Friction vs Fuel: Optimizing the Marketing Funnel
Some months ago I was listening to a Hidden Brain podcast. Shankar Vendantam was interviewing Loran Nordgren, organizational psychologist and author of the book, “The Human Element: Overcoming the Resistance That Awaits New Ideas”. I was struck by the application of his ideas to marketing and lead generation, so I downloaded a copy.
He starts the book with a discussion of fuel versus friction using the analogy of a bullet. The explosive force of gunpowder acts as fuel, and the resistance of the weapon barrel is friction. Both forces play primary roles in the speed and distance of the bullet, but frequently, when we apply this model to the realms of human behavior and the adoption of new ideas (aka change), we tend to focus on the importance of fuel alone. How do we push something through, faster? How do we get more of something? (How can I scale my business 10x by next quarter? Of course, I’ll spend more on advertising!)
The application to acquisition marketing is obvious and immediate, and he makes it himself. He provides the wonderful example of a furniture company that found itself struggling to generate new customers, until it conducted research with prospects and realized that the need to dispose of old, pre-existing sofas acted as a major source of friction, and completely stopped the shopping process. Rather than focusing on lower prices, better materials, etc. (sources of fuel), the company decided to cart away customers’ old furniture for free, removing that point of friction and subsequently changing their conversion trajectory.
Nordgren identifies 4 different types of friction: inertia, effort, emotion, reactance.
Nordgren’s 4 Frictions.
Illustration from his book, “The Human Element”. Copyright © 2022 by Loran Nordgren and David Schonthal.
In the world of conversion rate optimization (CRO) and digital marketing funnels, his ideas, slightly altered, provide a nice framework for identifying improvement areas. If we substitute “The Lead”, for “The Idea”, and assume the post-search-click context of a landing page, his general principles still apply, though on a more micro level.
Effort, for example, becomes the effort the prospect must exert to reach the next level of the CRO funnel. Personally, I find this second friction to be very fertile ground, frequently overlooked. My very first SEM conversion funnel success, back in 2008 when I was helping Intuit’s QuickBase (SaaS database solution) team, was a function of reducing effort friction. The QuickBase team was pushing paid search traffic to a landing page laid out in quadrants, with multiple calls to action, and I immediately realized this needed to be simplified, that we were asking prospects to exert too much cognitive energy, both in the perception and comprehension of the page. Over time and with testing, we simplified the design and offer, and eventually delivered an 83% increase in SEM conversion rate. So a reduction of effort friction drove an increase in throughput, a reduction in cost per lead, and the business subsequently put more money into advertising (additional fuel), further driving growth.
Generally, as marketers, if we utilize empathy, truly put ourselves in the prospect’s shoes (and seek out their voices), and then think of the conversion funnel as a series of very specific process steps which we can analyze with data, we will naturally find places to reduce friction. Put the time and energy into doing this before simply dumping more fuel on the acquisition fire, and reap the rewards.
