Marketing Strategy & the Funnel
The point of this page is not to make you an expert on every channel. It’s to give you the mental model we use to think about marketing here — and especially to make one line crystal clear: what marketing owns vs. what sales owns.
The big idea: it’s a flywheel, not a line
Section titled “The big idea: it’s a flywheel, not a line”You learned the classic funnel in school: Awareness → Consideration → Conversion. Ours starts there but has two twists that make it Anderson’s and not a textbook diagram.
Our funnel has six levels, top to bottom:
- Awareness — they don’t know us yet (has 3 tiers)
- Consideration / Intent — they’re actively looking right now
- Conversion — they’ve reached out; deciding whether to hire us
- Service — booked job, work being delivered
- Advocacy — (fork, outward) happy customer becomes a megaphone
- Retention / Loyalty — (fork, inward) keep them coming back & buying more (has a 6-cell matrix)
Twist #1 — The targeting dial
Section titled “Twist #1 — The targeting dial”Most channels aren’t locked to one level. The same channel can serve different levels depending on how you run it. Run Meta (Facebook/Instagram) ads with no targeting across all of Phoenix → that’s mass Awareness. Aim the same ads at property managers by job title → that’s Targeted Cold. Show them to people who already visited our website → that’s Retargeting. The level is set by how you run it, not what it is.
Twist #2 — The fork + the flywheel
Section titled “Twist #2 — The fork + the flywheel”A finished job doesn’t end the funnel. It splits into two parallel paths:
- Advocacy (outward): ask the happy customer for a review/referral. Those reviews and referrals loop back to the top and create new awareness for someone else.
- Retention (inward): keep that customer buying more from us over time.
So the bottom of the funnel feeds the top. That’s the flywheel. And because we’re a relationship business, the bottom (Service → Advocacy → Retention) is where most of the money actually is — 18% of our customers generate over half our revenue.
The one rule that runs through everything
Section titled “The one rule that runs through everything”The more aware someone is of us, the more it’s a human / sales job. The less aware they are, the more it’s a marketing job.
- A total stranger? Marketing’s job — reach and educate them.
- A huge account that already knows everything we do and is mid-deal? Sales’ job. Marketing should back off; the relationship is what closes it.
Knowing where that line falls is most of what makes our funnel useful day to day.
The six levels (the short version)
Section titled “The six levels (the short version)”Structure for each: WHO they are · WHERE we reach them · HOW · WHY.
1. Awareness — they don’t know us yet (3 tiers, cold → warm)
Section titled “1. Awareness — they don’t know us yet (3 tiers, cold → warm)”- Tier 1 — Mass Marketing: everyone in Phoenix metro. Billboards, vehicle wraps, yard signs, radio, sponsorships, untargeted social/video. Why: plant the name so a future “locksmith near me” search becomes a “Anderson Lock & Safe” search.
- Tier 2 — Targeted Cold: hand-picked commercial decision-makers (property managers, facilities, GCs, schools). LinkedIn targeting, programmatic ads aimed at specific buildings, Apollo cold email, trade shows, partner referrals. Why: provoke a first flicker of interest.
- Tier 3 — Retargeting: people who showed a trace of interest (visited the site, watched a video, abandoned a form). Follow-up ads, Klaviyo email nurture, SMS. Why: keep showing up until they’re ready to act.
2. Consideration / Intent — hand already raised
Section titled “2. Consideration / Intent — hand already raised”People searching for our services right now. Google Search ads (PPC), our Google Business Profile, map/directory listings, SEO, our service pages. Why: be found at the moment of need and capture the lead (every click/call routed to a tracked capture point — that’s what CallRail does). This is what all of Awareness exists to feed.
3. Conversion — deciding whether to hire us
Section titled “3. Conversion — deciding whether to hire us”They’ve called or filled out a form. Now we win the “yes”: a live person answering the phone, fast and clean estimates, prompt follow-up, proof and guarantees, value-over-price framing. Why: turn a captured lead into a booked job.
4. Service — the job itself
Section titled “4. Service — the job itself”Booked work being delivered. The branded experience: dispatch, the “tech on the way” text, the uniformed tech and wrapped van, professionalism on site, a “Secured by Anderson” leave-behind, job photos, a clean invoice. Why: the service is the proof we’re the expert we claim to be. (Marketing doesn’t run Service — Ops does — but marketing shapes how branded and consistent it feels.)
5. Advocacy — the fork, outward
Section titled “5. Advocacy — the fork, outward”A just-thrilled customer at peak trust. We systematically ask for Google reviews, referrals, and testimonials/photos (Klaviyo review-request flow, QR leave-behinds). Why: their reviews feed Consideration, their referrals feed Targeted Cold, their stories feed Mass Marketing. The output loops back up the funnel.
6. Retention / Loyalty — the fork, inward (a matrix)
Section titled “6. Retention / Loyalty — the fork, inward (a matrix)”Every customer who’s ever bought from us. This isn’t one group — two things vary, so it’s a grid: Temperature (Hot/Warm/Cold — how active they are) × Awareness (Low/High — how much of our full scope they know).
| Low awareness (don’t know our full scope) | High awareness (know everything we do) | |
|---|---|---|
| Hot (active) | ① Cross-sell / educate — “Did you know we also do access control?” A natural place to introduce access control or a restricted-key upgrade. → Marketing | ② Grow — our biggest relationships. 🚩 Flag to sales, ease off marketing — the sale’s already made. |
| Warm (occasional) | ③ Introduce scope & deepen — use the next routine job to widen their view of us. → Marketing | ④ Upsell — “You’ve done 3 rekeys this year — ready for a master-key system?” → Marketing |
| Cold (dormant) | ⑤ Re-awaken — treat as a cold lead again; re-enters the funnel from the top. → Marketing | ⑥ Win-back — knows us, stopped for a reason. 🚩 Refer to sales to diagnose. |
See the pattern? Low awareness → marketing’s job (lever = education). High awareness → sales’ job (lever = relationship). And notice cell ① — active customers who don’t yet know our full scope — one of the most natural places to grow, whether that’s access control, a restricted-key upgrade, or a safe, with customers who already trust us.
The KPIs we watch
Section titled “The KPIs we watch”- Revenue by business unit (esp. access control’s share)
- Ticket average per customer (the motto: ticket sales per customer)
- Lead-source attribution — which channels actually produce booked jobs
- Campaign ROI — reviewed monthly with leadership, quarterly on big bets
A few terms you’ll hear
Section titled “A few terms you’ll hear”These are the ones specific to this page — for everything else, see the full Glossary.
| Term | Plain meaning |
|---|---|
| PPC | Pay-per-click — paid search ads; we pay only on a click |
| SEO | Earning unpaid Google ranking |
| GBP | Google Business Profile — our free Google/Maps listing |
| CTV / OOH | Connected TV (streaming ads) / Out-of-home (billboards, wraps) |
| Retargeting | Re-showing ads to people who already visited us |
| Share-of-wallet | Of all a customer spends on locksmith/security work, the % that comes to us |
| QBR | Quarterly Business Review — a scheduled check-in with a big account |
The takeaway for Monday: you don’t need every channel memorized. You need the shape — six levels, the targeting dial, the fork/flywheel, and the marketing-vs-sales line. We’ll build the visual together and it’ll click.