Marketing systems are very good at organising the journey from interest to purchase. Real customers have a habit of taking a rather different route, particularly when the decision involves substantial money, personal ambition and a relationship that may last for years.
I've become increasingly interested in the methods marketing professionals use to understand how customers discover businesses, develop an interest in their products and eventually decide to buy. There is a fascinating amount of thinking behind what might appear to be a straightforward process, from customer segmentation and lead nurturing to the way different communications influence somebody's decision over time. The familiar sales funnel provides an appealing way of making sense of it all. At the top sits awareness, followed by interest, consideration and evaluation, before the customer eventually reaches a decision and begins a relationship with the business. It's logical, relatively easy to understand and provides a useful framework for organising commercial activity. I can certainly appreciate why businesses use it.
But the more I think about how people actually commission substantial work, the more I wonder whether the most interesting customers are often the ones who refuse to behave as the diagram suggests.
Imagine somebody beginning to think about building a family home. They may not have purchased the land, decided on a budget or even established whether the idea is practical, but they've developed a growing interest in architecture. They begin following a handful of practices whose work they admire, perhaps after encountering a particularly beautiful house in a magazine. Over the following months they visit websites, read interviews with architects, explore completed projects and gradually develop an understanding of the kind of home they'd like to create. They might visit an exhibition, speak to friends who have undertaken similar projects or find themselves returning to the work of one particular practice.
Then nothing happens.
The family changes its plans, a suitable site doesn't become available or another priority takes precedence. Two years pass before the project becomes a serious possibility again, at which point the prospective client contacts an architect whose work has remained in their mind throughout that time. From the practice's perspective, the enquiry may appear to have arrived almost without warning. The person has filled in a form, requested a conversation and seems remarkably well informed about the business. What the practice may not realise is that the relationship began years earlier, through a collection of encounters that were never recorded as part of a conventional sales process.
I think that's a much more interesting way to examine how people make important purchasing decisions. The prospect hasn't progressed neatly from awareness to conversion, responding to each communication in the order somebody planned. They've explored, disappeared, returned, developed preferences, questioned their assumptions and allowed their circumstances to determine when the purchase became relevant. Some of the most influential encounters may have involved content the business couldn't track at all, including recommendations from people they trust or conversations that took place entirely outside its marketing systems.
The funnel isn't necessarily wrong. It's simply describing a process that can be much less predictable when viewed from the customer's side.
When the decision is bigger than the purchase
The distinction becomes particularly important when a business sells something that involves a considerable financial commitment, a personal aspiration or an unfamiliar commissioning process. Buying a relatively inexpensive product online may involve a short period of comparison followed by a straightforward transaction. Commissioning an architect, appointing a creative consultancy, purchasing a significant property or arranging an exceptional travel experience introduces a different collection of considerations. The customer isn't always deciding between comparable products with clearly stated prices and features. They may be choosing people whose expertise they don't possess themselves, evaluating something that hasn't yet been created or committing to a relationship whose quality will influence the entire experience.
That introduces a degree of uncertainty which can be difficult to resolve through conventional marketing material alone.
Think about someone commissioning a substantial piece of furniture from a specialist maker. They might appreciate the photographs on the website, admire the craftsmanship and feel comfortable with the prices, but there will still be questions that the finished examples cannot answer. Will the maker understand what they have in mind? Can they recommend suitable materials? How will the design develop? What happens if the original idea proves impractical? How much involvement will the customer have in the process, and will that involvement be enjoyable?
For some people, these are minor details. For others, they're central to the decision.
The customer may be as interested in the experience of commissioning the piece as they are in the finished object. They want to know who they'll be dealing with, whether that person understands their preferences and whether they can trust their advice. A beautifully photographed portfolio might create the initial attraction, but a conversation with the maker could be what gives them the confidence to proceed. Another customer may already have that confidence because a friend has commissioned something from the same workshop and spoken enthusiastically about the experience.
Neither journey follows a particularly tidy sequence.
Research into purchasing behaviour has been challenging the traditional linear model for some time. Google's work on what it calls the messy middle describes how people move repeatedly between exploring possibilities and evaluating alternatives before making a decision. More recent research from Boston Consulting Group has also argued for understanding the influence of individual customer encounters, rather than assuming each belongs to a fixed stage of a funnel. These studies examine consumer behaviour across broader markets, so they shouldn't be treated as direct evidence of how every high-net-worth individual purchases specialist services. Nevertheless, the underlying observation is relevant: buying decisions involve repeated encounters, changing priorities and influences that rarely fit a single predetermined route.
What interests me from a design and creative direction perspective is how a business responds to that reality.
If we accept that prospective customers may spend a long time developing their understanding of a company, then the quality of every encounter becomes important. A website shouldn't only be designed to encourage somebody to make an immediate enquiry. It should help them learn about the business, appreciate its expertise and return when they have a reason to. An article doesn't necessarily need to produce a measurable lead to be worthwhile. It might introduce a perspective that someone remembers months later. A beautifully produced publication can communicate the character of a business in a way that remains influential long after the person has finished reading it.
The challenge is that many of these effects are difficult to attribute to a particular marketing activity, especially when the customer hasn't yet identified themselves.
A person may admire the work of an architectural practice for years before they ever reveal their interest. They might be familiar with the founder, have seen several completed projects and know exactly why they want to commission the practice, yet remain entirely invisible in the company's customer relationship management system until the day they make contact.
That doesn't mean the earlier encounters were unimportant. They may have done most of the work.
Being remembered is different from being everywhere
I've recently been reading more about lead nurturing and surround marketing, and I can see the commercial logic behind both. Nurturing aims to maintain a useful relationship with prospective customers by providing relevant information over time, while surround marketing seeks to establish a presence across the places where those customers are likely to encounter a business. Applied intelligently, these approaches can help companies remain familiar and relevant throughout what may be a lengthy purchasing journey.
The difficulty arises when the desire to remain visible becomes more important than the quality of what's being communicated.
I'm sure most of us have experienced the less appealing side of automated marketing. You read an article, download a document or explore a product, and suddenly the business seems determined to follow you around the internet. Emails begin arriving, advertisements reappear and every interaction seems designed to encourage you towards the next step. Occasionally the information is genuinely useful, but just as often it feels as though a system has mistaken curiosity for an urgent intention to buy.
That may be tolerable when purchasing something relatively straightforward. It can feel rather inappropriate when the relationship being developed is supposed to involve expertise, discretion and personal attention.
I don't think the answer is to abandon marketing automation or pretend that businesses shouldn't understand the interests of prospective customers. Those tools can be enormously useful, especially for organisations managing large numbers of enquiries and relationships. But there's a distinction between using information to make communications more relevant and using it in ways that make people feel as though every action is being monitored for commercial advantage.
A prospective client looking at the work of an interior designer may simply enjoy beautiful interiors. Someone reading an article about luxury residential development might be an industry professional, a potential buyer, an architect or a person with no immediate commercial interest whatsoever. Treating every engagement as evidence that somebody is progressing towards a purchase risks misunderstanding the very people the business is trying to attract.
I would rather see a business invest in material that people genuinely want to encounter. Exceptional photography that reveals the quality of its work. Substantial editorial content that demonstrates knowledge without making every paragraph an advertisement. Carefully developed case studies that explain the thinking behind a project and provide enough detail for prospective customers to understand what's involved. A website that feels informative, credible and enjoyable to explore, even when the visitor has no intention of making an enquiry that day.
The objective is to become memorable for the right reasons.
This is where I think creative direction has a particularly important role. Marketing teams can establish which audiences to reach, where communications should appear and how engagement might be measured. But the creative decisions determine much of what those audiences actually encounter. Does the photography communicate the genuine quality of the product? Does the language sound like the people behind the business? Is the website helpful to somebody who is unfamiliar with the service? Are the printed materials appropriate for the audience and the significance of the purchase?
When those elements are developed independently, the business can become surprisingly inconsistent. A sophisticated advertising campaign may direct someone to an unconvincing website. A beautiful brochure might establish high expectations that are undermined by an impersonal enquiry process. A company could spend considerable money attracting the attention of prospective customers while paying relatively little attention to the experience those customers receive once they've arrived.
Repeated visibility won't solve those problems. In fact, it may simply give people more opportunities to notice them.
The more interesting ambition is to make each encounter contribute to a coherent understanding of the business. A photograph might create the initial attraction, an article could reveal the expertise behind the work and a well-designed website might help someone understand how a commission would be approached. A subsequent conversation provides the opportunity to establish a personal relationship. These encounters needn't happen in any particular order, and they don't all need to repeat the same message.
They do, however, need to feel as though they belong to the same organisation.
The importance of timing, trust and personal relationships
One aspect of high-value purchasing that I think deserves more attention is the influence of circumstances outside the business's control. A prospective customer may be entirely convinced that a particular company is right for them, yet remain unable or unwilling to proceed for reasons that have nothing to do with the quality of the marketing. A property purchase may depend on the sale of another home. A substantial business project could require agreement between several directors, or be delayed while the company addresses a more urgent priority. A family might want to arrange an ambitious journey but be waiting until their children are older.
There are commercial systems designed to identify purchasing intent, and they can be useful. But there is a danger in assuming that the timing of a customer's decision can always be influenced through more frequent communication or a stronger incentive.
Sometimes the customer simply isn't ready.
For businesses built around substantial commissions and long-term relationships, recognising that can be an important part of providing good service. It may be better to maintain a helpful connection than to pursue an immediate commitment that doesn't suit the customer's circumstances. That could involve sharing genuinely relevant information, remaining available for questions or simply remembering the conversation when the person returns several months later.
There's a degree of confidence involved in allowing a relationship to develop at its own pace, particularly when the business knows it has something valuable to offer. I think that's especially relevant for independent specialists whose appeal depends partly on the experience of working directly with them.
Consider a yacht charter adviser who has spent time getting to know a client's interests and preferences. The client may be exploring possibilities for a future holiday rather than preparing to make an immediate booking. During those conversations, the adviser begins to understand the destinations they enjoy, the kind of experience they're hoping for and the practical details that matter to them. A suitable opportunity might arise months later, at which point a thoughtful personal recommendation could be far more welcome than a sequence of generic promotional emails.
The value lies partly in remembering the person, rather than merely remembering the transaction.
This is something I find increasingly interesting as businesses adopt more sophisticated technology. A CRM system can maintain an accurate record of conversations and preferences. AI may help organise that information, identify relevant opportunities and reduce the administrative effort involved in maintaining relationships. Used appropriately, those capabilities can make personal service easier to deliver consistently.
But the system isn't the relationship itself.
A client may appreciate that a business remembers their preferences, but they may appreciate it considerably more when they feel that somebody has genuinely listened and understood why those preferences matter. There's a difference between receiving a message automatically triggered by an activity and hearing from someone who has identified an opportunity they believe would be particularly relevant to you.
The technology can assist with the timing and organisation. The personal judgement behind the contact can still be what makes it worthwhile.
Of course, not every business can provide that degree of individual attention to every prospective customer, nor would every customer want it. Some prefer to explore independently and make contact only when they're ready. Others may welcome early advice. The task is to develop an experience that accommodates those differences without making assumptions about what everybody needs.
A good website can play an important role here, allowing people to investigate services and previous work at their own pace while making it straightforward to reach somebody knowledgeable when they want a conversation. Substantial editorial content can help establish expertise without requiring visitors to identify themselves first. And when somebody does make contact, the business should be able to respond in a way that reflects what they've asked for, rather than forcing them through a rigid process designed for a very different type of customer.
Designing for the relationship rather than the transaction
There's another interesting weakness in the traditional funnel when we apply it to specialist businesses: the apparent suggestion that the most important objective is getting somebody to the point of purchase. Some models acknowledge onboarding and loyalty, of course, but the language of conversion still tends to make the transaction feel like the principal achievement.
In many high-value businesses, however, the most important part of the relationship may begin after the customer has made their initial commitment.
An architectural practice might spend several years working with a client after the appointment has been made. A creative consultancy could become involved in successive projects as the business develops. A specialist automotive company might maintain a relationship with an owner over many years, advising on maintenance, restoration or future purchases. The experience of working together can influence whether the customer returns, recommends the business or develops an entirely different kind of relationship with it.
This changes how I think about the design of customer experiences.
A great website or impressive marketing campaign may persuade somebody that a business is worth investigating, but the subsequent experience needs to justify those expectations. If the initial enquiry is handled poorly, the proposal is confusing or the personal attention disappears once the contract is signed, the earlier creative work has achieved very little in the long term.
The relationship needs to make sense as a whole.
For a property developer, that might involve looking at everything from the first advertisement and development brochure through to the sales environment, purchasing process and communication after completion. For a specialist manufacturer, it may include technical documentation, the experience of commissioning a product, updates during production, packaging and the support provided after delivery. An independent consultancy might think about the initial introduction, discovery conversations, proposals, project communication and the way completed work is presented and supported.
Different people may be responsible for these encounters, and each will have its own practical requirements. But the customer experiences the business as one organisation. They don't necessarily distinguish between something created by the marketing department, a website commissioned by the digital team or a document prepared by sales.
This is why I believe creative direction benefits from having an understanding of the wider commercial journey, even when the creative director isn't responsible for managing marketing campaigns or sales processes. Decisions about identity, content, photography, digital design and physical materials influence how somebody experiences a business, and those experiences can shape whether the relationship develops.
Sometimes the most useful creative improvement may be somewhere that receives very little attention in a conventional marketing discussion. A proposal document could be difficult to understand. A service description might leave important questions unanswered. A specialist business may have excellent people whose expertise is almost invisible until a customer speaks with them.
Improving those details may not produce an immediately impressive advertising metric. It can nevertheless make a substantial difference to how confident somebody feels about commissioning the business.
There is also an opportunity to think differently about what happens when a prospect doesn't become a customer. Not every unsuccessful enquiry indicates that something went wrong. The timing might have been unsuitable, the requirements may have changed or another supplier might simply have been better equipped for that particular project.
A well-managed relationship can survive those circumstances.
Someone who doesn't commission a business today may recommend it to another person, return with a different requirement or become a customer several years later. They may also remain an interested reader, supporter or professional contact without ever buying anything. There is value in those connections, even if it can't always be expressed neatly in a conversion report.
I find that a much more generous and realistic way to think about the people who encounter a business.
What should we measure if the journey isn't linear?
I wouldn't suggest that the complexity of customer behaviour makes measurement pointless. Businesses need to understand which activities are contributing to commercial results, where resources are being spent and whether prospective customers are receiving the information and service they need. Marketing teams have developed useful methods for doing that, and the sales funnel remains a practical tool for organising parts of the process.
But I would be cautious about allowing the reporting model to become the basis for every creative decision.
If a business concentrates entirely on generating leads, it may undervalue material that builds familiarity and credibility over a longer period. If it judges every piece of editorial content by immediate enquiries, it could abandon subjects that prospective customers find valuable but aren't ready to act upon. If it measures the success of a website solely by form submissions, it may overlook whether the people making contact are suitable for the services the company actually wants to provide.
The distinction between the number of enquiries and their quality is particularly important.
A specialist consultancy might receive fewer enquiries than a more general provider, but those enquiries could involve more relevant projects, better-aligned expectations and the possibility of long-term relationships. A property company could attract considerable website traffic from people who enjoy looking at beautiful homes, without those visitors necessarily being prospective purchasers. That wider audience isn't a problem, but it would be misleading to judge the effectiveness of every communication solely by how many visitors make an immediate enquiry.
I'd be interested in a combination of commercial and qualitative evidence. Which types of projects are becoming more common? How well do prospective customers understand the business before making contact? Are people arriving through recommendations? What do they mention when asked how they discovered the company? Which materials do they find useful during their decision-making process, and where do they still need reassurance?
Those questions can reveal things that conventional analytics may struggle to explain.
I also think businesses should pay more attention to the gap between the impression created before a purchase and the experience that follows. Do customers feel that the service matches what they were led to expect? Do they return, recommend the business or develop longer relationships? Are there particular moments where confidence increases, or where otherwise promising relationships become difficult?
This doesn't require inventing an entirely new collection of marketing metrics. Much of the information may already exist within the organisation, spread across customer conversations, sales records, project reviews and feedback. The opportunity is to bring those perspectives together and make better use of them.
AI may become particularly helpful in reviewing that information. It can assist with organising feedback, identifying possible patterns and reducing the work involved in examining large volumes of customer material, provided the business handles personal information responsibly and checks findings against reliable sources. But the purpose should be to improve understanding, not simply create a more elaborate dashboard.
The most interesting question is still whether the business is building relationships with the kinds of customers it wants to serve, and whether the experience those customers receive deserves their confidence.
A more human view of commercial growth
I've found exploring these marketing concepts useful because they've encouraged me to think more deeply about the relationship between the work designers create and the commercial objectives it is intended to support. It's easy for people working in design to become absorbed in the immediate project, whether that's a brand identity, website, publication or photographic commission, without always appreciating how it contributes to a much longer relationship between the business and its customers.
Equally, I think there are opportunities for marketing and commercial teams to look beyond the systems they use to manage that relationship. A lead may have a score, a recorded source and a place within a pipeline, but the person behind it will have their own motivations, expectations and circumstances. They may be undertaking a significant purchase for the first time, searching for a specialist they can trust or trying to make an important decision on behalf of a wider organisation.
Those circumstances deserve more than an efficient process for moving someone towards a transaction.
For the kinds of businesses I'm particularly interested in, the experience of being understood can be enormously influential. A customer commissioning an exceptional product or service may value the opportunity to speak with somebody whose judgement they respect, explore possibilities and develop confidence through the relationship. They may have encountered the business many times before making contact, or they may arrive through a single recommendation from someone they trust. There isn't one universal route that every valuable customer will follow.
I rather like that unpredictability. It reminds us that the people we're designing for have lives and priorities that extend well beyond the moment they encounter our work.
The challenge for businesses isn't to control every step of the journey. It's to make those encounters worthwhile, communicate their expertise with clarity and build relationships that people want to continue. Marketing strategy can help determine where a business should be present and how it remains relevant. Creative direction shapes much of what customers see, read and experience when they get there. And good personal service gives people a reason to feel confident that the reality will live up to the impression.
I don't think we need to abandon the sales funnel to appreciate those things. It's a useful way of understanding commercial activity, and I can see why marketing professionals continue to rely on it. We just need to remember that the diagram is a model of the business's process, not an instruction manual for how customers are supposed to behave.
Some people will arrive, investigate and buy with remarkable efficiency. Others will take months or years, return repeatedly, seek advice from people we never meet and change their minds several times before deciding what to do.
And sometimes the customer who appears to have arrived out of nowhere has actually known exactly who they wanted to work with for a very long time.
That's the kind of relationship I'd like a business to be capable of earning.