The most famous marketing model is the "funnel." However, the funnel model was recently labeled as outdated due to the popularity of the internet. Is that really so?
Funnel
In the funnel model, people (1) find out about products via advertisements, (2) study the products and understand what the products can do, (3) like the products, and (4) purchase the products. As they go down the purchasing path, the number of relevant people goes down. (Some people who find the products will be interested in them, other people who have shown interest will like the product, and so on.) The decreasing numbers are like the shape of a funnel, hence the name.
New Model
As published in Forbes 
, Steven Noble came up with a new marketing model, which is people (1) discover (find) the products, (2) explore (learn about) the products, (3) buy the products, and (4) engage with the stores. If you think about this a bit, his new marketing model and the "funnel" are the same, except for the "engage" phase. If you think about it even more, the "engage" phase is pretty much the same as "user support." So there is nothing new in his marketing model.
Emotion
Why hasn't there been any actual change in the marketing models? That is because people's mind-sets (buying habits) haven't changed. Other than spending money on necessities (i.e., seeing a physician for illness), people of all ages spend money on
- escaping boredom (i.e., what you do on holidays),
- escaping loneliness (i.e., using a dating site), or
- staying healthy (i.e., going to the gym, taking vitamins).
In other words, to sell your products, all you have to do is to convince people that your products satisfy any of the demands above. Selling products is not about marketing models, it is about people. So keep focusing on people's minds rather than bothering about marketing models.
© February, 2016