The Marketing Funnel May Not Be As Dead As We Think!
A future where 75% of the workforce is comprised of millennials will bring, without a doubt, significant change. But I also believe that it’s the responsibility of the generations before them – baby boomers and Gen X – to engage, enable, and educate them to ensure success for all of us.
Over the last few years, I’ve been sharing my knowledge with students in MBA and undergraduate marketing programs. Last fall, I offered my insights on modern marketing, thought leadership, and more at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business Marketing Forum. Likewise, I had a chance to share my marketing analytics journey at SAP with 
the Information Initiative at Duke – a cross-functional initiative that showcases the growing importance of data science and advanced analytics. I also hosted a session during a digital marketing class at Northeastern University. Throughout the year my discussions about modern marketing, technology, and automation transitioned from the umbrella buzzword “digital
marketing” to what’s now expected in mainstream marketing. Modern marketing embraces digital; it’s no longer a separate area of focus but a key component of mainstream marketing.
As my SAP colleague and friend Andy Greig recently reminded me, one unresolved element of modern marketing is customer relationship management (CRM). Andy is in the first year of his own MBA journey, and he brokered an invitation for me to be a guest presenter on marketing at the University of Colorado Denver. And he’s right: Of all the advice I have given to MBA and undergraduate students, CRM is one of the critical areas that I urge aspiring marketers to study, along with the enabling technology that is redefining the world of modern marketing.
My presentation, “The Marketing Funnel is Dead – Long Live the Marketing Funnel!” conveyed the fundamental principles of CRM and marketing automation and their applications for enabling successful marketing execution and supporting a foundation for marketing analytics and reporting. The MBA class proved to be another great teaching experience, as the students were clearly engaged and asking great questions. I found their knowledge of CRM projects fascinating as well.
Throughout the evening, three key lessons emerged and led to a lively afternoon of discussion and innovative thinking.
1. The marketing funnel is not quite dead yet
The traditional marketing funnel model – the movement of marketing activity from awareness, choice, and consideration to evaluation and purchase – has served businesses well for many years. When matched with lead-qualification approaches such as BANT (budget, authority, need, and timeframe), we have a process that qualifies and winnows sal
es opportunities sourced from marketing campaigns.
However, there are various levels of complexity and multiple measures that today’s marketing standards require marketers to simplify and accelerate. Modern marketing frameworks such as the SiriusDecisions Waterfall enable this new reality. In May, I’ll head to the annual SiriusDecisions Summit to learn more about this approach (and much more) and report my “a-ha moments” from this amazing annual “Woodstock of B2B Marketing.”
2. The buyer journey and customer centricity are essential
Forrester and other analysts report that 80% of the buyer’s journey occurs online before they consult or speak to a salesperson. From my perspective, there is a lot of truth to this observation, especially as marketing becomes an increasingly digital experience.
Nowadays, content must be digital-ready and found in “digital watering holes,” where prospective customers go to enrich their own personal buying experience. Elements of the journey fuse with the latest iteration of the marketing funnel, as exemplified by the SiriusDecisions Waterfall. There is greater coordination with sales and marketing than ever, instead of the expli
cit “throw it over the wall” concept from the past. Plus, marketing automation provides transparency into a buyer’s use of content, a process that is both customer-centric and data-driven.
While core marketing principles haven’t changed much over the years, customer engagement is steadily becoming faster, better, and more affordable as businesses apply standard methodologies with defined systems and processes and regular governance and reporting. Marketing automation and CRM comprise the digital foundation for powering these capabilities with customer centricity at the core.
3. Modern marketing will guide the way
Modern marketing is a continuous evolution of practices that are part art, part science, and a blend of marketing automation and marketing technology. Strategic and insights- and data-driven, this new reality requires agile marketing teams and practices that deliver outcomes-based results at the speed of our digital world.
By placing data science as a key component of modern marketing, marketers can embrace the use of knowledge and the classic “data to information to intelligence” paradigm. While becoming a data scientist isn’t necessary, marketers should acquire a basic familiarity with business intelligence and the value of Big Data and analytics.
Staying ahead of the modern marketing curve
Before I left the Denver MBA class, I asked every student to focus on marketing automation, reporting and dashboards, Big Data and analytics, and data visualization and predictive analytics – in addition to CRM. I also told them to carefully watch how modern marketing continues to evolve.
To stay ahead of this modern marketing curve, I am attending – and speaking at – several conferences addressing this and related topics soon. I hope to continue this dialogue and share this continued evolution throughout this year and beyond.
Learn more about the intersection of technology and customer satisfaction in 5 Steps to Your Customer’s Heart with Emotionally Aware Computing.