The "Marketing Funnel" is broken

I really like this quote a lot.  It's from Forrester Research and talks about the new marketing dynamic that all of us involved in brands, media and communication should be addressing:

 

The marketing funnel is a broken metaphor that overlooks the complexity social media introduces into the buying process. As consumers’ trust in traditional media diminishes, marketers need a new approach…

 

We propose a new metric, engagement, that includes four components: involvement, interaction, intimacy, and influence...Once engagement takes hold of marketing, marketing messages will become conversations, and dollars will shift from media buying to customer understanding.

They have a blog on which they talk more about their four phased approach - Involvement, Interaction, Intimacy, Influence. I haven't seen anything like this from a research company before.

The thought of brands starting building reputation through conversation is a fascinating one and one that I have been doing a lot of work recently. It goes back to the good old Cluetrain and the idea that "all markets are conversations."

Hat Tip to Tom who blogs at Usable Interfaces.

Comments

[marcus @ the ides of march]

It's interesting that Forrester have started producing some interesting thinking again. Back in 1998/99 (the good old days of bubble) we used to pour over the stuff they were churning out. Then it kind of fizzled away.

Not sure if you've got it but "Now or Never" by Mary Modahl is still a good read - mainly for historical reasons but there are some hints at things in there that we now take for granted.

[John Dodds]

It's not a case of distrust with traditional media - it's distrust of the messages that are pumped through them.

To just apply the same old ideas of metrics and "branding" through allegedly new "social media" is to miss the point and repeat the same mistakes.

Yes I'm cranky today.

[Tom]

I think it's great that a research company is suggesting some advice on how to communicate with customers. Aren't they by definition pretty clued up on this ?

The inference is that they are more clued up than the marketing companies that buy this information andthen try and spin it.

I'm not attacking marketing comapnies because there's undoubtedly a lot of value that is added there somewhere.

But it represents a great new business area for research companies to move into.

Maybe a suggested way of creating opportunities for the Ides of March, Marcus ?