The Marketing Funnel is Not Dead

The Marketing Funnel is Not Dead:from B2B Marketing and Lead Generation | Optify by Doug Wheeler
As you can imagine, I spend a lot of time listening, thinking, writing and discussing marketing strategy and tactics. After reading commentary from IDC and Forrester Analysts and select others declaring the death of the marketing funnel, I’m not buying it – and neither should you. To borrow a phrase from Mark Twain, ‘the reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated!’
The marketing funnel is alive and well for marketers to use.
Long, long ago in a world far, far away (like when MTV had just launched), I went to marketing class and they taught us about AIDA:

• A: Attention/Awareness: attract the attention of the customer
• I: Interest/Intent: create prospect interest/communicate the FABs (Features, Advantages and Benefits)
• D: Desire: convince the prospect the product will meet or exceed their needs and expectations
• A: Action: inspire an action; for example: download/demo/free trial

AIDA primarily describes the human psychology of purchase behavior. The logic:

1. Prospects have to become Aware of a product or service to have Interest.
2. They must have Interest before they can Desire it.
3. Unless they have Desire, they won’t take Action to purchase.

AIDA is a relatively enduring model of human behavior – let’s see…it’s been around since the early 1900’s. Check this out, from 1904:

This AIDA funnel has not changed much in over a century and it’s certainly not dead.
Much of what I’ve been reading has somehow evolved this human process into a discussion of a linear, measurable step-by-step process. Sorry, it isn’t like that – never has been and never will be. Humans bounce around all over the place and the advent of even more decision inputs through additional media types, including search and social reference, adds to the complicated nature of measuring marketing effectiveness.
Measuring Awareness-to-Interest is a tough business. Unless you have marketing software (like Optify Connect) that can help you understand the path/interactions a prospect has taken with your website, display ad, keyword program, seminar, email or event – let’s face it, you are just guessing.
However, what you can do is measure the conversion from Interest-to-Action. Much of the software created today can support that. Spend time with your client defining the Lead-to-Opportunity-to-Customer definitions. Realize the last mile from Action-to-Purchase is where the client’s Marketing and Sales teams must strive to reach common ground. Many great marketing programs and people have gone up in flames from failing to effectively define, measure, report and realign on this critical process.
Remember, the funnel isn’t synonymous with the life cycle of a customer; it doesn’t inform on all aspects of marketing and it isn’t the linear definition of media attribution to the purchase process. However, for seeking to understand the behavior of the buyer and how you can construct programs to address the prospect, it’s a model that has lasted more than 100 years and is going strong.