To increase your ROI, abandon the myth of the marketing funnel

We see it all the time. Your company is spending money on a digital marketing campaign – Google Ads, social media, email marketing, SEO and more – but you just aren’t seeing the strong return on investment that you were promised.

In this article, I will explain why the marketing model used by most businesses is flawed, and how a different model – the marketing flywheel – can be used to plan and execute a marketing strategy which will leverage your existing clients to increase your return on investment over time.

If your marketing activity isn’t giving you a good ROI, you’re probably following the traditional “marketing funnel” – whether you realise it or not.

In the marketing funnel, also known as the sales funnel, prospects enter the top of the funnel when they are made aware of a brand. Then, they progress through the funnel to marketing activity which encourages them to consider the brand. Finally, they take action, becoming a client, after which they exit the bottom of the funnel. 

The new client is an output, and then forgotten. This is classic sales mentality: hunting for the next client, the next lead, the next prospect. 

This model leaves out one of the single most valuable and cost-effective tools in your marketing arsenal. People who have already purchased or trust you are far more likely to buy from you again or recommend you to somebody else. 

To increase your return on investment over time, you need to leverage the trust of your existing clients. Those existing clients are in a position to recommend you to others. Not only is their recommendation often far more convincing than an ad, for example, but their trust costs far less to nurture as well. 

Under the following subheadings, I will explain why the marketing funnel is flawed, and why a cyclical, connected “flywheel” model can better conceptualise the marketing activity you need to do to win more work and increase your return on investment in the digital age.

1. What is the marketing funnel?
2. What’s wrong with the marketing funnel?
3. The digital marketing flywheel

What is the marketing funnel?

The marketing funnel is a way of visualising the buyer journey – the journey that each of your organisation’s  clients go through in order to buy your services.

There are several versions of the marketing funnel which use different words to describe the same stages of the buyer journey. Each of those versions break down along these lines.

The See stage – AKA the awareness stage. Prospective buyers enter through the top of the funnel through your organisation’s “See” stage content.

These could be ads specifically intended to raise awareness about your service, or the problem which it tackles. Your See stage audience does not necessarily need or want your service at this time, but the intention is to raise awareness so that your organisation is “top of mind” at a later date, when they do. See my other article to learn more about the psychology of the See stage. 

The Think stage – AKA the consideration stage. Think stage content is designed for those people from the See stage who are now seriously considering buying your service. 

Your local garage, for example, probably creates See stage content to make people in town aware of their brand (like a billboard), while their Think stage content would specifically target people in need of auto repair who are considering multiple options (for example, a price comparison in a magazine). 

The Do stage – AKA the action stage. Once someone has been convinced by your Think stage content, they enter the Do stage – the moment at which they purchase yourservice, or, depending on your organisation, take another positive action (like subscribing to your newsletter).

According to the marketing funnel, once someone passes through the Do stage, they are buyers. They exit out of the bottom of the marketing funnel – they are the output of your organisation’s marketing activity.

The marketing funnel has been a mainstay in marketing for years. It has, however, a major flaw that leaves many organisation’s wondering why their marketing activity isn’t producing the outcomes they want, and why their marketing costs aren’t going down over time.

What’s wrong with the marketing funnel? 

The marketing funnel conceptualises your organisation’s buyers (clients) as an output. Once someone has purchased your service, they exit the marketing funnel and have no further role to play. 

That idea is fatally flawed. It overlooks one of the single most valuable and cost-effective tools in your marketing arsenal. Assuming you’ve provided them with exceptional service, people who have already bought from you are in a position to do two valuable things:

1. They are far, far more likely to buy from you again, certainly compared to those who haven’t bought from you before
2. They are in a position to refer and recommend you.

By nurturing the trust of your existing clients and others, you can turn them into promoters, leveraging their influence to grow awareness of your brand at a far lower cost. 

Nurturing trust is a lower cost marketing activity that produces better results than earlier (but necessary) activity like See stage ads. In other words, nurturing the trust of your existing clients increases your return on investment over time. Your marketing will start to build momentum.

The idea of marketing momentum holds particularly true in the age of social media, where sharing content, commenting and tagging others makes it easier than ever for existing buyers to connect their network with your brand. 

It is this potential for marketing momentum – the growth of your return on investment – which the marketing funnel fails to account for. To see that return on investment, businesses need to reconceptualise the way they tackle their marketing. You need to understand your marketing activity as interconnected, with the potential to build momentum and increase your ROI over time. 

Instead of a marketing funnel, model your marketing activity as a flywheel.

The digital marketing flywheel

The digital marketing flywheel helps model how your organisation’s marketing activity can build momentum by leveraging existing buyers. The four messaging stages that make up the buyer journey are: See, Think, Do and Trust. 

As in the marketing funnel, See is the awareness stage, Think is the consideration stage and Do is the action stage. Trust is the nurture stage.

In the “Trust” stage, you must achieve two things:

1. Deliver on the promise you made to your clients or customers and provide an excellent service.
2. Leverage their experience to help you win more clients or customers, or expand the existing remit of your work with your new client.

Regular advice-driven email newsletters and paid referral strategies are all great examples of Trust stage marketing activity.

Let’s explore four important elements that make up the digital marketing flywheel.

1. The flywheel is a cycle. You can (and should) leverage the great work you’re doing with your clients to create more momentum within your marketing activity. They are fundamental to successful marketing and can happily play a crucial role in winning you new work.

2. Not all potential clients in the early See stage should see the same messaging or content.

3. Not everyone in the early stages are potential clients. In fact, they might already be clients. The flywheel model is as much about growing individual clients so that they work and spend more money with you as it is about winning new clients.

4. Trust is the vital component that leads from a successful client experience to new business from both existing and new clients. This is what truly connects and powers the flywheel.

Let’s look at some of these in more depth. 

Not all potential clients in the early See stage should see the same messaging or content.

You can label your potential clients as they move through the flywheel. Let’s build on our flywheel and introduce an Audience layer.

The four audience stages are:

● Strangers – Those who don’t know who you are, the service you provide, and may not be actively seeking our services. In the See stage, our focus is to bring awareness to strangers.

● Prospects – Those who may not know who you are, but are actively seeking your services. In the Think stage, your focus is to encourage prospects to consider your services.

● Leads – Those who know who you are and what you do, and are considering your services. They’re ready to take action with you. In the Do stage, your focus is to persuade leads to take a positive action.

● Promoters – Those who know you, understand how you add value through your services and are happy to advocate for you. In the Trust stage, your focus is to empower our promoters to recommend, signpost and refer us. 

Promoters are not necessarily clients.

You could meet a prospect, for example, who it turns out has no need for your service. However, you still sign them up to your email newsletter and nurture their trust. Then, when someone they know is in need of the services you provide, that nurtured promoter sends them your way.

The marketing flywheel model helps you plan and execute your marketing strategy without missing out on key groups and activities which will help increase your ROI over time. 

If you want us to show you what the marketing flywheel would look like for your business, get in contact. 

By embracing the digital marketing flywheel, you can revolutionise your approach to digital marketingI. By nurturing trust, leveraging promoters, and engaging with your audience at every stage, you’re not just abandoning the myth of the marketing funnel — you’re mapping out your organisation’s future success at lower cost, transforming clients into advocates and investments into sustainable returns.