The marketing and sales funnel is a popular topic of discussion. When people say that the funnel is dead, they are saying that it no longer works. However, in today's complex decision-making journeys, I argue the funnel is still alive and while. It just takes a different form.

Our marketing and sales efforts have never spit off more data than they do today and the pace at which that increases will never be slower than it is today. It is because of this fact I believe that the funnel isn’t dead, it’s just complex.

From social, email, web, advertisements, and sales enablement tools the data about where your prospect is in the buying funnel is abundant. Marketing touchpoint data are the signals a prospect is progressing down the funnel.

While the decision-making process is different for all customers, some commonalities can be recognized in your funnel. Identify these triggers and you can back your way into a traditional funnel.

Management wants to think of the process as a linear one, but it's not. This means experiences in one area of our marketing/sales may or may not influence others. As these experiences are crafted, you need to take this into account.

The next generation of prospecting will be about knowing where your prospects are and providing them with an individualized journey that can help you turn cold leads into meetings, presentations, or deals.

Long live the funnel! In a world where the traditional linear approach to selling just doesn't make sense anymore, marketing and sales efforts that flush with data exhaust, come to the rescue. While there are still many similarities between this new digital era and old-school lead generation tactics, understanding how people think at different stages in their purchasing process or lead funnel will help you better understand what your customers want and need from you as they progress through that process.