Constant connection and its impact on marketing
It wasn’t that long ago that the best (sometimes ONLY) way to reach your audience was through ads on television or radio. In those days, businesses had no choice but to run the same couple of ads over and over again, hoping that customers would visit the store or call the 1-800 number that flashed on the screen or was repeated by the DJ to buy whatever they were selling. We certainly knew a lot less back then, huh? One might even say the whole thing was a dark funnel!
Nowadays, infinitely more commerce is conducted online. Smart marketers use this to their advantage, measuring online ad effectiveness immediately: which blog post brings in the most traffic? Which ads are people clicking on the most on Instagram or Facebook? Which emails are people opening and engaging with most often? We have this data almost instantaneously.
In this age of constant online connection, marketers and business owners everywhere know an awful lot about their potential customers. Poring over search terms in tools from Ahrefs to SEMRush to GA4 and Moz, we strive to understand the keywords and phrases most often used in online searches for products and services. We want to know who’s searching for us, where, and how so we can better move them through the trackable sales funnel.
The traditional sales funnel: a refresher
Give us just a moment to shine more light into the dark funnel, but first, let’s refresh our memory on the traditional sales funnel.
Traditional and B2B marketers use the sales funnel to simplify the business concept of a customer’s journey from awareness to consideration to decision. Each stage represents customers’ excitement about making a purchase: people at the bottom of the funnel are the most excited and likely to actually purchase, while those at the top might be “just browsing” or looking for more information.
Typically, we engage with potential customers in different ways at different stages of the funnel. For example, someone who has just started to consider working with you will most likely benefit from less specific content, like tutorials or guides that help them with a topic of interest.
On the other hand, someone who is increasingly interested in your offerings will want to see case studies, testimonials or product reviews, and other bottom-of-the-funnel content items that will convince them that you’re the best choice.
The great thing about the funnel model is that, usually, separating the types of content into these categories allows us to track the online customer journey through the funnel closely and accurately. However, even in this day and age of near-instant results and metrics, some leads seem to come out of nowhere.
The dark funnel: the data we can’t track
This emergence of leads out of thin air proves what smart business owners and marketers inherently understand: many touchpoints must exist outside the typical, trackable sales funnel. These touchpoints, where buyers research and make decisions offline and sometimes long before they’re ready to buy, can’t be tracked by even the most advanced tracking software. This is the dark funnel, named such not because it’s the “dark arts” but simply due to its difficulty to track.
Why does the dark funnel matter?
It’s no secret that B2B buyers make decisions very differently from the way they did even ten years ago. If you were a salesperson or marketer in the early 2010s or earlier, you remember that big industry conferences and trade shows were hotbeds for hot sales leads. And even though corporate decision-makers could search for information about and register for these events online, most of the sales process was still ultimately completed in person.
By contrast, today’s B2B buyers are highly connected, technologically-savvy online researchers. If they are in the market for what you offer, they sometimes know more about you than you do. They talk, interact, and engage on LinkedIn, Reddit, Indeed, YouTube, podcasts, and countless other platforms, gathering information and rubbing virtual elbows while also continuing to participate in traditional industry events and relying on word-of-mouth to influence their choices.
What this means for B2B marketers is that there are even more unexpected dark funnel avenues through which you can influence buyer decisions. In short, you just never know who will need your services or offerings one day, and you want them to think of you when they do.
What touchpoints make up the dark funnel?
Although there are tons of possible touchpoints in the dark funnel, some really common ones to think about include:
- Public relations efforts, like awards, guest appearances, and press mentions
- Referral programs through your existing clients
- Third-party websites, like blogs, review websites, and comparison sites
- Events like trade shows, meetups, networking events, and industry conferences
- User-generated content, including social media posts (think of influencers), forums, and blog comments
- Media, such as podcasts, photos, and videos
- Word-of-mouth interactions between colleagues, friends, family, and others
Basically, any time you get your business name in any of these and other difficult-to-track channels, you are using the dark (or less-easily-tracked) funnel.
The B2B buyer journey through the dark funnel: an example
It’s a little bit tough to visualize or explain, so here’s a step-by-step of how a buyer might move through all of the sales process stages in the dark funnel almost entirely before you can ever track them:
- They glance over your public post on LinkedIn while scrolling their feed.
- A coworker of theirs may see the same post and mention it in a work discussion. Now, your name is in their workplace cultural zeitgeist.
- A week or so passes, and your potential customer keeps hearing about your brand from an influencer or thought leader online, maybe still on LinkedIn or also on Instagram/Facebook (depending on your industry).
- Maybe they see ads on Facebook. Just because they don’t click on your ads doesn’t mean they don’t see them or that the ads don’t have an impact.
- They check out a webinar where a presenter uses your brand as a source, and your potential client bookmarks their notes to review later.
- Maybe they see your brand mentioned another time on Discord, or another team member shares one of your case studies with their team on Slack or Teams.
- The following week, they listen to your podcast, which they downloaded after reading the case study their coworker shared in step 6.
- Later, they look you up on Google, read through your blog posts, and sign up for your newsletter. They still aren’t a genuine sales lead, but they know about you. Since they signed up for your newsletter, this is the first time they peek their head out of the dark funnel.
- They continue listening to your podcast and reading your blog for a long time and trust you as an expert.
- Ultimately, when a problem comes up at work that is in your wheelhouse, this potential customer knows that they can count on you to help.
In B2B marketing, the goal is usually to get as much customer contact information as possible so sales reps can pull leads over the finish line. That’s still a solid plan most of the time, but as you can see from the 10-step timeline outlined above, there are also plenty of ways to use the period before someone enters the trackable funnel to your advantage.
So, how do we push those dark funnel B2B sales along?
When you picture the dark funnel, think of it as a means to move customers through the buying process at scale. Because most of these channels are very broad, your impact is likewise broad and might not involve your sales team at all. Plenty of sales occur without ever “liking,” reviewing, or following a product or service someone sees online. With these things in mind, here are a few things you can do to facilitate your dark funnel:
Consider all of the possible touchpoints that are relevant to you and your customers
While you can probably come up with plenty of relevant avenues yourself, it’s also worth asking existing or past customers how they found you. Customer surveys are an excellent and underused way to track your dark funnel, and you can even incentivize them if needed.
Use what you learn from listening to your customers
If you learn from a survey that your favorite clients found you via a popular third-party blog, that tells you something about your ideal customers: they like this blog! Armed with this knowledge, reach out to the third-party blog owner and explore ways you can help each other. It never hurts to ask to be a guest blogger or for them to link to some of your content.
Remember: the worst they can say is “no.”
Address content gaps at every stage
No matter what you do or sell, you’ll need content demonstrating your value and expertise at every sales funnel stage. Spend time pinpointing your content weaknesses and creating high-quality content that strengthens your portfolio.
And don’t be afraid to share that content, even in places you wouldn’t normally think to. You just never know who needs your work, how your ideas might spread your name, or how your next perfect client might find you.
Cultivate and uphold your brand integrity
No matter where a potential B2B sale encounters your business, online or in person, you want them to remember your brand as trustworthy. You might also want to convey other things, like friendliness, approachability, knowledge, or exclusivity, but you will always want people to trust that your brand will deliver as promised, no matter what.
There are many ways that businesses build and maintain brand integrity, from public relations messaging to company uniforms to web design systems to writing style guides and so much more. They all have value in the proper context, but the important thing is to stay consistent so potential customers remember you as consistent and trustworthy.
Don’t be afraid to use a combination of marketing channels
Often, our marketing channels work best symbiotically anyway, but this is especially true when we discuss the dark funnel. Combining paid and organic search and social media efforts usually results in a stronger presence for all. You’ll also want to conduct both inbound and outbound marketing efforts and take it all on and offline. Does that sound like a lot? Don’t be afraid to choose your favorites or follow your customers’ insights from surveys to help you focus your efforts, either.
Don’t be afraid to fail and adjust when you do
Some marketing efforts just don’t hit. That’s okay! Great leaders learn from their failures and adjust accordingly. If you discover that you wasted time or money on an ad that rubbed potential B2B buyers the wrong way, make a note of the messaging that failed and change courses. No one is perfect, and how you handle your failures may also prove to be a valuable part of your brand.
TL;DR? Content marketing still matters in the dark funnel
The long and short of it (mostly long) is that the dark funnel exists, but marketers and business owners often misunderstand or don't appreciate it. Nurturing your untraceable leads before they become leads is one of the best and easiest ways to grow your brand awareness and business.
The simplest way to nurture leads in your dark funnel is through continuous, strategic content marketing. So keep pumping out that great content, focus on the experience potential B2B customers have with your brand, and don’t be afraid to ask a lot of questions and fail often.
Oh! And if you find you might want a partner along the way, we hope you remember us 😉.
