The so-called marketing funnel is broken, Brian Haven, Senior Analyst of Forrester Research, told LSB Brandworks University 2008 participants. Eyeballs in no longer equates to buyers out.

The metaphor is broken because it overlooks the complexity that social media has introduced into the buying process.

Four allied trends are responsible for the weakening of the old model:

1. Traditional media is weakening.
2. Complexity in the middle of the buying process isn’t well understood.
3. People are forcing brand transparency.
4. Your most valuable customer may not be a big purchaser, but a heavy influencer.

People increasingly trust other people and online communities to provide information about brands, Haven said. That puts a lot of power in the hands of a few highly involved advocates. They are the kind of people who may start a Web site or a blog to either tout or trash your brand for reasons you may not even understand.

These advocates gather information about your brand and replay it to their networks, online and in the real world. Thus a single point of contact can turn into thousands of contacts. Some marketers are afraid of such influencers because they are beyond the brand’s control. Others cultivate them and value them as advocates who may be much more credible than official brand advertising.

As consumers’ trust in traditional media diminishes, marketers will need to adopt a new approach based on engagement with consumers, Haven said. But many marketers are uncomfortable with real engagement because it doesn’t fit into a traditional marketing plan. It requires a fundamentally different relationship with your customers, he warned.

“Most of our metrics don’t really tell the whole story of engagement,” Haven said. “Engagement isn’t just online; people exist in the physical world. How do we choose the right metrics? How do we track cross-channel initiatives? How do we make it actionable?”

One approach is to break engagement down into its components. Haven defined engagement as the consumer’s participation with a brand over time, measured by the four components of engagement – the 4i’s. At each i-point marketers would use different communications tools, employ different metrics and have different definitions of success.

1. Involvement: the presence of a person at the various brand touch points, possibly measured by page views, time spent on the site, store visits, etc.
2. Interaction: the actions a person takes while at the touch points, which might be measured by how many people forward content to a friend, their likelihood to recommend the brand, or a net promoter score.
3. Intimacy: the level of affection (positive or negative) a person holds for the brand, as measured by satisfaction rate, customer services calls, brand affinity measures, etc.
4. Influence: how likely a person is to be an advocate for the brand, as measured by sales, loyalty card use, sales lift from ad campaigns, catalog requests, etc.

Does it work? Haven pointed to GlaxoSmithKline’s successful introduction of the alli weight loss drug and program, which followed the 4i’s process. More than one million people tried alli in the first six weeks, which amounted to $155 million in sales.

First, Glaxo selected a group of individuals who tried the program ahead of launch, mined them for success stories and identified advocates.

Second, the company listened to the suggestions of the advocates regarding packaging, the shopping experience and the experience of using the product.

Third, Glaxo had the advocates keep diet diaries, take photos of their refrigerators and engage in other intimacy tactics.

Finally, the company tracked conversations on forums and other places.

Glaxo also used some of the advocates and their stories in the launch ad campaign.

An engagement strategy isn’t simple, Haven warned. It requires marketers to cross disciplines. To be successful, marketers must:

1. Think beyond the sale – think like a retailer.
2. Act like a media company – provide content around a subject area.
3. Put your product development hat on – look for fundamental insights into what customers need and translate that insight into products.

Not an easy change, but better than relying on a broken funnel, he suggested.