a thousand cuts :: adam cohen's blog

[...] Cohen and Rosetta’s Director of Social Media, Gargi Patel’s article on the new marketing paradigm that is happening when millions of 2.0 voices are unleashed is good. But the image conveys its [...]

Adam,

I think you’re right that brands need to factor in advocacy as part of the equation. Sites that have recommendations and ratings have been proven to increase conversions. Advocacy definitely does have an impact at many points in the purchase process. Instead of companies trying to generate awareness themselves, the smart ones are empowering their best customers and advocates to help them out in the process. I think some of the smart ones are already doing this, but it definitely can help most everyone else, too.

Adam – the timing of your post is interesting given the fact that I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the traditional marketing funnel. As a CMO myself, I am VERY familiar with the importance of creating awareness and then subsequently moving those prospective customers that have expressed interest in our brand down the funnel.

What’s most serendipitous about your post is that I had the privilege of doing a podcast with big thinkers David Armano, Sr. Partner at Dachis Group and John Cass, author, blogger and former community manager for Forrester Research on tapping into the power of “social” to create awareness and engagement. I will be posting that podcast shortly but in the meantime, I’m going to share a post that David wrote back in ’07 that he alerted me to prior to our conversation titled The Marketing Spiral. Ironically, his post includes the same Forrester image that Brian Haven created demonstrating a new “maze-like” version of the funnel.

Bottom line, the way marketing works is changing and I love that you and Gargi are pushing that change forward in your most excellent blog posts. Keep up the great work!

What I love about the advocacy funnel is that it gives us a framework for uniting all of the marketing silos together. As an advocacy-focused agency, we’re just starting to see this metric as the unifying point of integration across these disparate approaches to reach the consumer. Digital, traditional, social media, events, WOM can all be measured through the lens of advocacy. Well done Gargi and Adam!

Excellent points Adam. It’s amazing there are still companies and people who do not get this philosophy and way of life. What your sharing is old news, but with an evolutionary spin on it. The fact that the masses are now engaging with this process accelerates the need to be a part of the culture. I anticipate people may become somewhat disenchanted with the “paid” mouths who tout products, but there will continue the segment who buys because a “celeb” be it Hollywood or “Bloggywood” (k, I coined that one;) says it even when paid.

There will continue to be independent thinkers who don’t just jump on the bandwagon because so and so says to. They’ll also continue to seek out voices of real people who don’t get paid for product pushing.

This is eerily similar to a framework I’ve created for customer engagement, which considers both the traditional Sales Funnel of manufacturers and the Loyalty Pyramid of marketers. Called C.A.R.E. ™, Customer Acquisition and Retention through Engagement, it is an objectives-based process that focuses on channels, voice, strategies, and metrics based on stage in the Customer Journey…I’ve been leveraging it for use in Content Marketing and Social Media.

“Great minds”?!

Best of luck with yours, Adam,

Keith Wiegold
ContentKeith

Two thoughts, Adam.

Of course the Advocacy stage needs adding. Your delighted customers and clients must be trained to be your best salesmen. As my wording indicates, they sometimes have to be given some gentle correction, direction and encouragement, but there’s more of them than in your team, whoever you are, so get them prospecting for you!

Secondly, the traditional funnel model is being turned upside down by Social Networking! By this I mean that the process starts at the narrow end of the funnel with you letting your contacts know what you do, who you do it to, and the good they get out of having you do it. As they tell all their friends, your messages get spread wider and wider by the ‘viral’ effect – if what you say is ‘interesting’ of course! Hence my analogy of the upturned funnel spreading your messages. After all, this is the way trumpets are constructed so that the whole concert hall can hear them, loud and clear!

Hope this helps.

David

Adam – This is spot on but I’m wondering if the funnel is the right graphic… I think maybe the hour glass may be a better visual image because the purpose of driving customers toward advocacy is to get the trusted leverage that comes with that…so it is pulling some one into the point of the funnel so that you can explode that funnel back out. Just a thought

Thanks all for the comments. Two points are clear – 1) not enough emphasis is being put on advocacy in marketing programs, and 2) the “shape” of the funnel may be dated since the effect of advocacy can touch all other areas of the funnel (awareness, consideration and even purchase). Lots of food for thought, especially when thinking of practical applications… I really appreciate the response this has generated, thanks again.

Okay, I’m getting a bit weirded out here — the C.A.R.E. ™ strategic process I’ve mentioned above is based on…you guessed it….an hourglass ‘journey’ which dilutes the number of prospects as they boil down to transaction, while inversely increasing the level of engagement as the (now) customers then increase loyalty and advocacy.

Adam, let me know if you’d like to chat about the process in detail — I’d appreciate hearing your views….

Keith Wiegold
nutlug.wordpress.com

[...] The New Marketing Funnel (adamhcohen.com) [...]

[...] The New Marketing Funnel(adamhcohen.com) [...]

I think your first few paragraphs speak volumes about the shift in marketing and the funnel changes that have occurred due to the emergence of social media. The idea that one person tells ten is now one per tells one thousand should validate the need for businesses to mandate ongoing social media campaigns.

[...] The New Marketing Funnel (tags: socialmedia marketing conversion crm) [...]

I would go so far as to say that the marketing funnel is obsolete… an outdated sales approach focused on deliverables, pre-determined as market share, with little viability in the current economy. I’m impressed with your website. It’s clean, easy to read, and easy to comprehend. I’m encouraged by your positive intention, though I’m wondering if a better strategy, as opposed to adding a layer, would be to re-define the “virtual megaphone” to resemble something similar to a negative algorithm… define a market, determine your best suit, deny your ‘competitive’ marketplace… a whisper, in a deluge of competitive screamers.

[...] back, with each other, and arguably most importantly, with new prospects.adamhcohen.com, The New Marketing Funnel, Aug [...]

[...] (Acknowledgement – The content above answers the question I have been asked hundreds of times – “How does social media convert?” The model I have defined here is a social media extension of what Adam H. Cohen termed “The New Marketing Funnel”) [...]

Excellent job cover this important topic. I added some more commentary in a piece “Social Media Conversion and the Social Media Marketing Funnel” at http://bit.ly/dsPrq … worth checking it out.

Best,
Social Steve

Excellent job cover this important topic. I added some more commentary in a piece “Social Media Conversion and the Social Media Marketing Funnel” at http://bit.ly/dsPrq … worth checking it out.

Best,
Social Steve

[...] out with me for a second to review the concept of the marketing funnel; it pretty clearly outlines the process a typical customer might go through as they become aware, [...]

[...] fans on an ongoing basis which entices them and makes them willing to buy?”  She addresses the Marketing Funnel, a basic marketing principle companies utilize to build client bases, create new communication [...]

[...] ways to look at the funnel applied to social media, including a post I wrote last year about the New Marketing Funnel and the new book, Flip the Funnel, from Powered/crayon’s Joseph Jaffe.  What’s clear though, [...]

[...] ways to look at the funnel applied to social media, including a post I wrote last year about the New Marketing Funnel and the new book, Flip the Funnel, from Powered/crayon’s Joseph Jaffe.  What’s clear [...]

[...] too much focus at the “bottom” of the funnel. Now, we need to refocus on the top of the marketing funnel where a community influences purchase intent.  Then again, that’s the business we’re [...]

[...] – and how retention and customer satisfaction are a big piece of that. There’s Adam Cohen at A Thousand Cuts – who talked about a similar concept last year – and also these guys. And, of course, Lisa [...]

Great post Adam. There's certain online marketers that are teaching the future in marketing funnels. They know that most network marketers get it all wrong trying to fit so many pieces into the wrong puzzle. People are learning to map it out first and what the next steps are going to be. The marketing funnels now show exactly what the benefits are to get their solutions. Everythings so much easier when you have a plan first.

Rick Salas
http://ricksalasblog.com/marketing-funnel-mastery/

[...] Just poking around trying to find an interesting image for this post, I found this from Adam Cohen: [...]