Strategies to acquire new customers: How to go beyond the traditional approach
The classic way through the process used by the consumer (the same goes for a company) to choose, to resolve and to drive a purchase, is usually represented by a funnel (sale funnel). In 2005 I wrote a pair of posts about it with few hints to manage and boost at best the potential Customer's path. All of this has made the purchase process representation a many steps sequence bringing a potential customer to be aware of one's demand, to the offer comprehension and to the next brand choice very unsuitable. McKinsey, as well, in a recent column doesn't talk anymore about sale funnel butconsumer journey. A journey that begins much earlier than the purchase and develops through friends' feedback, buzz and debates on the web. It's not anymore a path between consumer and company, it's a journey with many performers where, thanks to the web, THE BUZZ BREAKS OUT of one's own friends circle reachable by phone. It's from this "magma" of contents that the idea to buy something arises, not anymore (or rather more seldom) by a real demand. In other words I get acquainted with new information, I know and I approach new brands by reading, listening and getting involved; I "taste" their flavour from others' opinion, I decide I cannot help doing without and I start my journey towards the purchase in an active way, in order to give feedback and so on. A journey where I am both guest and tour operator, where I read and make contents for the final destination: the purchase choice. It's just on this new incredible buzz capability that we have to work if we want to go beyond the traditional approach.
Although the most of those suggestions are still helpful for many companies, in these 4 years much water has passed under the bridge and the web, from being a new medium, has turned into a sort of conversation, crushing the linear and one-way approach used by brand "to communicate" to their targets.
