In this article we cover:
The New Marketing Funnel
The Flywheel Model
And OUTMarketing? What model did you adopt?
Today, we know that modern consumers:
They enter the funnel at any stage, and not linearly, from top to bottom, as the traditional funnel imposes;
They get information about your company from comparison websites and through independent online reviews – not just directly from your company;
They trust word of mouth and recommendations from colleagues, family and acquaintances more than the companies themselves ( 81% );
The majority ( 57% ) have already completed the decision-making process before contacting a salesperson;
They live in an omnichannel world and have preferences about where and how they like to be contacted.
In this context, it becomes clear that the traditional marketing funnel is not enough. For starters, it is a model that imposes a clear separation of skills between the Marketing, Sales and Customer Success teams. This situation can create some friction in the consumer experience when companies do not know at what stage of the purchasing journey the Customer is and which of their specialists is the most suitable.
The traditional funnel then ends at the product adoption stage (onboarding and implementation). But this is actually the beginning of the relationship, not the end . In other words, the traditional funnel generates customers, but it doesn’t pave the way for these customers to help you grow. Calling off your Customer Success work at the implementation stage is like calling off your wedding after the honeymoon. The effects on companies are predictable: high churn rates , reduced cross-selling or upselling, lower customer satisfaction, etc.
Finally, the main criticism leveled at the traditional Marketing and Sales funnel is that it does not place the Consumer at the center of the operation. The objectives are different: to attract people and produce Customers. This thinking may have worked at a time when decisions were made based on the materials and resources sent by the company itself. But as we have seen, with the abundance of reviews, third-party benchmarks and the importance of word-of-mouth, the Customer experience takes on the main role in the growth of your company.
In fact, Hubspot experts argue that the biggest threat to your company’s growth is not competition: it’s a poor customer experience . The reason is simple. By taking your customers’ interests into account throughout the entire purchasing journey, their satisfaction levels are higher and they end up acting as promoters, recommending your company to colleagues and acquaintances. This way, you put word of mouth to work for you. In other words, it has been discovered that the planet of Digital Marketing revolves not only around itself, but also around the Sun, the Consumer – and with this, the Marketing funnel has undergone changes.
The New Marketing Funnel
The recent modernization of the Marketing funnel brought some necessary changes for a company to grow sustainably in 2020. Now, the funnel looks more like an hourglass or an infinity – in addition to the usual pre-sale stages, it includes the expansion of the post-sale stages, which were sorely needed.