For more than a century, the marketing funnel has shaped how companies think about guiding purchase intent: move people from awareness to interest & consideration, to desire, and finally to action. Predictable and built on a linear logic model, the funnel reflects a time when brands controlled the conversation. Ultimately, it was believed that successful brands achieved a level of sustainable loyalty and customer-advocacy that fueled long-term, positive business growth.
But…the ground has shifted. Today’s consumers (particularly in younger generations) are no longer passive participants who get pushed through buyer stages. They are empowered drivers of the marketplace as a new era has taken root. Over the past few years, we’ve entered a C2B (Consumer-to-Business) age. In today’s world, it is people: customers, consumers, and business prospects who dictate the terms of engagement. They demand transparency and actively co-create market value with the brands they trust.
The Rise of Superfans in the C2B Era
The C2B era has, not surprisingly, given rise to “Superfans” marketing, formalized in recent years by Pat Flynn in Superfans: The Easy Way to Stand Out, Grow Your Tribe, and Build a Successful Business (2019). As an entrepreneur, Flynn recognized that “customers promote you and your products because they know you have made a difference in their lives. They will tell their friends. They will send you encouraging emails. They will connect with you and your other fans.”
Superfans methodology suggests an alternative to the traditional marketing funnel, called the “Pyramid of Fandom”. It highlights how casual customers can be nurtured into deeply loyal advocates who not only purchase more but actively evangelize the brands they love, admire, and trust. This model is thriving today because empowered people want to:
- Influence others through reviews and social sharing.
- Co-develop products through feedback and participation.
- Act as advocates who passionately expand brands’ reach, awareness, and positive sentiment.
Brands in industries from music to consumer goods are seeing outsized impact from the 2–3% of audiences who are superfans, generating disproportionate revenue and credibility. As you’ve probably guessed by now, this flips the traditional marketing funnel upside down, into a sort of pyramid. In the age of C2B, the customer wields a mighty roar (and a steady commitment to social sharing, declaring, and advocating for brands they admire).
A quick comparison of the traditional marketing funnel and the Superfans Pyramid shows that two very different strategies emerge. The traditional funnel focuses on guiding large groups of consumers down a path toward purchase and loyalty, while the Superfans model shifts the dynamic by centering on the most passionate advocates. One is built around volume, touchpoints, and transactions; the other thrives on depth, community, and co-creation.
Where the funnel is about conversion, Superfans is about connection.
Traditional Marketing Funnel vs. Superfans Pyramid of Fandom
Focus
- Traditional Funnel: Nurture / move large audiences toward purchase, loyalty, and advocacy.
- Superfans: Elevate and engage the most passionate advocates, first.
Path
- Traditional Funnel: Linear movement that most often ends at the transaction.
- Superfans: Circular and community-driven, extending beyond the sale into the pursuit of advocacy.
Value Creation
- Traditional Funnel: Achieved through volume of conversions: how many sales, how many leads, how many subscriptions.
- Superfans: Achieved through quality of engagement and advocacy. Volume of conversions created through long-term relationships and influence.
Role of Brand
- Traditional Funnel: Pushes brand/product marketing communications outward with intent to educate, inform, convert, create loyalists.
- Superfans: Co-creates experiences with its community. Identifies with audiences through shared purpose-driven values and actions that build loyalty over time.
Building a Community of Superfans Through Purpose-Driven Brand Positioning
If your brand strategy still leads with what you sell instead of why you exist, you’re already behind.
In my recent e-book, Purpose-Driven Strategic Brand Positioning, Transforming Your Business in a Consumer-Led World, I proposed that one truth rises above the rest in today’s marketplace: brands that lead with purpose outperform across loyalty, innovation, pricing power, and resilience.
Purpose-driven brands attract Superfans. They are built on authenticity and a clear mission that connects with customers beyond profit, aligning with customers’ values in functional, emotional, and societal dimensions.
In a consumer-led world, purpose is the foundation that creates belonging. And belonging is the heartbeat of Superfandom:
- Purpose anchors passion. Without a clearly articulated “why,” fandom is shallow. Purpose gives meaning and a reason for customers to share, promote, and advocate.
- Superfans activate purpose. Superfans amplify a brand’s purpose, carrying it into conversations that the brand itself could never reach alone.
- Together, they thrive in C2B. The C2B shift means consumers shape brand destiny. Purpose gives direction, and superfans supply the momentum.
Why These Two Can Work So Powerfully Together
The funnel alone may no longer suffice in a fragmented, consumer-led market. Communities of passionate evangelists create powerful momentum for businesses, brands, and products through their hand-held devices, word-of-mouth, and social media now more than at any time in the past.
Purpose-driven brand positioning creates opportunities for authentic relationships and relevancy to your customers’ needs, wants, and values. Superfans marketing brings that genuine connection to life through passionate communities who share, “like”, and promote brands in real-time.
- The traditional funnel assumes a straight path: awareness → interest → decision → action. Today’s buyers zigzag across touchpoints. They research on YouTube, get influenced by TikTok, compare on Amazon, read reviews on Reddit, and then might purchase weeks later. The “linear” funnel cannot map this messy reality.
- Purpose-driven positioning strategies + Superfans create movements that build communities of people who share brand values and influence others to join them.
When paired, they offer strategic resilience and accelerated growth: purpose builds the platform, superfans provide the amplification, and both are fueled by communities of customers.
What’s Next?
As brands consider the principles of Superfans marketing and whether it has a place in their organizations, my e-book Purpose-Driven Strategic Brand Positioning provides a valuable framework to guide that thinking. The framework in the book helps companies define and activate a clear, authentic purpose that resonates with customers in functional, emotional, and societal ways.
You can download Purpose-Driven Strategic Brand Positioning, Transforming Your Business in a Consumer-Led World, here:
