What he describes "the audience" is part of the funnel. The idea that you have a cloud of people just out there taking in your content or marketing or apps or w

What he describes "the audience" is part of the funnel. The idea that you have a cloud of people just out there taking in your content or marketing or apps or whatever just means they are sitting at the top of the funnel. You don't have to treat them like a meat grinder at all. You don't have to push every person "into the funnel". In fact, I would argue that's doing it wrong. If anything, the funnel should be a set of gates people pass through, more like a filter that at each stage people are more likely the target audience for what you are selling. For example, when you go into an Apple store, they let you hang out, play with things, and are generally pretty nice to you. They also ask you questions about your needs and wants in product and they steer you towards what they think might be the best fit. Thus, filtering you down to the right product. BUT, if you can't afford the actual purchase, they aren't going to force you into buying or badger you into something. If more websites treated their funnels like a filter instead of like chute you are trying to force people down, the better off marketing would be as a whole. It actually makes the whole process better because you don't even try to pitch until they are ready to buy. For example, on a current side project I don't even show pricing until people use the product. I don't even give them the opportunity to buy until they have shown that they will use it. I don't want angry customers saying they bought something that they didn't use and want a refund. So, we don't try to sell until people are happy enough using the product. We will probably get fewer customers and revenue this way, but our customers will be happier and we will only have customers that use our product instead of people who are paying us because we are good at marketing to them.