The document discusses buyer-centric funnel design. It emphasizes the importance of understanding where buyers are in their journey - awareness, consideration, or purchase. It recommends designing different experiences for each stage, with content that addresses buyer questions and concerns rather than just selling. The document also discusses identifying buyer personas, mapping their purchase process to the vendor's funnel, analyzing friction points, and optimizing the funnel based on buyer motivations and decision criteria. It provides examples from companies like Salsify and Apollo that redesigned their trials based on this approach, removing steps and addressing buyer pain points, which increased conversion rates.

1. BUYER CENTRIC FUNNEL DESIGN
DAVID SKOK, MATRIX PARTNERS

2. WHY DO WE NEED
A SALES PROCESS?

3. MyProduct.com
HOW IT WORKS
DESCRIPTION
Our collaboration
product allows you
…
BUY NOW!
Only $9,999.99
In a perfect world…

4. WHY DOESN’T
THIS WORK?

5. BUYER QUESTIONS
AND CONCERNS
BUYING PROCESS

6. How do we respond?

7. Break the process down into a series of steps…
Design a series of steps
that we want customers to go through
Website Free Trial Purchase

8. Results in a Funnel
Not all people entering the first step will get to the second, etc.

9. Studying Funnel Blockage Points
Suspects Suspects
Suspects
Suspects
Suspects
Suspects
Suspects Suspects
Suspects
Suspects
Suspects
Suspects

10. The Source of most Problems
Vendor
Centric

11. NOT MOTIVATED TO DO
THAT THEY ARE
CUSTOMERS WILL DO
SOMETHING
YOU ARE HOPING YOUR

12. A better way to approach to Funnel Design
Buyer
Centric
Buyer-Centric

13. THE BUYERS JOURNEY

14. THE BUYERS JOURNEY
Awareness Consideration Purchase

15. Mismatch:
Sales often handle every lead as though they were in the Purchasing phase
I’m paid to sell. I better be selling.

16. Likely Distribution of Web Site Visitors
Vendor
Web Site
80%
Awareness
15%
Consideration
5%
Purchase

17. Different Dialog and Content for each stage
Awareness Consideration Purchase
• Create Problem/Pain
awareness
• Discuss how people are
solving
• Discuss benefits people
are seeing
• Don’t mention your
product
• Don’t sell!
• Product info
• Free Trial / Demo
• Customer stories
• Nurture with regular
content (Newsletter)
• Try to create trigger
• Sales

18. • Just lost my data in hard drive crash
• Backup software/service
• Starting a new software project
• Dev Tools, etc.
• Performance issues with existing app
• APM tools
• Difficulties tracking bugs across multi-tier apps
• Bug tracking software
TRIGGERS

19. Buyer Personae

20. Getting to know your Buyer Personae
• Identifying Characteristics
• What are their key business goals?
• How does our product help them achieve those?
• What does their Boss expect of them?
• What pain do they have that we address?
• Is it latent pain, or obvious pain?
• How do they describe the pain and what they are
looking for?
• (Helpful for messaging)
• Is solving this pain a high priority for them?
• If not, what features would make it a higher priority?
• Are they out there searching for solutions?
• If so, how?
• Most important features? Decision criteria?
• What are their reactions to our product/company?
• What will they like? What will they not like?
• What are the main questions and concerns they will
have?
• What are the steps in their purchasing process?
• What are their likely decision making criteria?
• Who else has to be involved in the decision (e.g.
Business buyer, IT)?
• Who influences them? (Sites, organizations, and
people)
• (Helps us figure out how to market to them)
• Other characteristics that are relevant to this
purchase
• E.g. Developers:
• Don't have a budget
• Prefer Open Source, and don't like to pay for software

21. MAP BUYERS PROCESS TO YOUR STEPS
Research
Shortlist
Vendors
Evaluation
ROI &
Justification
BUYER
Website Free Trial
VENDOR

22. GET INSIDE YOUR BUYERS HEAD
Research
Shortlist
Vendors
Evaluation
ROI &
Justification
Website Free Trial
BUYER
VENDOR
How are they
reacting as they
go through our
funnel steps?
What are they
thinking as they
go through their
process?

23. OPTIMIZE YOUR STEPS TO FIT
Research
Shortlist
Vendors
Evaluation
ROI &
Justification
Website Free Trial
BUYER
VENDOR
Competitive
Features
Matrix
ROI
Calculator

24. ADDRESS ALL DECISION CRITERIA
Address
Security Concerns
3rd Party
Security Audit &
Whitepaper
BUYER
Is this a safe vendor
to choose?
• Customer Stories
• Safe Channel
Partners

25. FRICTION CONCERNS
For Broken Funnel Steps: Get Inside your Customer’s Head

26. MOTIVATIONS
FRICTION CONCERNS
Re-design, or try to use what motivates them

27. EXAMPLE BLOCKAGE POINT
DRIVING TRAFFIC TO YOUR WEB SITE

30. LESSONS FROM WEBSITE GRADER
• Score leverages competitive urge, and acts as a trigger
• Free tools drive viral spread
• Low customer work required / High value delivered
• Builds trust through clear demonstration of expertise

31. WEBSITE GRADER
MARKETINGPRODUCT
A great example of how the Product
team can solve marketing problems

32. Freemium, Free Trials, Open Source
• Great strategy
• Free products have a chance of going viral
• Greatly lowers CAC, but at the expense of high engineering costs
• Other positives
• Addresses the Evaluation phase, and answers a ton of questions about the product
• The customer does the work

33. Freemium, Free Trials, Open Source
The Product is
your sales person

34. WHAT IS YOUR TIME TO
WOW! ?
Thanks to Gail Goodman of Constant Contact

35. DEFINING WOW!
A moment where your buyer sees
something cool and exciting
• Motivates them to continue exploring
The moment when your buyer gets
excited enough to want to buy
Mini Wow!
Full Wow!

36. TIME TO WOW!
•How many steps?
•How much time does it take?
•How much FRICTION is involved

37. REMOVE STEPS
& REMOVE FRICTION

38. EXAMPLE

39. As eCommerce shoppers…
… what makes us buy?

40. Photos
Feature Summary
Recommended Accessories
Rich description
Video
Reviews
Detailed Specifications
Answer: Rich Product Content

41. Salsify – Product Content Supply Chain Automation
Brands
Photos
Videos
Text
Specs
Etc.
Retailer
Portal
Retailer
Portal
Retailer
Portal
Retailer
Portal

42. Salsify’s original trial experience
Sign up
Wait for
email with
Account
Open the
App
Learn the
UI
Import
Content
Locate &
Export
Content
Export to
new
Retailer
Sign up
with new
Retailer

43. Landing Page
Lots of Fields

44. Next,
Wait for Email…

45. Sign In… Now What?
• Lots of work still required

46. Get inside your Buyers Head and analyze for Problems
Sign up
Wait for
email with
Account
Open the
App
Learn the
UI
Import
Content
Locate &
Export
Content
Export to
new
Retailer
Sign up
with new
Retailer

47. Redesign Trial Steps for Problems (Friction, Concerns, & Motivations)
Sign up
Wait for
email with
Account
Open the
App
Learn the
UI
Import
Content
Locate &
Export
Content
Export to
new
Retailer
Sign up
with new
Retailer
Delay causing
major drop off

48. First step in the redesign
Import
Content
Locate &
Export
Content
Export to
new
Retailer
Sign up
with new
Retailer
Sign up
Learn the
UI

49. New Landing Page: JUST YOUR EMAIL

50. Motivation: “If these guys are using
it, it must be pretty good…”

51. Still leaves a problem:
• Locate & Export Content
• Then import to Salsify to have
something to play with
Then:
Land directly in App

52. Major Friction + Other people involved = Long Delays
Import
Content
Locate &
Export
Content
Export to
new
Retailer
Sign up
with new
Retailer
Sign up
Learn the
UI

53. Offer a chance to start
with Sample Data
Sign up
Import
Content
Locate &
Export
Content
Export to
new
Retailer
Sign up
with new
Retailer
They now have the
MOTIVATION to
import their own data
Play with
Sample
Data
Mini Wow!
Learn the
UI

55. Eliminate the risk that the won’t find the path to Wow!
Learn the
UI
Import
Content
Locate &
Export
Content
Export to
new
Retailer
Sign up
with new
Retailer
• High friction
• Too much risk they
won’t find the path
to Wow!
Sign up

56. Guided Navigation
Human Help available

57. Uplift - % Conversion, Before and After
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Before After
Trial Request ->
Logged into App
Logged in ->
Product Page
Product Page ->
Taking action 3x Overall Improvement

58. Next problem area…
Sign up
Import
Content
Locate &
Export
Content
Export to
new
Retailer
Sign up
with new
Retailer
Play with
Sample
Data
• High Friction
• Long Delay

61. Problem solved – Export to Google Manufacturer Center
Sign up
Import
Content
Locate &
Export
Content
Play with
Sample
Data
Export to
Google

62. Last remaining problem area…
Sign up
Import
Content
Locate &
Export
Content
Play with
Sample
Data
Export to
Google
• Huge Friction & Delay
• Other People involved

63. Scrape publicly available data from existing retailer’s pages
Sign up
Play with
Sample
Data
Export to
Google
No import
needed
Scrape
Content
for them
• They have my content in here already
• They’re showing me all the issues
Mini Wow!

64. Eliminates need for Sample Data
Sign up
Play with
Sample
Data
Export to
Google
See their
own Data
Scrape
Content
for them

65. Final Redesigned Process • Fast Time to Wow!
• High conversion rates
Sign up
Export to
Google
See and solve
problems with
their own Data
Scrape
Content
for them

66. RE-THINK THE PROCESS
Source: Josh Porter – Designing for Social Traction
CONVENTIONAL
APPROACH
SIGN UP
FOR TRIAL
Wow! CONVERT TO
CUSTOMER
WOW! FIRST,
REGISTER LATER Wow! SIGN UP
FOR TRIAL
CONVERT TO
CUSTOMER

67. OUTBOUND COLD CALLING

68. Outbound Cold Calling
Cold Call
Arrange
Meeting with
Sales Rep

69. FRICTION CONCERNS
Problem: No Buyer wants a cold call from a salesperson

70. MOTIVATIONS
FRICTION CONCERNS
Get inside your buyers head – look for a suitable motivation

71. Redesign
Cold Call
Invitation to…
(something of
value)
• Educational Event
• Meet their peers
• See data that is of value
• See their own data in a new way
• Etc.
Build
Relationship
Build Trust

72. Use publicly accessible Data to build personalized assessments
Hi Barbara,
In doing a bit of research on fortinet.com, I noticed
that you’ve lost a significant amount of traffic to the
site (4,400 visits) over the past month. Is this
something the team is aware of or have any idea what
could have contributed to it? I also noticed while you
folks dropped off the 1stpage of Google in 11 searches,
there are tons of opportunities for your team (916
search opportunities!)
See below:

73. ARE THERE DIFFERENT
BUYER TYPES WHOSE
IDEA OF WOW! ARE NOT
THE SAME?

74. TribeHR
HR Information System
Applicant Tracking
Performance Management
CEO
Wow!
Head of Recruiting
Wow!
HR Administrator
Wow!

75. USING CHROME EXTENSIONS

76. CLEARBIT LEADS + DATA ENRICHMENT
New Leads
Enrich Existing
Leads

77. CLEARBIT
• Data Quality
• Highly skeptical
• Seen lots of products like this before
• Enrichment data wasn’t good
• Data Coverage
• Skeptical
• What % of our leads would be covered in this database?
Buyer’s Key Concerns

78. I have to go through IT to
get Salesforce connected
FREE TRIAL BLOCKAGE POINT
Connect to
Salesforce

79. SOLUTION: CHROME EXTENSION
Browser
connection to
Salesforce
See enriched
data in
Salesforce UI
Judge quality
of data
Report shows
data coverage
%
Chrome
Extension

80. CHROME EXTENSION
• Easy to install
• Low buyer concern
• Re-write the page’s HTML

81. CLEARBIT CHROME EXTENSION - ENLARGED

82. ELIMINATE STEPS THAT
HAVE DEPENDENCIES ON
OTHER PEOPLE

83. Funnel Whack-a-Mole
• Solve for blockage points
• As you fix one, the problem will move elsewhere

84. SILOED THINKING
MARKETING SALES
CUSTOMER
SUCCESS PRODUCT

85. THE NEW GROWTH TEAM
MARKETING
SALES
CUSTOMER
SUCCESS
PRODUCT

86. USE FUNNEL FLOW CHARTS
Website Free Trial
Handle
other
questions
Proposal
High Level Overview
xx xx xxx xx xx xxx
MicroFunnels where needed

87. Funnel Metrics
"IF YOU CAN NOT MEASURE IT,
YOU CAN NOT IMPROVE IT."
- LORD KELVIN

88. Funnels:
Governed by Two
Primary Levers
Top of Funnel Flow
(Quantity)
Conversion
Rate

89. The Key Metrics
VISITORS
CAMPAIGNS
TO DRIVE
TRAFFIC
TRIALS
CLOSED DEALS
CONVERSION
%
CONVERSION
%
OVERALL
CONVERSION %

90. FINAL THOUGHTS

91. Treat your Buyer like a Bank Account
Make a
deposit
before you
try to make a
withdrawal

92. For more details on all these topics:
visit ForEntrepreneurs.com
Presentation Slides:
forentrepreneurs.com/launch-scale-2017

93. APPENDIX

94. DEVELOPER TOOLS EXAMPLE
For those building infrastructure, not applications

95. EXAMPLE

96. Defining Wow!
• Mini Wow! Moment
Sees a React component wired up to data
with very little work
• Build a GraphQL Server
• Connected to their own data
• Web, iOS and Android clients connect
to that data (React/React Native)
• Full Wow! Moment

97. Buyer Journey (partial)
Validate
how easy it
is to build a
React app
with
GraphQLReact
Developer
Play with it
(Trial)
Demo/sell
to others in
company
CTO &
Backend
Developer
buy in
Play with it
(Trial)

98. Trial involves three hard steps
Set up a
GraphQL
Server that
fetches our
data
Deploy so it
is
accessible
by URL
Create
React &
ReactNative
component
Demo
access to
data in iOS
& Android

99. Tons of Friction in first two steps
Build a GraphQL Service
• Have Node installed
• Download a boilerplate project
from GitHub
• Npm install some packages
• Run the server
• Open GraphiQL in your browser
• Edit server code
• Switch to GraphiQL in your
browser
• Run the query to see the new
result
To Deploy to a URL
• Hope your server boilerplate has a
production deploy setup
• Identify a hosting provider
• Install the hosting CLI or tools
• Sign up for account on hosting
service
• Run deploy command
• Wait for it to deploy
• Open GraphiQL in your deployed
server to check it's still working
• Done

100. Redesign:
Wow! in a matter of minutes
Launchpad "new" screen: https://launchpad.graphql.com/new
Ticketmaster Example
Launchpad: https://launchpad.graphql.com/9pw9nnkjr
Expo client-side example: https://snack.expo.io/B1Bk_-k7-
For more details:
Video of Workshop: https://github.com/stubailo/ticketmaster-workshop
List of examples: https://github.com/apollographql/launchpad

101. SUMMARIZING WHAT APOLLO DID:
• Clear understanding of Wow!
• Analyzed Friction and Concerns for buyer
• Redesigned, removing steps and friction

102. JBOSS EXAMPLE

103. JBOSS EXAMPLE
EMAIL ADDRESS BEFORE
FREE DOWNLOAD

104. IMPACT
CUT THE DOWNLOAD RATE
BY MORE THAN 10X

105. MOTIVATIONS
FRICTION CONCERNS
Re-design, or try to use what motivates them

106. JBOSS EXAMPLE
• Making $27,000 a month selling documentation
• Solution:
• Give away documentation
as motivation to get their
email address
• Result:
• 10,000 leads a month

107. SEPARATED BUYER PERSONAE SLIDES

108. Identifying Characteristics
• What characteristics define them as part of
our target sector
• What characteristics eliminate them
• Other characteristics that are relevant
to this purchase
• E.g. Developers:
• Don't have a budget
• Prefer Open Source, and don't like to pay for
software

109. What Drives and Motivates them?
• What are their key business goals?
• How does our product help them achieve those?
• What does their Boss expect of them?
• What pain do they have that we address?
• Is it latent pain, or obvious pain?
• How do they describe the pain and what they are looking for?
• (Helpful for messaging)
• Is solving this pain a high priority for them?
• If not, what features would make it a higher priority?

110. What are they looking for?
• Most important features?
• Decision criteria?
• What are their reactions to our product/company?
• What will they like? What will they not like?
• What are the main questions and concerns they will have?
• What Competitive product are they likely to gravitate towards that we will have to move them away
from?

111. How do they go about purchasing?
• Are they out there searching for solutions?
• If so, how?
• What are the steps in their purchasing process?
• Who else has to be involved in the decision (e.g. Business buyer, IT)?
• Who influences them? (Sites, organizations, and people)
• (Helps us figure out how to market to them)