Marketing frameworks give us mental models to understand how customers interact with our businesses. For decades, the marketing funnel has dominated our thinking—awareness at the top, interest and consideration in the middle, and purchase at the bottom. But as consumer journeys grow increasingly complex, many marketers question whether the funnel still serves as the most effective framework. Is a workflow model better suited for today’s reality?
The Traditional Marketing Funnel: Strengths and Limitations
The funnel metaphor has endured for good reason. It provides a clear, sequential visualization of how prospects narrow from a broad audience to paying customers. This simplicity makes it accessible and easy to communicate across departments.
However, the funnel has significant limitations in today’s interconnected world:
- It assumes a linear, one-way journey that rarely exists in practice
- It fails to account for the post-purchase relationship
- It doesn’t reflect how consumers jump between stages or channels
- It prioritizes acquisition over retention
- It separates marketing touchpoints that, in reality, work together
As Rand Fishkin, founder of SparkToro, notes: “The funnel implies that people drop out and never return. But in reality, people often leave your funnel, go elsewhere, then come back multiple times before converting.”
The Workflow Approach: Mapping Complexity and Continuity
A workflow framework represents marketing as an interconnected system of touchpoints, triggers, and pathways—more like a network or ecosystem than a linear path. This approach aligns with how consumers actually behave: researching, comparing, seeking recommendations, abandoning carts, returning later, and moving through various channels before making decisions.
Key advantages of the workflow model include:
Accommodating Non-Linear Behaviors: Workflow mapping acknowledges that customers might enter at any stage and move forward, backward, or sideways through their journey.
Integration of Post-Purchase: The workflow naturally extends beyond the purchase to include onboarding, usage, support, upselling, cross-selling, and advocacy—creating a complete customer lifecycle view.
Channel Integration: Rather than treating channels as separate entities feeding into a funnel, workflows show how channels interact and support each other throughout the customer journey.
Trigger-Based Thinking: Workflows focus on specific triggers that prompt next actions, allowing for more precise measurement and optimization of key conversion points.
Personalization Potential: The workflow approach better supports personalized journeys based on customer segments, behaviors, and preferences.
When Each Framework Works Best
Both models have their place in the modern marketer’s toolkit:
The Funnel Works Well For:
- High-level strategic planning and budget allocation
- Simple, short sales cycles with minimal touchpoints
- Explaining marketing concepts to non-marketers
- Setting broad KPIs for marketing departments
The Workflow Excels At:
- Complex multi-channel marketing orchestration
- Subscription businesses requiring ongoing engagement
- Building personalized customer journeys
- Identifying and optimizing specific conversion points
- Integrating marketing automation and CRM systems
A Hybrid Approach: Funnel for Strategy, Workflow for Execution
Many successful organizations use both frameworks in complementary ways. The funnel serves as a high-level strategic framework that helps executives understand the broad stages of customer acquisition, while workflow mapping guides tactical execution and optimization.
David Skok, venture capitalist and founder of ForEntrepreneurs, advocates this approach: “Use the funnel to communicate the big picture and overall health of your customer acquisition, but dive into customer workflows when designing experiences and optimizing conversions.”
Implementing a Workflow Mindset: Practical Steps
If you’re considering moving beyond the funnel, here’s how to begin:
- Customer Journey Mapping: Document the actual paths customers take, including all touchpoints, channels, and decision points.
- Identify Key Moments of Truth: Determine the critical decision points that most impact conversion and retention.
- Build Trigger-Based Automation: Design marketing systems that respond to specific customer behaviors rather than pushing everyone through the same sequence.
- Connect Data Sources: Break down silos between marketing, sales, and customer success data to create a unified view of the customer journey.
- Test and Iterate: Continuously refine your workflow based on performance data and customer feedback.
The Future: Dynamic, Adaptive Marketing Frameworks
As artificial intelligence and machine learning advance, we’re moving toward truly dynamic marketing frameworks that adapt in real-time to individual customer behaviors. These systems will likely transcend both the funnel and workflow models, creating unique pathways optimized for each prospect.
In this future state, the distinction between funnel and workflow becomes less relevant. What matters is building flexible systems that can identify the optimal next step for each customer at each moment—regardless of what we call the underlying framework.
Conclusion: Choose the Framework That Drives Results
The best framework is ultimately the one that helps your organization deliver exceptional customer experiences and achieve its growth objectives. For most businesses today, this means maintaining the funnel as a strategic communication tool while implementing workflow-based systems for execution.
As marketing consultant Mark Ritson puts it: “Models don’t matter. Results do. Use whatever framework helps you understand your customers better and deliver more value to them.”
By embracing both perspectives—the simplicity of the funnel and the complexity of workflows—modern marketers can build systems that reflect the reality of today’s customer journeys while maintaining the clarity needed for effective strategy and communication.