Replace the sales funnel

Companies used to view their marketing efforts as a sales funnel. In this traditional model, a company would first try to get as many people into this funnel as possible. They would then push their prospects through stages of awareness, familiarity, consideration and eventual purchase. If it took 10 prospects to close one sale, well then the answer for more sales was simply to get 10 times that number of new prospects into the top of the funnel.

This worked well until new technologies empowered customers and revolutionized customer decision-making across the globe so that now the customer is in control.

A recent study by McKinsey & Company identified that two-thirds of the touch points during active evaluation involve consumer-driven marketing activities: activities initiated by the consumer such as reaching out to social media contacts or reading online reviews. Only one-third resulted from company-driven marketing: activities initiated by the company such as an email campaign or paid media. This means that the traditional sales funnel model entirely ignores two-thirds of the average consumer’s interactions with a brand.

Widespread Internet access and social media allow prospects to explore brands more comparatively through a wider variety of research tools, and determine which companies they want to engage with, and how. As a result, consumers are as invested in ongoing engagement with a company as they are in the sale itself.

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The traditional sales funnel, therefore, is dead. But instead of viewing this as a loss, marketing in the trenches can turn this into an opportunity. It’s a matter of turning the old funnel lengthwise now and viewing the entire process as a constant journey with your brand. This will allow you to target your marketing to this new decision-making process – to be in the right place at the right time and interact in ways that aid your customer’s evaluation process.

To successfully inject your company into your customer’s evaluation process, begin by mapping out your customer-decision journey.

From the moment of initial consideration, consumers actively evaluate brands. After purchasing a product, the consumer then begins an active evaluation again, this time informed by his or her post-purchase experience.

At any point in this journey, an interaction with your brand will affect a customer’s decision. This means that you need to look at every touch point a prospect could have with your brand: before, during and after purchase.

By aligning your marketing with the consumer-decision journey, you will gain influence over consumer-driven marketing activities, such as online reviews and word-of-mouth recommendations. It will also enable you to focus your marketing initiatives on the most influential touch points, saving money that might have been spent inefficiently and making your customers feel that you’re in touch with their needs and wants.

While you are strengthening key touch points, remember that you must create opportunities for engagement both before and after purchase. Although the initial purchase is key the real work comes after, as you determine how to engage that customer for many years and maximize lifetime value. •

Chris Ciunci is founder and managing partner of TribalVision, which has offices in Warwick, Boston and New York.

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