The New Sales Funnel

Let me share my point of view on the article about the new role of marketing and it’s cooperation with sales.

It has become quite obvious that well known standard AIDA (Attention, Interest, Desire, Action) doesn’t describe the purchasing process nowadays anymore. The center of marketing efforts has become the consumer journey through the process of purchasing. The biggest challenge currently is to keep customer attention and connection with the brand through all the steps of sales process. I think right now is the moment when marketing should be heavily involved in the sales process.

Earlier the role of marketing was to attract potential customer’s attention and create an interest in the brand, however now it feels that marketing is making a deep dive into analyzing how deep the customer interest is, trying to create purchasing intention. Marketing should be also well able to influence customer evaluation leading to purchasing decision. 

Even after the purchasing process the role or marketing is not really over. After the purchasing marketing should be able to ensure loyalty from the brand fans and new customers. According to Forrester research companies, who moved to the new sales funnel, have created a new marketing strategy around customers by concentrating on their needs, personalities and creating loyalty. Companies now have the ideal target customer portrait and study carefully their behavior to be able to influence their sales decisions.

Having a target customer image in mind helps to follow the customer and can better help to answer the questions about their needs and about their ways of trying to find the product they want.