The marketing funnel as everyone knew it is officially dead. Daniel Priestley breaks down why forcing customers through a rigid sales process feels dehumanizing and ineffective in today's digital landscape. Instead of a funnel, businesses need to shift toward creating an adventure or a playground where customers can freely interact, explore, and value-shop on their own terms. It’s all about meeting the customer where they are rather than trying to trap them in a outdated system. #marketingstrategy #businessgrowth #entrepreneurship #marketingtips #danielpriestley

And they found it's actually not how people buy it all anymore. So top of funnel, middle of funnel and bottom of funnel has been replaced by a trigger, a totally random journey through a playground where we explore and evaluate randomly and then a trigger for signaling intent and then purchase over here. So it's no longer a funnel experience because customers have figured out that they can disappear within three seconds if they want to, right? They can just jump your fence and the funnel feels dehumanizing for most people. So they don't like to be funneled. They like to go on an adventure. So rather than thinking of our marketing as a funnel, we want to think about it as an adventure or a playground. So we're going to create things that people can interact with and play with. So they could watch a video, they could listen to a podcast, they could take an online assessment, they could complete a customer needs analysis, they could watch a demo, they could get free access to a trial and a portal, they could join a community, they could join a discussion group, right? So these are all things that people can engage with or play with and we want it to avoid feeling like a funnel, we want to feel like it's lots of value, lots of great experiences. And then at a certain time, there are moments to act if you want to buy something, if you're in it, if you're the right person at the right time, this is the moment to act. So it's a bit of a different way of thinking about marketing. But it acknowledges the fact that we're living in a very different world where funnels worked when people were afraid of not seeing you ever again or that they were afraid that they would miss out but no one's afraid of that anymore.