I feel bad for everyone who did not have the pleasure of seeing Andrew Davis at Signals 19. Not only did he come out actively campaigning against that age-old marketing device, the funnel, but he was incredibly funny doing it.
As it turns out, Andrew Davis doesn’t think the marketing funnel cuts it anymore. Maybe it worked when it was invented in 1898, when attentions weren’t divided and we were all able to focus on something for more than 30 seconds at a time. When the only channels required to tip your potential customers into the funnel were basically face-to-face or print.
Putting up an image of a pie chart, Davis showed us how what started as a relatively simple marketing strategy to raise awareness and get people into the funnel is now divided into so many different pieces that demand our attention. Spend on PR, advertising, and events has morphed into spend on SEO, website, PR, advertising, SEM, events, PPC, and social (to name a few) and it’s gotten so bad that we’re failing at all of it.
And with each ever-shrinking slice of the marketing pizza, Davis called us to “question some of the fundamental underpinnings of the marketing world.” Consumers are entering the funnel, but they’re not coming out, because consumers and the way they purchase have evolved since 1898. The funnel just isn’t cutting it anymore. To Davis, what we need is something different.
The Loyalty Loop
For three years, Davis considered consumers, what we buy, and how we decide what we buy. To him, it was clear that there was no true entry point anymore and the customer journey was not at all linear. It was more like a loop; one that the customer could go around once or any number of times before they’d decide what to purchase.
“Loyalty Loop: A series of encounters that elicit intense and eager enjoyment, approval, or interest.” – Andrew Davis
The Loyalty Loop can be entered at any point and is dependent on micro-moments, including the moment of inspiration, the trigger question, the prime brand, active evaluation, interruption of active evaluation, and moment of commitment. Davis goes in-depth into each of these steps in his blog post on The New Funnel.
“Moment of inspiration: an instant in time that sends you on a journey you never expected.” – Andrew Davis
The point in the Loyalty Loop where marketers can really focus is how we engage with customers after the moment of commitment. If we understand how consumers make their way through the loyalty loop, brands can create different moments of inspiration that can lead to moments of commitment over and over again. And we can do this by building trust with consumers and customers alike until we become the prime brand they picture every time they have a moment of inspiration. Davis offered some tips for this:
1. Raise anticipation
The time between when an item is purchased and the moment it is delivered is a perfect time to raise anticipation in your customer. Davis used the Domino’s pizza tracker as the perfect example. (It has become quite the cultural phenomenon.)
2. Maximize the honeymoon phase
The honeymoon phase is just after a customer has purchased or received your product and is using it for the first time. This is a great moment to get reviews or testimonials, while customers are still excited and delighted about their purchase.
3. Re-inspire
Getting customers back on the Loyalty Loop at that moment of inspiration is the key to repeat business — and, eventually, loyalty. Davis has a whole blog post on what inspires us to buy.
Doing any of these three things can create those micro-moments of inspiration that delight a customer and send them down a path to true emotional loyalty. Combining them into a truly engaging customer experience is where the magic happens.
If you missed out on Andrew Davis and Signals 19 this year, don’t worry, we’ll be back at it with Signals 20. And if you want to know more about creating lasting emotional loyalty with your customers, check out our ebook, A New Kind of Loyalty.
