It takes a lot to grab the attention of your prospects. In fact, in most cases you have to connect with a prospect several times before they click on that magic button to learn more about you. You probably use a variety of means to grab attention. For example, you might use social media, content marketing and even advertising. Once you have your prospect’s attention, are you overwhelming them?
The Fire Hose Effect
A fire hose blasts a flame with a high powered surge of water. Anything in the way of the water stream is bound to be destroyed or at least completely soaked. This fire hose approach is how many marketers target their prospects. They assume that once they have their attention they have to douse them with as much value as possible so they don’t lose them. With the fire hose effect, the goal, once you have the interest of a prospect is to keep their attention.
A typical fire hose scenario looks like this…
Your prospect visits your site where they’re barraged with calls to action. They can sign up for your free class, watch your video, connect with you on Facebook and so on. Assuming they choose one of those offers they’re then provided with more content then they know what to do with. For example, they sign up for your free class. As soon as they sign up they’re given a link to a video series, a workbook, a book, and a link to member only content.
It’s too much! You’re overwhelming them and you know what people do when they’re overwhelmed? They do nothing. They file all of the material and look for a simpler and easier approach.
Instead of Overwhelming Your Prospect
There are simple steps you can take to stop overwhelming your prospect.
1. One call to action. Decide what you want them to do and then create a landing page that does everything in its power to motivate them to follow through.
2. Create one simple, powerful, and valuable piece of information to enter into your sales funnel. Free is great and valuable information establishes you as a credible resource they can turn to for help. Keep it simple and focus on quality over quantity.
3. Follow through – Building a relationship with your prospect is the best way to move them forward in your sales funnel. Instead of overloading them with freebies and content, follow up to see how they’re doing with the information you provided. Do they have questions? Are they ready to take the next step?
Make things simple for your prospects and for yourself. Create a highly focused strategy that strives to offer specific information to interested people. Then build relationships with those people by providing superior quality information and a genuine interest in their progress.