Lead Your Stakeholders “Down the Rabbit Hole”

We’ve all heard the phrase, “down the rabbit hole”, and understand its meaning to be, “heading deeper into the unknown to see where that exploration takes you”.

A rabbit hole is an entry point – a place to begin a journey – and for your business, can be an effective entry point to increase stakeholder engagement.

If executed effectively, the deeper someone goes down a rabbit hole the more invested they become in your organization. And the more likely they are to engage with your story and take action.

One way to craft a rabbit hole for your organization is to build out “Hub pages” on your site.

Hubs are entry points (usually keyword-driven, based on traffic data analysis) that lead people to more learning and exploration and help guide them through the audience engagement cycle. These hubs are information-rich portals that enable site visitors to explore a topic area in great detail and embark on a journey that leads them to an even deeper understanding of your approach, impact, and expertise on a given subject.

These self-directed explorations lead to improved conversion metrics and deeper relationships with your audience and help you better measure, upgrade your materials, and drive toward your goals more effectively.

Rabbit holes can even take the form of an action that starts a journey through an engagement pipeline. For instance, a content, or lead magnet (valuable asset you exchange for an email address) can prompt an email series that welcomes the recipient to your organization and leads them to more engagement via regular email interaction.

The entry point into a rabbit hole could even be an in-person event that kickstarts an individual’s interaction with your organization. Any point of entry that inspires additional learning and exploration could act as a rabbit hole – it simply needs to encourage curiosity and facilitate those journeys deeper into your materials.

Ideally, the rabbit holes you create should lead to an exchange of value where you are able to collect contact information to further your relationship-building after an action event – one where your prospect raises their hand and expresses their desire to become more engaged with your organization.

It’s important to capitalize on this excitement or curiosity to build your relationships and eventually foster deeper engagement with your cause and mission. This enables you to continually deliver value to keep your new connection engaged.

Remember, it’s important to get people to dive deeper into your organization’s mission and purpose. To do that you need to have various ways for your stakeholders to engage based on what their curiosity is or interests align. Creating multiple rabbit holes ensures that you grab everyone at any place in the engagement cycle and ensure better engagement and conversion.

To read more about the Audience Engagement Cycle, check out our book, Mission Uncomfortable here or give us a shout to learn more.