Bear Essentials: The Funnel Isn’t Dead, Your Version of It Is

Perception

You say the concept of a sales and marketing funnel is outdated. Buyers aren’t linear, journeys are messy, and everything is too chaotic and changes to fast to try and force people into predefined stages. So, trying to use a funnel feels irrelevant. 

Reality

The funnel isn’t obsolete, your version of it is.

The buyer funnel still matters. But when you only pay attention to parts of it and follow an outdated (when was the last time it was reviewed/updated?) version it probably is irrelevant to your success, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter.

You’ve reduced it to TOFU/MOFU/BOFU like you’re making a sandwich. Modern funnels include evaluation, enablement, renewal, expansion, advocacy.

The funnel didn’t die. You just started treating it like a checklist and stopped leveraging its full capacity.

Why It Matters

Without a current, well-maintained funnel aligned with customer journeys:

• Content gets mis-mapped (or not mapped at all), leading to wasted effort and low resonance.
• Valuable and profitable stages get ignored or underserved.
• Teams over-invest in awareness and under-invest in enablement, expansion, and retention.
• Strategy falls behind as buyers’ decision-making evolves.

What Most Teams Get Wrong

1. Assuming “top-of-funnel” content means they are leveraging the funnel.
2. Ignoring post-purchase or loyalty phases like adoption, loyalty, renewal, and advocacy.
3. Expecting audiences and customers to move through each defined stage sequentially, never straying.
4. Using funnel terminology, but not adapting the content and experience creation to what each stage actually needs.

What to Do Instead

1. Expand your audience/customer mapping to reflect the full journey: discovery, education, evaluation, validation, decision, adoption, expansion, advocacy.
2. Review the funnel and related metrics at least quarterly and adjust stages as the market, environment, and audiences evolve.
3. Align content, experiences, and measurement clearly for each stage.
4. Design for movement, not just stages, so that audiences can get what they need no matter what their journey looks like.

Seventh Bear Take

The funnel isn’t obsolete, but yours might be.

When was the last time you reviewed and updated your funnels (and journey maps)? Can't remember ... then it's time.

Deeper Dive

Want more on this topic? Check out: Relearning the Fundamentals: Marketing’s 2026 Reset