classic “abandoned cart“.  It doesn’t take much to turn what could be a very slippery funnel into a gritty, blocked, manky funnel that only lets a few drops (sales) few at a time.

The blockage could take place anywhere along the journey… not getting enough attention at the start… not offering the relevant information to assist with decision making… asking for way too much information from the consumer… or the most common funnel killer of all… limited payment options!

Everyone has heard it before “We don’t accept AMEX”, or “Cash Only”, or “Minimum Purchase on EFTPOS $10″, or in my case this afternoon “We do not accept Pay Pal”.

The culprit in my travels today… Flickr, the photo sharing site.

Today I thought it would be a good idea to finally get around to putting all my photos online.  1) to share with family, friends etc., and 2) because it is a good backup strategy along with burning them onto DVD.  When you sign up with Flickr you get a free account that allows you to upload 100mb of photos a month.  I have 10s of gigabytes of photos that I could upload that I have taken with my Canon 300D DSLR over the last 3, almost 4 years.  That means I am the perfect candidate for the upgrade to Flickr’s paid subscription, the pro account.

I clicked on upgrade.  I was ready to pony up my USD$24.95 for a year with their pro service.  My funds are ready and waiting in my PayPal account.  But Yahoo (who own Flickr) don’t want my money.  No PayPal please - credit card only.

My credit card was all the way down the other end of the house… and being it was a lazy Sunday afternoon… I didn’t get up to get it.  Flickr just managed to clog up their funnel - by not making it easy for me to give them money.

Interestingly… Flickr used to accept PayPal only until recently.  I wonder who made the decision to stop.  On the Internet, that is the equivalent of a corner store saying “Sorry… we don’t accept cash any more, just credit cards”.

How do you know your funnel is slippery enough?  Listen to your customers.  If they want to pay with PayPal, Cheque, or Magic Beans… think about letting them do so - you still get the consideration you asked for in the transaction, the customer still gets the value they are purchasing, and at the end of the day… everyone is happy.

How slippery is your funnel?  Are your customers getting stuck along the way?

Cheers,

Paul W

PS - you can check out my afternoon’s efforts on Flickr - still with my free account!  I am addicted to geotagging now!