In the world of digital marketing, a conversion funnel is a widely recognized tool that helps businesses measure the success of their campaigns. By breaking down the user journey into stages, from awareness to conversion, conversion funnels enable businesses to track and optimize their marketing efforts. However, this methodology can also be applied beyond marketing, as a framework for achieving any goal. In this blog post, we’ll explore why you should treat everything you’re trying to do like a conversion funnel, and explain the methodology of using buckets to define conversion.
First, let’s define what we mean by a conversion funnel. A conversion funnel is a framework that maps the user journey from initial awareness to final conversion. It typically consists of several stages, including awareness, interest, consideration, and conversion. At each stage, users may drop off or move further down the funnel, depending on how well the business engages and nurtures them. By measuring conversion rates at each stage, businesses can identify areas of improvement and optimize their campaigns for better results.
Now, let’s consider how this framework can be applied to achieving any goal. Whether you’re trying to write a book, learn a new skill, or start a business, you can think of your journey as a conversion funnel. Instead of measuring conversion rates, you’ll track progress towards your goal, and identify areas of improvement to optimize your efforts.
To do this, you’ll need to define your conversion buckets. Just like in a marketing funnel, each bucket represents a stage in your journey. For example, if your goal is to write a book, your buckets might be:
- Idea generation
- Outlining
- Writing
- Editing
- Publishing
At each stage, you’ll need to define specific actions that you’ll take to move closer to your goal. For example, in the idea generation stage, you might brainstorm different book concepts and choose one to pursue. In the outlining stage, you might create a chapter-by-chapter outline of your book. And so on.
Once you’ve defined your buckets and actions, you can start tracking your progress. This can be as simple as creating a spreadsheet or a Trello board to track your tasks and milestones. You’ll want to measure your progress towards each bucket and adjust your actions accordingly. For example, if you find that you’re struggling to generate ideas, you might need to spend more time reading and researching in your niche.
By treating your goal like a conversion funnel and using buckets to define your stages, you’ll have a clear roadmap for achieving success. You’ll be able to identify areas where you’re struggling and make adjustments to optimize your efforts. You’ll also be able to measure your progress and celebrate your successes along the way.
Local Optima
A local optima is a point or state in a problem-solving process where the current solution appears to be the best solution within a limited surrounding area, but may not necessarily be the best overall solution to the problem. In other words, a local optima is a suboptimal solution that seems optimal when compared only to nearby solutions. This concept is often used in optimization problems, such as in mathematics, engineering, and computer science. It is important to identify and avoid local optima to find the best possible solution to a problem.
In conversion funnels, it’s critical to remove these isolated, non-optimal solutions. They generally create bottlenecks in your process.
Imagine you’re playing a game and you’re trying to get to the highest level possible. Along the way, you might encounter different challenges or obstacles that you have to overcome. Sometimes, you might find a way to overcome a challenge, but it’s not the best way to get to the highest level.
This is what we call a local optima. It’s like when you find a shortcut in the game that helps you get past one level quickly, but it doesn’t help you get to the highest level. It’s like being on a hill and thinking you’re at the top because you can’t see beyond the trees, but there’s actually a higher peak further away.
For example, imagine you’re trying to solve a puzzle with different pieces that fit together. You might find a way to put some pieces together that looks good, but it doesn’t fit with the rest of the puzzle. This is a local optima because it’s a good solution for that part of the puzzle, but it doesn’t help you solve the whole puzzle.
In life, we often encounter local optima. We might find a way to solve a problem or achieve a goal, but it might not be the best way to get to where we want to be in the long run. So, it’s important to keep looking for better solutions and not settle for what seems good in the moment.
Conclusion
In conclusion, whether you’re a marketer or not, you can benefit from thinking of your journey towards achieving any goal as a conversion funnel. By defining your buckets and tracking your progress, you’ll have a clear roadmap for success. So, the next time you’re trying to achieve something, think about how you can break it down into stages, and use the conversion funnel methodology to optimize your efforts.
