Everyone agrees the funnel is the problem, except the funnel.
On Monday morning, the client informed us that lead volume was "fine," but lead quality had "become theoretical."
This was said calmly, over Zoom, by someone sitting in what appeared to be a meticulously organized guest bedroom, repurposed during the pandemic into a command center for decisions that would be revisited weekly and reversed monthly.
They wanted leads that were:
- cheaper
- more qualified
- further along in the buying journey
- earlier in the funnel
- ready to talk to sales
- not sales-y
- and "aspirational, but realistic"
They also wanted more of them by Thursday.
We asked a clarifying question, which is always a mistake, because it signals hope.
By Tuesday afternoon, a spreadsheet arrived. It was color-coded and optimistic. Column A was "Audience Hypotheses." Column B was "Emotional State at Time of Click." Column C was blank, but with intention. Someone had written "TBD (AI?)" in italics.
The marketing team had clearly been awake for several nights.
They had decided the solution was alignment—a word that, in corporate environments, usually means everyone agreeing to suffer in the same direction. Alignment required:
- a new naming convention
- a re-articulation of the value proposition
- six new landing pages
- and a temporary pause on the channel that was still working, "just to see"
On Wednesday, we were invited to a meeting titled "Funnel Reimagining (Quick)." It ran for 94 minutes.
At one point, someone said, "What if the problem is that we're targeting decision-makers, but the real decision-makers are 'the people who influence the people who influence' the decision-makers?"
This was received with the seriousness usually reserved for meteorological warnings.
By Thursday morning, the directive was clear: The campaign needed to feel less transactional while also driving more transactions. The ads should be calmer, but urgent. The copy should avoid buzzwords, except for the approved list of buzzwords, which was attached as a PDF and labeled "FINAL_v7_USE_THIS_ONE."
We made the changes.
On Friday, lead volume dipped slightly, which caused alarm. A Slack channel was created. It had 23 members and no clear owner. Someone suggested turning the video back on in meetings "for accountability," which we declined.
By the following Monday, leads were back up. The spreadsheet was updated. Column C now read "Learning Phase." Everyone agreed this was good, though no one could explain why.
The funnel was declared healthier, though still misunderstood.
We closed our laptops, took a walk, and didn't check Slack for almost two hours.
