Thread by @RaoulGMI

Take your politics out of COVID 19 and instead think of cases>hospitalizations>beds>ICU>Deaths.

It's essentially the exact same metrics as a sales or marketing funnel.

Total traffic is the largest driver and after that it's the conversion rates of the other parts of the funnel

The exact same is true in COVID.

Houston is the best example of the second wave problems of re-opening before the R0 was below 1 (where infection rates dwindle such as NYC).

The sales funnel - paid marketing is consistent and high. Here we can see tests are high but stable.

But the conversion to the next part of the funnel is highly effective. Sales are outperforming the marketing spend. Positive tests as a % are rising. Your sales funnel is becoming more effective and is a HUGE positive for any Saas business. This means you are getting + returns.

The next part of our sales funnel would be to get someone to your landing page or home page. That is when you get to interact. The more people that get there, the higher probability of success. In this case, the number of hospitalizations are increasing massively.

But we all know, that the real battle lies in getting a good conversion rate to trial. The higher the conversion to trial, the better the results. The virus is doing well in its Houston campaign. Hospital bed usage by COVID is rising very sharply...

Now you've got your funnel working and traffic is converting all the way down, its now time to get a new customer. Best thing is to offer a special deal. How about a nice ICU bed? 20% of all ICU beds are now COVID patients in Houston.

Then add in the "limited number" FOMO hook. Normal ICU beds are nearly full. It always works to attract the undecided.

And offer anyone who declined a "last chance offer" to mop up the funnel for the optimal conversion. Surge capacity is starting to get used. Get in quick!

The final part of the sales campaign is the "price is going up". Once occupancy of ICU and Surge begin to fill, excess deaths rise. These are the people who pay the full, post-offer price. They come later, but you can project out those sales from here (deaths WoW are rising 20%).

If COVID were a SaaS business, using a performance marketing campaign, this would be one of the best I've seen.

It's pure funnel maths since the top of funnel is growing so fast and the conversion rates all the way down are also growing.

Yes, new treatments to alleviate symptoms can tweak the funnel conversion rates but the top of funnel numbers trump all other elements. Everything else is optimizing a campaign.

If Facebook and Google ban your campaign, it stops. That is a vaccine or a lock down.

If people use ad blockers, that lowers your probability of success in the campaign (masks and social distance).

After a while, either growth collapses because all your target market (Total Addressable Market) is saturated (Herd imm.). Pretty difficult as TAM is so big for COVID.

The TAM is what makes Facebook, Google and What'sApp so huge. It's tough the saturate.

It's what stops fad products like Beany Babies. The TAM gets saturated.

Or maybe enough people aren't seduced by your silky copy and viral video marketing and skip it (getting the R0 below 1 by cautious preventative measure, where is fizzles out).

Most campaigns suffer this over time.

See, its not about politics, its just the numbers game.

It works for dating and finding a wife, marketing campaigns, ad campaigns, sales pipelines, spread fake news and conspiracies and all other behavioral influences.

It also works for pandemics.