The Marketing Funnel Is Outdated: Here’s What’s Working Now
Did you know that the idea of the marketing funnel has been showing up in marketing textbooks since the 1960s?
The concept actually originates from 1898, when Elias St. Elmo Lewis created the AIDA model—awareness, interest, desire, action.
Key takeaway: This idea was broadly popularized during the Mad Men era, when the boys on Madison Avenue spent their days trying to figure out how to get people to buy dish soap, appliances, and cars.
Today, “the marketing funnel” still works as a useful academic construct. But in today’s digital landscape, that model of the customer journey is outdated—because it’s nowhere near a straight line.
Your potential clients are bouncing around in the ether:
- They lurk.
- They Google stuff.
- They scroll.
- They click away and then discover you all over again.
To get their attention (and ultimately their credit card), you’ve got to walk them through a belief-shifting process and help them:
- Recognize the problem and realize there are better solutions than what they’re doing now (which is probably nothing).
- Know, like, and trust you—so they believe your solution is the right one for them.
- Understand why you’re different and why your solution will finally work (they’ve probably tried other fixes).
- Remember you—so when they’re ready to buy, they know exactly where to go.
I talk about that journey in this video.
But Once You Create That Content… Then What?
How do you get eyes on it? And how do you get people to trust that you know what you’re talking about?
I recommend you design a “Map to Me” (pictured below).
The “Map to Me” Framework
It’s a way of categorizing and strategically placing different kinds of content to help people discover you, know/like/trust you, and ultimately buy from you.
I walk you through the whole thing in this week’s episode of The GenXpert Show.
Watch it on YouTube: Click here
If you’re great at creating core content, but the broadcasting part has you flummoxed, steal my 5-Day Visibility Calendar that gets you noticed without spending 24/7 trying to figure out what to post.
Write Once; Post All Week
(NEW: Bonus link to an optional ChatGPT prompt to get there even FASTER)
