McKinsey change the purchase funnel!
Everyone knows the purchase funnel gets narrower towards the end, right? The entire marketing process has been aligned to this principle for more than forty years.
Well, now we can think again. McKinsey’s recent global study shows a definite change in the way consumers research and buy products. And that opens up ways of smarter marketing.
Read full article here: "Smarter marketing: don’t advertise, help inform!!".
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Michael, I read this McKinsey article a couple of times and while I agree about the purchasing decision changing dramatically through social media etc I am not sure I agree with their fundamental starting point.
ReplyDeleteI am living on another planet? I see the funnel as a commercial sales paradigm which has been taught forever for people managing incoming sales opportunities. The funnel is a system to eliminate spending time on those who the sales people don't believe are worth the effort.
It has nothing to do with buyers and how they assess and behave, now or then, or at least only in the most trivial sense of narrowing our choices to a final decision. But who believes that consumers or buyers on the consumer side ever deployed a "sales funnel"???
I think McKinsey are just overextending themselves by trying to make something grand out of a simple observation and have somehow fallen into group think on the wrong model.
An I wrong?
Walter Adamson
@g2m
Dear Walter,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment.
You are right that McKinsey is making a pretty big deal out of 'launching' their new model. Or should I just call it 'drawing' ;-)
I ran into an article from Cathy Clift, dated March 2006 (!)(http://tinyurl.com/lp5rtj) who was already talking about the 'purchase funnel' being dead with pretty much similar conclusions as McKinsey.
The fact that the number of considered purchase options expand during the consumer decision process, is important to emphasize. It has massive impacts for online marketing communications tactics (as my colleague Steve Seager says in his post about this topic http://tinyurl.com/mceplw)
And alhough this fact was already known:
1. it is now backed up by proper science (McKinsey's research covers more than 20,000 people over 5 continents)
2. it's now articulated by an authoritive consulting firm such as McKinsey.
I still see many companies in Europe and The Netherlands (where I'm based) who are focusing their messaging on getting noticed (i.e. advertising). I'm working on raising awareness for what Online PR, and social media as a channel, can do for your business.
This research helps people to understand how they can adapt their messaging to changed consumer decision behavior.
All the best,
Michiel
I think the big win for the Online PR and Social Media is