The buyer's orbit (the gravity of buying)

Why the funnel creates misconceptions + a new visual metaphor for buying dynamics.

I get a little twitchey-eyed when I hear talk of marketing funnels.

They sort of suggest a world where we pour prospects in at the top and push them through a bunch of nurturing touches until a predictable percentage drop out the bottom as revenue.

The idea reminds me of when my 6th grade science class lined up along the length of a 100-ft clear soft plastic tube filled with lube. Our teacher put a potato in one end and we all took turns squeezing our section of the tube to push it to out the other end; to demonstrate how sphincters work, of course.

Super weird day. And yes, it was as uncomfortable to experience as it likely is to read.

As nice as it would be if funnel dynamics were as straight-forward as squeezing a potato through a lubed-up tube, if you’ve ever owned or reported on funnel metrics, you know it’s not that linear.

The funnel is mostly an attempt to bucket customer activities into a few abstracted thresholds so we can demonstrate the value of our efforts in a boardroom. But without nuance or context, I think a lot of people see information presented in a funnel format and assume it means we have control over a sequential process that, in reality, has a lot of dependencies on things that are out of our hands.

But there’s now too much research (Bain & Company, Gartner, Forrester, Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, 6sense, etc.) than can be ignored that tells us:

Marketers don’t control the buying journey, buyers do.

They progress through that journey based on their own internal needs and timing, not our campaign calendars. So, as much as we’d like to describe our efforts by saying “Campaign A converted X Leads into Y MQLs”, the interpretation of what’s meant by that is often (at least slightly) misguided.

Funnels are best used for codifying behaviors then reporting on the volume of those behaviors to a specific group of stakeholders (executives, the board, bean counters, etc.). But funnel ‘stages’ often capture discrete behaviors that don’t always accurately describe how buyers move through the world.

Accepting this means shifting our concept of influence away from the idea that we’re responsible for grabbing buyers and forcing them through a pathway to purchase.

Instead, as marketers, I believe our three biggest opportunities to create influence are in the following:

1. Build repeated positive experiences with our product

2. Associate our product with a higher volume of category entry points

3. Make evidence of our claims findable when buyers are ready to evaluate solutions

I’ve tried to create a visual metaphor to describe buying dynamics. While it’s certainly not perfect, I do think it captures more of the reality of what’s happening.

And, to be very clear, I’m saying that marketing is not a sphincter. It can be an asshole sometimes, but that’s a different conversation. Let’s keep moving, lol.

I think we can imagine a new picture of the system:

Let’s break this thing down.

In the traditional funnel model, buyers move down a sequence of stages. It’s biggest issue is linearity; it assumes a beginning and an end.

The insinuation is that every buyer in the system starts at the top, from a place of complete unawareness (of the problem and your product) and ends with purchase. And after a purchase is made, the buyer falls out of the bottom. You have to find more buyers to put in at the top.

But in reality, the buying process (in both B2B and B2C) is a repeated cycle.

Buyers orbit around a problem (figure X). The problem creates a gravitational pull that keeps them in a system of purchase and re-purchase (or at least re-consideration).

A high-heat problem is mission-critical (think security or tax compliance); it creates intense heat. The orbital period might be shorter or more frequent because the “heat” of the problem is too dangerous to ignore for long.

A low-heat problem is a “nice-to-have”. In the painkiller vs. vitamin analogy, it’s a vitamin.

The size and speed of any buyer’s orbital period depends on the intensity of the problem, the complexity of the purchase, and strength of their existing solution.

Problems with short orbital period tend to be low cost, low complexity, low risk and high frequency. Hair cuts, for example. I get mine cut every 3–4 weeks when my taper stops looking like a taper. Someone with long hair might only feel the heat of the ‘long-hair’ problem every 8-10 weeks. We orbit around the same problem, but have different orbital periods.

Problems with long orbital periods tend to be expensive, complex, high risk, and low frequency. A workplace audiovisual system, for example. Companies rarely purchase and install new A/V systems. It requires technical expertise, coordination and agreement across multiple groups, and expensive equipment.

Once a decision is made, the buyer shoots off and lives with their purchase (or non-purchase) for however long they remain satisfied, contractually locked-in, or distracted from the problem (Phase I).

This is where ~60% of your market lives. Most call this out of market, but that’s a bit of a misnomer. They’re simply moving through their business lives without active intent for your category.

During this period, they stop paying attention to the alternatives of their choice. They’re generally satisfied and become insulated from the problem for while.

This is exactly where Broad Beam messaging (figure A) is required. Using the language of Binet & Field and System1, Broad Beam messaging is designed for everyone in the category, even those not looking to buy. It is emotional, memorable, and enduring. It doesn’t try to sell a feature; it tries to build associations between your brand and the category.

You aren’t trying to get them to click a demo; you’re just making sure they know your moon exists so that when the problem returns, you’re the first solution they think of.

Because these messages rely on storytelling and emotion rather than dry facts, they last significantly longer in memory structures. Kind of like your brand’s radiation, always present even when the prospect isn’t paying attention.

In the Orbit model, insulation from the prolem is represented by the boomerang-esque collection of nebula and space dust (figure Y).

This is all the stuff preventing a buyer from coming back into market after they’re resolved their problem:

• Contracts: many companies are locked into contractual cycles; which can be multi-year, annual or monthly commitments.

• Satisfaction: If a company’s current solution holds up (even if it’s duct-taped together), the orbital period slows down; there’s no need to come into a re-evaluation stage.

• Inertia: Bain & Company research notes more stakeholders involved in a problem, the more drag is applied to an orbit. Some problems are so hairy, they’re easier for companies to just deal with than implement organizational change.

Eventually, the insulation fades and the buyer starts feeling the heat of the problem again.

Maybe a contract expires, or their previous solution wasn’t reliable, or they outgrew it. There are lots of reasons a buyer may re-enter the market.

This point, where the heat becomes strong enough to start re-evaluating new solutions, is the Category Entry Point (aka CEP). In simple terms, these are the occasions when a buyer starts considering buying a product in your category (figure Z).

Companies also have different circumstances, needs, and preferences that all create variance in their orbital period; like my earlier example of short vs. long hair. The more category entry points that present in a particular problem system, the more variance in orbital periods.

However, it’s tricky to clock exactly when CEPs happen, since they’re often triggered by things we can’t always track and don’t control. We can sometimes use signals to estimate these moments, but most data lack precision and tend to lag behind the actual moment.

As an example, we can look at commercial lease data to understand when companies expand into a new office space. But this data is expensive and muddy. While, we can see the size of the space and start date, we still don’t know much about where the buyer is in their purchase journey relative to AV systems, specifically.

The point is: for many categories, buyers will eventually come back in market. We just often don’t know exactly when.

Since 2021, we’ve leaned on the 95:5 rule developed by by Professor John Dawes from the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute. The rule states that at any given time, only about 5% of potential buyers are actively in the market to purchase a specific product or service, while the remaining 95% are out-of-market; not currently needing a solution.

But recent research from Stein IAS and 6sense has added some much-needed nuance to this. In their recent report, Winning in The Brand-to-Demand Zone™, they break the journey into three distinct “temperature zones”.

• the 60% (Dead zone)

• the 35% (Evaluation)

• the 5% (Validation)

In our orbital model, these are the three phases a customer goes through in their orbit around a problem.

When a buyer experiences a CEP, they leave the dead zone and enter the evaluation phase of the journey (Phase II). The buyer starts to feel the heat of the category sun and the problem becomes real.

In this phase, buying teams come together to update their knowledge, define their buying criteria, and form a list of 4–5 companies they prefer (their day 1 shortlist).

Buyers start visiting your site anonymously, reading third-party reviews, and asking peers for recommendations.

They may add one or two vendor options later in the journey, but 80% of this list is set before the buying team ever talks to a salesperson. 70% of the their in-market journey is spent doing independent research, without speaking to any sellers.

This is where your marketing shifts to the Narrow Beam (figure B). Narrow Beam marketing is rational, targeted, and focused on specific solutions. It’s the “how & what” to the Broad Beam’s “who.”

These are high-intensity, short-lived signals that work best when buyers are in the Evaluative (I) and Validation (II) phases. Since these rational-type messages decay quickly in memory, they are most effective when buyers are attentively evaluating “how” to solve their problem.

But, if the buyer didn’t already think of you when they independently built their day 1 shortlist, your chances of being added to the list and becoming winning later in the process are slim to none. That’s where Broad and Narrow beam messaging support each other.

The final phase of the journey is the Validation Phase (III). This is the tiny sliver of the market that most demand-gen teams obsess over.

By this point, the orbit is almost complete.

But as the research shows, 95% of buyers have already picked a favorite by the time they reach this stage. They aren’t discovering options anymore; they’re just validating a choice they made in the previous Evaluation phase (II).

If you are just starting your marketing here, you’re not typically a true competitor in the deal.

There is a consolation, though…an interesting part of the Orbit model is how to think about a lost deal.

In a funnel, a lost deal is a leak. A failure. But in an orbit, losing the first time around can actually be a success. Studies show that a significant percentage (~80%) of consideration lists are made up of vendors who were considered in the past but weren’t chosen.

So just being part of a considered list improves your chances of being added again and considered more deeply the next time the buyer comes in market. I saw this more than a few times in my work at Kalungi when prospects would choose a different agency vendor, then re-engage us in 8–12 months when they weren’t satisfied and came back in market.

After being the favorite option at day 1, a secondary goal is to be one of the challengers; a brand the buyer already knows and trusts for the next revolution.

At the end of the day, the biggest hurdle to adopting the buyer’s orbit is a lack of patience. It’s hard to explain that we are spending money today to influence a decision that might not happen for another three years. It’s much easier to pretend we’re in control and point at a funnel and promise that if we just apply enough “lube” and “pressure,” we can force a result.

But the research is clear: the more we try to force a buyer through a pipe, the more friction we create.

So, the next time a peer asks why the potato isn’t moving fast enough through your plastic tube, remember that you can’t change the laws of physics, and you certainly can’t change the orbital period of a company’s internal chaos.

Your job is to stop the squeezing and start the broadcasting. Broaden the beam. Associate your brand with the sparks that help ease the heat of the problem. If you do that consistently, you don’t have to worry about capturing leads. The orbit will bring them around when their world gets too hot to ignore.

That’s a much more dignified way to spend your career than being a professional sphincter.