Flywheel Marketing: What Is It and Why Should I Use It?

Think about the last time you purchased a product or service online. Did you come across a paid advertisement and feel convinced enough to buy it? Probably not!

Instead, you might have researched the company or the product online. You probably browsed several product reviews and customer testimonials before deciding to purchase. And you’re not alone — 92% of Americans read online reviews before making a purchase.

Shoppers generally harbor skepticism regarding outbound marketing, so inbound marketing strategies like the flywheel principle are becoming increasingly popular. With flywheel marketing, you create customer-centric marketing strategies that convince and empower the customer to push your flywheel along, increasing loyalty and encouraging word-of-mouth recommendations.

Keep reading to learn:

• What is flywheel marketing?
• The difference between flywheel marketing and sales funnel marketing
• Why flywheel marketing is vital for your business

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What is flywheel marketing?

Flywheel marketing is an inbound marketing strategy that places customers at the center of your marketing efforts. Your customers then become the momentum or mechanical energy that drives your business forward.

The marketing flywheel has three spokes:

• Attract: Attract leads with engaging, helpful content, such as blog posts, web articles, social media content, or pay-per-click (PPC) ads.
• Engage: Engage and nurture your leads to foster trust and convert them into customers. For this section of the flywheel, you might focus on strategies like email marketing and conversion rate optimization (CRO).
• Delight: Delight your customers by continuing to market products of interest to them. Here, you’ll want to invest in tactics like omnichannel customer service, loyalty programs, and other customer retention strategies.

When you prioritize the customer’s experience at every section of the flywheel, you unify your marketing efforts and create a circular process that turns current customers into advocates who then bring new prospects to your business.

Flywheel marketing vs. sales funnel marketing: What’s the difference?

If your company uses a sales funnel to guide prospects towards conversion, you may wonder why you should consider using the flywheel. While the flywheel and sales funnel approaches focus on moving people from prospect to customer, the procedure differs significantly.

With the sales funnel, you focus on moving people down through the funnel to the different stages. As they move through these stages, they often move on to dealing with other members of your team. They may go from talking to the customer service team in one stage to talking to a sales representative in another.

So, why is this system problematic?

With the sales funnel, there are typically four stages (from top to bottom):

• Awareness
• Interest
• Consideration
• Action

Many people move between these stages as they decide who’s the best fit for them. The path to the bottom is not linear –– many people hop between stages before ultimately making their decision. As it currently stands, the sales funnel doesn’t accurately represent the customer journey.

Additionally, the sales funnel doesn’t account for loyal customers. While some sales funnels include “Loyalty” as a fifth stage, there is no dedicated pathway for creating a cycle of repeat customers.

That’s where the flywheel differs.

With the flywheel, the customer is at the center of the model. This model focuses on taking prospects from strangers to promoters. It follows the cycle people take going from prospect to customer but using that momentum to create new customers and prospects from current, loyal customers.

This customer-focused model prioritizes customer happiness and sees those customers as a useful channel for helping spark growth.

Essentially, this model promotes a continuous growth cycle and focuses on loyal customers. 

Why should you use flywheel marketing?

Not sure why you should use the flywheel marketing model? Here’s why you’ll want to consider it over your traditional sales funnel:

1. It helps you earn more qualified leads

With flywheel marketing, the customer or client is at the center of focus. Every marketing action you take focuses on delivering the best experience for them, so they’ll refer others to your business.

When leads think about purchasing a product or service, they often refer to friends and family members about their experience with a company. When you put your customer at the center and focus on delivering the best experience, they’re more likely to refer you to their friends and family.

As a result, you earn more qualified leads for your business.

2. It helps build interaction with your entire team at once

As we mentioned earlier, a significant drawback of the sales funnel is that people interact with different entities of your company at different stages. They may interact with customer service in one stage, sales in another and marketing in another. And when they’re bouncing between stages, it can create a confusing experience.

With the flywheel model, all team members interact with the prospect at every part of the cycle. By unifying your teams and eliminating silos, you reduce friction that could create hiccups for your customers and keep your flywheel from turning. Instead, you create a more cohesive experience that pushes people through the cycle.

3. It helps you maintain loyal customers

As we mentioned earlier, the flywheel marketing setup helps you maintain loyal customers. Retaining loyal customers is critical because it costs less to keep loyal customers than to obtain new ones. If you think about it, these prospects already showed interest in your business by purchasing your products!

The traditional sales funnel doesn’t account for maintaining loyal customers, leading you to spend more money trying to continually earn new customers. With the flywheel marketing setup, you focus on earning new customers and maintaining the current ones.

This process leads to higher retention, which increases your return on investment (ROI) for your marketing strategies.

Partner with WebFX to leverage flywheel marketing

Flywheel marketing is the future of inbound marketing. As a forward-thinking flywheel marketing agency, WebFX can help you level up your inbound marketing technique.

We specialize in comprehensive digital marketing solutions — from social media marketing to content marketing and beyond. We’ll help you leverage customer delight to drive your business forward.

Reach out today to get a quote, or call one of our strategists at 888-601-5359 to learn more!