How does one update the purchase funnel?

You know the funnel: awareness, consideration, purchase. It’s a classic. 

The original funnel doesn’t quite line up well with the way people spend their time, the way our brains really work, and what marketing should really focus on in each stage.

F’rinstance, while awareness is good, it’s not the whole story. And often it happens while you’re standing at the shelf looking at chocolate. “Hunh. What’s this Tony’s Chocoloony stuff?” 

And while consideration sounds reasonable, it turns out that most of the real deciding happens below the surface, subconsciously. And it depends on context. And mood. And stuff.

So here’s a mashup of two lovely funnel-like-objects (FLOBs), one from creative extraordinaire Dani Coplen, and one from strategy wunderkind Tom Roach. 

In the orange is what people do (you know: folks like you & me): 95% of the time we’re just LIVING our lives not thinking about insurance or fungal cream or even burgers. Then 4% of the time we’re in shopping mode, LOOKING to buy something. (Of course, on very different time scales for coffee vs. cars). Then there’s like 1% when we’re actually BUYING stuff. Transacting. It’s a clean, lovely way to describe the people side of things.

And in the blue, our tasks are thus threefold: 

1. BUILD brand memories & associations in people’s minds — aka mental market share (with ads & PR stuff & influencer deals & integrations & events & whatnot).

2. NUDGE people who are in-market to our brands (with attractive packaging & optimized Amazon thumbnails & performance claims & sale prices & whatnot).

3. SELL when the iron is hot (via omnichannel & multi-payment & layaway & site-to-store & takeout & delivery & whatnot).

Give the new funnel a spin. It might re-tune your intuition about where to focus, what to do there, and how to measure success.