The marketing funnel has long been a cornerstone of marketing strategies, providing a simple model for understanding the buyer's journey. It has helped businesses craft marketing campaigns designed to move consumers seamlessly from awareness to purchase. However, in today's rapidly evolving B2B landscape, clinging to this linear concept is increasingly counterproductive.
Let's explore why the traditional marketing funnel is becoming obsolete, and what strategies can be employed to better align with the actual behaviors of modern B2B buyers.
1️) The Buyer Journey Isn't Linear
The traditional marketing funnel suggests a neat, orderly progression from awareness to interest to desire to action. But in reality, buyers are far from predictable. Here's why:
Reactive Nature of Business Needs: Businesses don’t operate on a set schedule that aligns with your marketing calendar. They may suddenly recognize a problem or opportunity that requires immediate action, bypassing the earlier stages of the funnel entirely.
Multiple Decision Makers: B2B purchasing decisions often involve multiple stakeholders, each with their unique concerns, priorities, and timelines. This multifaceted approach doesn't fit neatly into a linear model.
Information Overload: With an abundance of information available online, buyers are now conducting extensive research on their own. They’re exploring different solutions, comparing features, and reading reviews without ever engaging with a sales representative.
Actionable Insight: Shift your marketing efforts from a push approach to a pull strategy. Provide valuable content that addresses specific pain points and opportunities relevant to potential buyers at different stages of their unique journeys.
2️) Assumed Intent is Misleading
The traditional funnel relies on certain assumptions about the buyer's intent based on their behavior. However:
Interest Doesn’t Equate to Intent: Just because a buyer shows interest in a topic doesn't mean they intend to purchase from you. Engagement with content or web pages is often driven by curiosity, research, or entertainment rather than a genuine intent to buy.
Unqualified Leads: Misinterpreting interest as intent can lead to unqualified leads being labeled as Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs). This mismatch causes inefficiency in the sales process and can result in wasted resources.
Actionable Insight: Implement precise metrics to differentiate between interest and intent. Utilize tools that track the entire customer interaction history and analyze patterns that signify genuine buying intent.
3️) Declared Intent Trumps Assumed Intent
Understanding a buyer's declared intent is far more valuable than making assumptions based on observed behavior. Here’s how:
Declared Intent Audit: By evaluating each conversion point on your website, such as forms, chat interactions, and downloads, you can better gauge buyer expectations and classify intent accurately.
Personalized Engagement: Understanding declared intent allows you to craft personalized marketing and sales strategies that resonate with individual buyers.
Align Sales and Marketing: A shared understanding of declared intent creates synergy between marketing and sales efforts, ensuring that qualified leads are pursued with strategies tailored to their specific needs and stage in the buying process.
Actionable Insight: Regularly review and update conversion points to ensure they are effectively capturing declared intent. Collaborate between marketing and sales to ensure consistent communication and understanding of buyer needs.
Redefining Our Approach
Given the increasingly complex and non-linear nature of the B2B buyer journey, it's essential to adapt our strategies:
Focus on Demand Generation: Engaging "out of market" buyers requires a shift towards demand generation, which emphasizes creating awareness and interest through value-led content. By nurturing these relationships over time, you can guide buyers towards a purchase when they’re ready.
Educate Rather Than Sell: Potential customers often respond more positively to content that educates them about the solutions to their problems rather than outright sales pitches. Tailoring product and social proof content to inform rather than sell can foster trust and create a more favorable first impression.
Optimize for Declared Intent: Understand your buyers’ declared intent by creating opportunities for them to express their needs and interests. This approach enables more targeted and effective marketing and sales strategies.
The notion of a linear funnel is a handy conceptual tool, but it fails to represent the complex, non-linear reality of the modern B2B buyer journey.
By recognizing the nuances of the buyer journey and implementing strategies that reflect actual buyer behavior, businesses can create more meaningful engagements, more efficient sales processes, and ultimately, more successful outcomes.
It's time to move beyond the traditional funnel and embrace a more flexible, responsive approach to marketing that recognizes the complexity of the B2B landscape. The linear funnel had its place, but the future belongs to those willing to adapt and innovate.