Giridhar Karnam, Grindel Consulting
On the face of it, Funnel and Flywheel can just be jargons in marketing, but believe me, these models can impact the business approach in a big way.
As the name suggests, in the Funnel model, the top is wider and the bottom is narrower. The wider area is where you invest a lot to attract customers and then small portion of this segment will get engaged with you and even smaller portion of this will actually buy your product or service.
But the criticality is what happens to this bottom small segment of the buyers. Happy customer will just flow away and unhappy customers can be a red-flag bearers for your new customers at the top, diluting your top and increasing your costs.
Remember, the attitude of the customers who leave the funnel directly impacts the customers who are willing to enter the funnel.
On the contrary, a Flywheel model keeps your customers in the centre and your activities to attract, engage and delight for a continuous relationship and these customers will generate new customers for you.
More happy customers generate energy to rotate the Flywheel, and faster the wheel rotates, the healthier is your business. But we should bear in mind that not all our customers will be happy. However, you can keep engaging your unhappy customers too in Flywheel marketing.
I personally feel, a company operating for a long time and established itself will have an opportunity to transform from Funnel to Flywheel.
A company adopting one of the above marketing models depends on the product/service offering. For example, for a company selling an online course, Funnel should suit them; while a company selling an industrial equipment can adopt Flywheel.
Nevertheless, Flywheel is here to stay.