Why your marketing funnel needs a serious rethink (and how) - N°32

Hi everyone,

Are marketing funnels as valuable as we often assume? Or are they somewhat irrelevant or worth misleading?

In this edition N°32 of TheMarketingOrchestrator newsletter, we explore why it may be time to give your marketing funnel a serious rethink.

Get ready to see the light at the end of the tunnel and upgrade your marketing strategy.

Happy to read your comments!

#marketing #funnel #attribution #customerjourney

[Advertising]

The marketing funnel: origins, criticisms, and reviewed models

If you read only one article about the marketing funnel and its issues, this should be this one by Tom Roach, published in September 2021 by MarketingWeek. The VP Brand strategy at Jellyfish first comes back to the concept's origin. He also attributes the rise of the idea since 2000, when AdTech started to conquer the marketing minds, which brings a particular light on the phenomenon. He explains the prominent critics of the funnel: too linear, not encompassing post-purchase or loyalty, and not reflecting the non-linear nature of the customer journey. But the most exciting part is when Roach challenges the awareness notion by recommending to focus instead on mental availability:

"Mental availability encompasses awareness, but is really a composite of spontaneous awareness, salience, distinctiveness, associations with category cues, being noticed and remembered. It rules over everything." - Tom Roach.

I also like how it brings brand and performance together, naturally:

"The standard funnel also doesn't tend to emphasize a key role played by much digital marketing today. Not its role in helping brands to come to mind more easily, but in helping brands that have already come to mind to be found more easily." - Tom Roach.

As an analysis of funnels would only be complete by proposing a new model, Roach suggests and visualizes some substantial modifications to the existing models.

[Measurement]

Moving beyond purchase funnels

In a LinkedIn post, Jenni Romaniuk, a research professor at Ehrenberg-Bass Institute and author of "How brands grow - Part 2", opens the debate around funnels and argues that purchase funnels are misleading, irrelevant, and futile. She argues that there are easier ways to measure brand share/penetration and that funnels put a barrier between marketers and insights. Time to forget funnels?

[Strategy vs tactics]

How confusion between strategy and tactics affects our conception of the sales funnel

The death of the sales funnel is greatly exaggerated. This is at least the opinion of Mark Ritson, published in April 2016 in MarketingWeek. Indeed, according to the brand consultant and former marketing professor, while the way consumers purchase products may have changed with the advent of digital technology, the fundamental idea of the sales funnel remains the same. Concretely, the funnel charts the various steps in the buying journey and helps marketers understand where to focus their efforts, their brand objectives, and what investment and return are expected. The article also points out that marketers should differentiate between strategy and tactics and not mistake the tactical resources used to traverse the buying process for the journey itself:

"Clearly today's consumer is availed with a whole set of resources and influences unimaginable a decade ago. But that is not the point of the sales funnel, which charts the consumer journey, not the tactical attempts of brands to influence it." - Mark Ritson.

The plus: several meaningful reminders of related marketing theories.

[Lead generation]

Lead generation needs top-of-funnel content too

Recession is here, but top-of-funnel content should continue to matter for lead generation. Joshua Nite, Senior content marketing Manager at TopRank Marketing, explains why in his article published on TopRank Marketing in December 2022:

1. The majority of the audience is out-of-market, and top-of-funnel content can serve as an investment in future revenue.
2. Striking a balance between brand and demand marketing is essential; the ideal mix is 45% brand and 55% demand.
3. Memorability is crucial for long-term success; the key is creating "best-answer content."
4. Quality creative content can lead to better business outcomes, with brands with high-quality, creative content seeing an average of 2.5% market share growth.

Convincing.

[Buying decision]

Exploring the "messy middle": Google's insights on the complex buyer decision-making process

Due to the number of data and touchpoints Google controls, it may be interesting to listen to when "Think with Google" speaks of funnels. Alistair Rennie and Jonny Protheroe from Google's consumer insights team have conducted numerous studies and diverse approaches to identify what they name the "messy middle" of the buyer decision-making process, meaning what happens between the trigger and purchase:

"In the center of the model lies the messy middle — a complex space between triggers and purchase, where customers are won and lost." - Alistair Rennie and Jonny Protheroe.

This article, published in July 2020, claims this intermediate stage is non-linear and consists of a complicated web of touchpoints. This is when shoppers process information and make choices that influence their buying decision. The research finds that people deal with the scale and complexity of this stage by using cognitive biases that shape their shopping behaviour. The article prioritizes six biases and provides descriptions for each, which were used to design a large-scale shopping experiment simulating 310,000 purchase scenarios across various industries. To help marketers succeed in the messy middle, the piece of content also provides four approaches; my favourite is ensuring a brand presence.

Good to know: to go deeper into the messy middle", download the full report of 98 pages.

[Content]

Making the messy organized: mission possible

To complement the previous article, I recommend the action part suggested by Stu Eddins, AVP of Digital strategy at Stamats. His action plan involves:

• Brainstorming a list of messy middle questions prospects may ask.
• Assessing the quality of existing answers and identifying gaps.
• Creating a content development plan.
• Arranging articles in a hierarchy.

For example, display ads should be designed to promote responses to specific questions, and search ads should capitalize on hot topics from the messy middle to attract prospects ready to commit. Campaigns targeting the messy middle will have low conversion rates, so search ads should be used to capture the attention of prospects prepared to commit. A welcoming come-back to the customer's mind.

[Dark funnel]

Upgrading B2B marketing: embracing the "dark funnel"

In his conversation from November 2021 with Fernando Amaral for the "Ungated marketing" podcast by Landbot, Chris Walker, the founder and CEO of RefineLabs, argues that the B2B marketing playbook is broken and should consider the "dark funnel" instead. Therefore, marketers need to change their mindset to upgrade from outdated tactics and find customers where they are. The obsession with MQLs, gated content, and direct response advertising are no longer the most effective tactics for marketing, as there is an over-reliance on technology in how companies measure marketing's effectiveness. Outbound and inbound marketing initiatives needed to be updated, and companies are struggling to react to these changes and getting stuck in models that do not work anymore. If you suddenly feel depressed as a marketer, feel relieved as the episode suggests solutions too:

1. Move away from the traditional funnel and embrace the "dark funnel", which focuses on meeting buyers where they are rather than trying to push them down a predetermined path.
2. Shift away from relying on MQLs as the primary metric for measuring marketing success and consider other metrics, such as customer acquisition cost, revenue generated, and lifetime value of customers.
3. Avoid relying solely on direct response advertising, which can be expensive and ineffective, and instead focus on building relationships with customers through content marketing, social media, and other channels.
4. Invest in employee advocacy programs that leverage the social media presence of employees to reach new customers and build trust with potential buyers.
5. Rethink the role of marketing in the organization and recognize that it can drive revenue growth rather than just a support function for sales.
6. Be willing to experiment with new marketing tactics and channels, and be open to learning from B2C marketing strategies.
7. Avoid relying too heavily on technology to measure marketing effectiveness and instead focus on building a deep understanding of customer behaviour and preferences.

The last point is priceless because it puts marketing nearer to what should remain its focus: the audience.

[B2B]

Embrace funnel ecosystems instead of linearity

For Justin Rowe, the founder and CMO of a B2B LinkedIn Ads agency, the traditional funnel model for B2B marketing needs to be revised because it assumes that prospects will follow a set path from awareness to conversion. Instead, the modern B2B buyer journey is more of an ecosystem, with prospects entering through various touchpoints such as search engines, social media, referrals, and word of mouth. As Justin wrote in his Linkedin post, the goal should be to expose prospects to all the places the brand exists in an orchestrated and decentralized manner:

"The different channels should flow into each other and not just into your website." - Justin Rowe.

Within this context, building trust and showing expertise to nurture prospects over time, rather than solely relying on ad budget, becomes a must-have. Well said.

[Strategy]

Why full-funnel marketing is essential for long-term growth

A full-funnel marketing strategy is necessary for businesses to achieve long-term growth, tell Jacob Ader, Kelsey Robinson, Julien Boudet and Marc Brodherson in their article by McKinsey in February 2021. Many companies are shifting their marketing budget towards the bottom of the funnel, which has significant implications for long-term value. Full-funnel marketing combines brand building and performance marketing to develop a more accurate picture of marketing's overall effectiveness. The article also identifies four essentials of full-funnel marketing: brand-building measurement, a common language and data architecture, an integrated team, and a test-and-learn mindset.

[Startup]

The pitfalls of lower-funnel marketing for startups and how to avoid them

In her article by Forbes, Roshni Wijayasinha, founder of Prosh Marketing, explains why startups focus on lower-funnel marketing activities instead of spreading their efforts across the whole funnel. It highlights startups' three main challenges: limited resources, lead source tracking bias, and efficiency fallacy. The article recommends startups take advantage of a full-funnel marketing approach to stretch their small budgets as far as possible.

PS: Unless otherwise stated, all the pieces of content were published in the last two weeks.

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I hope you enjoyed it.

Happy to read your comments!

Lucie.