The Marketer's Job isn't Just to Sell, it's to Reduce Friction

I think the marketing community has fallen (or been pushed…) into the bottom funnel trap. Chasing quick wins and pyrrhic victories. If activities are not immediately reducing CAC/CPA or increasing ROAS, then it’s not achieving anything.

This is very dangerous.

Marketing’s job isn’t to just sell. It’s to make buying feel obvious.

Take out the friction. Cut the anxiety. Clear the path. When we forget that, we turn marketing into a last-click tax on intent and call it “performance.” That’s why so many businesses hit a ceiling: the bottom of the funnel dries up because we never primed the top or navigated the ‘messy middle’.

Selling is a team sport. Sales closes. Product delivers. Service keeps people. Marketing reduces the friction that stops a good prospect from saying “yes”, from the first moment they feel a problem to the second they feel value.

The real problem: harvesting over building

If your plan depends on catching “ready now” buyers, you’re not building demand, you’re skimming it. Those audiences would have bought from someone anyway. Meanwhile, the bigger half of the market, people potentially anchored in a more complex user journey albeit potential better lifetime value (solve complex problems, keep them longer), stays on the fence because we didn’t help them think, compare, or try.

If we paused paid media budget tomorrow, what demand would still show up?

If the answer is “not much,” we’re harvesting, not marketing.

Fix the bottom, then get out of its way

Make checkout clean. Delete a field.
Swap “Request a demo” for “See it now” when appropriate.
Aim for Year-7 reading level, not because people are daft, because people are busy.

Don’t confuse polishing the doorknob with building the house. As marketers we have a bigger job to do.

Friction kills momentum. When buying feels confusing or high-effort, even strong intent evaporates.

Journeys, not funnels

Real people don’t slide neatly from ad to checkout. They loop. They ask a friend. They watch a quick video. They read a review. They forget. They return. Our job is to accept the loops and make each loop easier than the last.

Answer the problems, keep the messaging consistent, be distinct
Answer awkward questions where they live (YouTube, forums, review sites), not just on your website
Offer a small, safe next step (a quick watch, a quick try, a quick check).
At the moment of action, keep forms painfully simple. No forced creation or complex verification before value.

Extra steps aren’t the enemy. Pointless steps are. A short “is this right for me?” check can remove doubt. Doubt is the real friction.

Real buying journeys aren’t funnels—they loop. Each loop should feel easier, clearer, and more confident than the last.

Brand matters because memory matters

If people can’t recall you, what exactly is your funnel converting?

Make one promise famous. Use the same line, same visual cues, same feel until your team is bored. That’s when the market is just starting to notice. Familiarity makes everything else easier.

Give your marketing campaigns time to breathe. The enemy of insight is not giving messaging long enough to mature. Sure, there maybe some tactical tweaks throughout but ensure the anchor point remains true.

Customer learning beats channel tinkering

Five honest customer truths beat five new ad sets.

Every week: listen to sales calls, scan CRM interactions, read a few reviews. Find the three doubts that stall progress, then kill those doubts across the lifecycle.

One claim, three proofs. Put them next to the button.
A side-by-side page that admits trade-offs.
A 90-second video that shows the thing, not the vibe.

That’s how you turn curiosity into momentum.

Five honest customer truths beat five new ad sets. Remove the doubts that slow people down, and conversion rises naturally.

Friction doesn’t end at the sale

Retention is just keeping promises quickly.

Onboarding: land a small win in the first session/week. Pre-fill, import, smart defaults.
Education: show the next step in-product. Stop burying answers in PDFs.
Money: clear pricing, clear renewals, no traps.
Support: fast paths for the three repeat jobs.
Second win: give a reason to smile in week two. Momentum keeps customers.

Happy customers talk. That’s the cheapest media you’ll ever buy.

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Bring back the 7Cs: moving people from problems to products

The 7Cs aren’t a checklist. They’re a mechanic we work through at Curated to move someone from “I’ve got a problem” to “this product fixed it,” with less friction at every step.

Context: name the headwinds and tailwinds
What’s happening in the market (trust, price sensitivity, regulation, AI noise)? Where is interest rising but conversion isn’t? Say it out loud so teams design around it, not through it.

Competitors: who gets to first value fastest?
Count the steps it takes to get a meaningful result. Borrow the good (trials, guarantees, proof density). Counter-position the bad (bait pricing, pushy CTAs) and show you’re not that.

Customer: jobs to be done, in their words

What job are they trying to get done; both functional and emotional? Map the specific questions they ask at each stage. Anchor to the language of your target audience across the lifecycle.

Content: problems first, products second
Lead with the problem, then show the path to the product. Replace adjectives with evidence: numbers, screenshots, timelines, processes, customer quotes. One claim; three proofs.

Channel: use media to create fluidity, not just to create noise
Top of journey: be easy to discover.
Middle: help people compare and self-qualify.
Bottom: make action low-effort.
Add in-channel tools (checklists, calculators, “is this right for me?” flows) so the click is progress, not just a confusing interjection.

Commercial: price, policies, predictability
Opacity is friction. Say the price (or bracket). Spell out terms in plain English. Offer the smallest viable commitment (pilot, starter plan) that delivers a quick win. Don’t just obsesses on CPA, CAC and ROAS. Have a deep understanding of ROI/LTV and which cohorts contribute to growth.

Change: protect simplicity
Friction creeps back. Run a weekly “Top 3 frictions” stand-up, ship one fix, and keep a kill-switch for features that add steps without adding certainty. Standardise proof blocks so teams move fast without getting sloppy.

This is how marketers help people move from problems to solutions.

Extra steps aren’t the enemy—pointless steps are. Simple, low-effort actions make saying “yes” feel obvious.

What good looks like

You can explain what you do and for whom in one breath.
Ads, pages, and emails sound like the same person
Price is clear. The next step is obvious.
A stranger can decide in ten seconds whether to go deeper.
New customers get a quick “oh, that’s handy” moment, followed by another.
You spend as much time making buying easier as you do chasing buyers.

Final word

Marketing isn’t the loud bit at the end. It’s the quiet work that makes the end easy.
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When we narrow the role to harvesting the bottom funnel, we shrink the craft and starve the brand. When we remove friction, from first problem to first value and beyond, we grow demand, protect margin, and earn the right to scale.

The pure essence of marketing is not to only serve a market that already exists, but create new markets and opportunities. This is how genuine growth is created.

That’s the job.

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