Is the funnel sales model over?

Ah, the funnel sales model. You know the one: inverted triangle takes prospective buyer through various stages of awareness until a purchase is made? It’s been around for years, but is it really indicative of where our process ends?

Customer meets service provider, makes a purchase, and everyone lives happily ever after; the end? We know a customer relationship doesn’t end when the sale is made, so why should the model stop there?

Recently, two newer, more comprehensive models have entered the chat: the Flywheel and the Hourglass.

Internet behemoth, Hubspot, developed the Flywheel, which takes into account that customer relationships are constantly evolving. “The problem with the Funnel is it views customers as an afterthought—an output to a process. When really customers are the accelerant. They’re the whole reason your business moves more quickly. The Flywheel puts customers at the center,” says Meghan Keaney Anderson, VP of Marketing at Hubspot.

Essentially, it’s a more succinct, circular path that starts with attracting your ideal customer through content. From there, it moves onto engaging with them to build a relationship, and then delighting them once the relationship is built. This Flywheel takes into account that word-of-mouth and customer referrals account for much of a business’s, ahem, business, and then leverages its online marketing to support this pattern.

The Funnel is centered on the business: there is a prospect, and they are getting closer to the business. But in reality, everything we do is customer-centered. Our customers are the lifeblood of our businesses, and the Flywheel takes this into account by centering the model around them.

The second newest model is the Content Hourglass. I've been reading The Ultimate Marketing Engine by John Jantsch, founder of Duct Tape Marketing, a firm whose content I really enjoy. In the book, Jantsch discusses his Marketing Hourglass, which expands on the concept of the sales funnel by broadening it back out, with the terminating point of the model being customer referrals, not just a single customer sale.

Both models offer a great way for business owners to view their sales process in a new, more relevant light.

To learn more about the Flywheel, click here.

To learn more about the Content Hourglass, click here.