The marketing mountain models your customer’s journey, starting from when they first hear about your business, moving towards converting (or making a purchase), and ending at advocacy for your business to their peers. The mountain gets smaller as your audience narrows between each step.
Different marketing authorities vary the number of stages or categories in their traditional funnel models. My Marketing Mountain model has five audience categories:
Awareness, when a potential customer first learns about your brand
Consideration, when a potential customer shows interest in your product or service
Conversion, when a potential customer makes a purchase, converting them to a customer
Loyalty, when a customer makes repeat purchases, choosing your brand over competitors
Advocacy, when a customer recommends your business to peers—the most powerful form of marketing!
Why a mountain and not a funnel?
My model is an inverted version of the traditional marketing funnel. Why? Because a marketing funnel gives the appearance of a customer effortlessly falling through the steps from awareness to advocacy— and it isn’t that easy in reality. Turning potential customers into purchasers and purchasers into advocates is an uphill climb, and your customers must be guided throughout each of the steps to get to the top of the mountain.
Beyond the Sale
Note that “conversion” is only the middle of your marketing mountain! It’s easier to keep a customer
than to make a new customer, so continue to nurture your post-sale audience with new things to purchase, resources to make the most of their current purchase, and tools to help them spread the word about your brand.
Schedule a consultation to learn how to turn your customers into advocates »
Connecting Your Universe
The Marketing Mountain forms guidelines for your marketing plan. As you progress through your marketing plan, you’ll created content for your audience at all steps of your marketing mountain, plan promotions through all of your marketing channels, and started connect those events together through leads and CTAs. Want to learn more about how to connect your business’s universe? Attend a free marketing workshop!
