Ryan Deiss, a digital marketing veteran and CEO of scalable.co and digitalmarketer.com, shares his insights on the death of the traditional marketing funnel. He reveals why modern buyers skip linear paths and instead seek relationships. Deiss champions clear problem statements over hyper-targeting, highlighting the pitfalls of perfect attribution tracking. He also discusses how broad messaging can outperform narrow ads and shares practical email strategies for maintaining customer goodwill. Discover how to adapt your marketing approach for today’s fragmented digital landscape!
The traditional marketing funnel is obsolete as consumers now navigate a nonlinear path influenced by relationships rather than targeted ads.
Building trust through effective communication about customer pain points is essential for fostering lasting connections and enhancing sales.
Deep dives
The Role of Trust in Selling
Building trust is crucial in sales, akin to the relationship between a patient and a doctor. When individuals enter a doctor's office, they inherently trust the physician to diagnose their issues. This trust is established through effective communication, where the doctor articulates the patient's pain points and offers a solution. Similarly, effective sales strategies focus on identifying customer pain and conveying how a product or service can alleviate that discomfort, fostering trust and encouraging sales.
The Ineffectiveness of Traditional Marketing Funnels
The traditional marketing funnel has become outdated, as consumers now have various options for engaging with brands. The clean, linear process of the past is no longer effective in a chaotic environment where potential customers have multiple avenues to connect. Rather than pushing customers through a predetermined path, businesses need to adapt to the reality of elongated sales cycles and the necessity for persistence in visibility. Embracing a more organic approach allows brands to connect with consumers on their terms and meet them where they are.
The Shift Towards Messaging and Offers
In the current marketing landscape, the distinction between brand messaging and direct response advertising is blurring. Successful advertising hinges on the strength of the message and the offer presented to potential customers rather than solely relying on hyper-targeted strategies. Businesses can achieve better results by articulating specific problems their products or services solve, capturing the attention of the right audience. By emphasizing clear and relatable messaging, brands can create more meaningful connections with consumers, leading to increased engagement and conversions.
Tapping into Relational Equity
Understanding relational equity is essential for creating lasting connections with customers. Every interaction can be categorized as a deposit or withdrawal in building a relationship; therefore, businesses must balance their promotional efforts with value-driven content. Providing quality information, engaging storytelling, and consistent communication enhances brand perception and fosters loyalty. As consumers increasingly seek genuine connections, companies that prioritize relational deposits over transactional messaging will likely see improved customer retention and satisfaction.
Digital marketing veteran Ryan Deiss built his first online business in 1999 - when Google was still a university research project. Today, after generating $200 million in revenue across multiple companies, he sees a fundamental shift in how customers buy.
"The marketing funnel isn't just broken - it's dead," Deiss tells host Mark Drager. "Modern buyers don't follow a linear path. They bounce between channels, research extensively, and make decisions based on relationships, not just targeting."
In this episode, Deiss breaks down why established marketing practices fail in 2024's fragmented digital landscape. He explains how successful companies now focus on clear problem statements over hyper-targeting, why perfect attribution tracking misleads marketers, and how businesses build customer relationships without aggressive follow-up.
Key Episode Insights:
Why broad messaging often outperforms micro-targeted ads
How to write high-converting ads using simple problem statements
Practical email strategies that maintain relationships without burning goodwill
Listen to discover how leading companies adapt their marketing for today's reality - and why methods that worked even three years ago might be hurting your results now.
Follow Mark:
LinkedIn: https://hi.switchy.io/markdrager
Instagram: https://hi.switchy.io/KcKi
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