Many businesses spend heavily on advertising, social media and promotions and are disappointed by the results. They often respond by spending more on awareness: more advertising, more posts, more sponsorships. Yet the problem is frequently somewhere else. People may know about the business but not find it appealing. They may be interested but never make an enquiry. They may enquire but not buy. Or they may buy once and never return or recommend it.
A simple way to find where marketing is failing is to measure each stage of the customer’s path. Philip Kotler and colleagues, in Marketing 4.0 (2016), described the modern customer path as the five As: aware, appeal, ask, act and advocate. By measuring how many people move from each stage to the next, businesses can see exactly where customers drop out, and focus effort where it will make the biggest difference.
This article explains the five stages, how to calculate conversion ratios, a worked example, how to diagnose and fix weak stages, and how to grow from one customer to many by building advocacy. For a general introduction to funnels, see the sales funnel explained.
The five stages
- Aware: how many people know your business or product exists?
- Appeal: how many of them are attracted to it, finding it interesting, relevant or desirable enough to engage, for example by following, subscribing, visiting or signing up?
- Ask: how many actively seek more information, such as calling, emailing, filling in an enquiry form, visiting a store or requesting a quote?
- Act: how many buy?
- Advocate: how many become loyal customers who return and recommend you to others?
Key ratios
Calculate the conversion between each stage:
| Ratio | Formula | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|
| Appeal ratio | Appeal ÷ Aware × 100 | Quality of your awareness and messaging |
| Ask ratio | Ask ÷ Appeal × 100 | How well you turn interest into enquiries |
| Act ratio (purchase action) | Act ÷ Ask × 100 | How well you turn enquiries into sales |
| Advocacy ratio | Advocate ÷ Act × 100 | How well your product and experience create loyal promoters |
Two overall ratios are also useful:
- Purchase action ratio: how many of the people aware of you actually buy. Some celebrities and brands are famous but sell little, with high awareness and low purchase action.
- Brand advocacy ratio: how many buyers become advocates.
A worked example
Consider a business that publishes educational videos and sells a training program:
- Aware: 1,000,000 people have seen its videos.
- Appeal: 100,000 subscribe to its channel. Appeal ratio = 100,000 ÷ 1,000,000 = 10%.
- Ask: 10,000 enquire about the program by phone or through a landing page. Ask ratio = 10,000 ÷ 100,000 = 10%.
- Act: 600 buy the program. Act ratio = 600 ÷ 10,000 = 6%.
- Advocate: 30 become active advocates, recommending and referring others. Advocacy ratio = 30 ÷ 600 = 5%.
Each ratio points to a different improvement. Ninety per cent of interested subscribers never enquire. Ninety-four per cent of those who enquire do not buy. Ninety-five per cent of buyers do not actively advocate.
A business-to-business example might look like this: 5,000 target companies are aware of an engineering firm, 500 visit its website and engage with content (10%), 100 request a quote (20%), 25 become clients (25%) and 10 refer others or provide testimonials (40%).
The most common mistake: spending everything on awareness
Many businesses spend almost their entire marketing budget on awareness, such as advertising, sponsorship and social reach, while neglecting the later stages. If people are dropping out at the ask or act stage, more awareness simply pours more people into a leaking bucket. Improving a weak later stage often produces more sales for less money.
Diagnosing and fixing each stage
Weak appeal: people know you but are not attracted
Symptom: high awareness, low engagement.
Likely causes: unclear or unappealing message, weak value proposition, wrong audience, poor creative or a product that does not seem relevant.
Fixes:
- Clarify your value proposition and the problem you solve.
- Target the right audience more precisely.
- Improve creative: headlines, visuals, stories and proof.
- Test different messages and measure which perform best.
Weak ask: people like you but do not enquire
Symptom: engaged followers or visitors, few enquiries.
Likely causes: no clear next step, too much perceived risk, not enough information to decide, or the offer is not compelling enough to act now.
Fixes:
- Add clear calls to action on every page, post and video.
- Use content marketing, such as guides, infographics, case studies, explainer videos and webinars, to build understanding and trust.
- Offer a low-risk first step: a free consultation, sample, trial, assessment or first service.
- Retarget interested people with helpful follow-up content.
Weak act: people enquire but do not buy
Symptom: many enquiries, few sales.
Likely causes: weak sales process, slow follow-up, poor quotes, pricing confusion, weak distribution or a poorly managed CRM.
Fixes:
- Train the sales team in needs analysis, value-based selling and handling objections.
- Respond to enquiries fast and follow up consistently.
- Use a CRM so no enquiry is forgotten.
- Improve quotes and proposals: clear scope, value and next steps.
- Strengthen distribution, so products are available where customers want to buy.
- Ask lost prospects why they did not buy, and act on what you learn.
Weak advocacy: people buy but do not return or recommend
Symptom: one-off purchases, few referrals or reviews.
Likely causes: the product or experience did not delight, or there is no easy way or incentive to recommend.
Fixes:
- Improve product quality and customer experience, because advocacy cannot be bought if the product disappoints.
- Follow up after purchase to ensure satisfaction.
- Introduce loyalty and referral programs.
- Ask satisfied customers for reviews, testimonials and referrals.
- Build community among customers.
Growing from one customer to a hundred
The advocacy stage is where growth compounds. The founder of a large budget hotel network has described how the business grew from one partner hotel to many. After improving the first hotel’s occupancy dramatically, by better photography, cleanliness, Wi-Fi and breakfast, news spread among other small hotel owners, who began calling to join. At the same time, guests were given discount coupons to pass to friends, and toiletry kits branded with the business found their way into guests’ homes, acting as everyday reminders.
The lessons apply widely:
- Make your first customers or partners extremely successful. Their results become your marketing.
- Make it easy for satisfied customers to spread the word, through referral offers, shareable experiences or branded items that are genuinely useful.
- Replicate what works, from one customer to a hundred and from one partner to five.
- Build a team that believes in the idea. Early on, the same founder recruited an experienced professional who was so enthusiastic about the concept that he joined for equity rather than salary. People who believe in the business help it grow.
Acceptability, affordability, accessibility and awareness
A complementary way to diagnose why customers do not buy is to check four conditions that must all be met. Each corresponds to a different kind of barrier:
- Acceptability: does the product meet customers’ needs and expectations, functionally and emotionally? If not, no amount of promotion will make it sell.
- Affordability: can customers pay, both in terms of willingness to pay and ability to pay? Financing, instalments, smaller pack sizes or entry-level versions can address affordability.
- Accessibility: can customers easily obtain the product, whether available in the right places, delivered conveniently and easy to order? Distribution and convenience are often the hidden barrier.
- Awareness: do customers know about it and understand what it offers?
Many businesses assume awareness is the problem and spend accordingly, when the real barrier is acceptability, affordability or accessibility. Mapping these four conditions against the five-A stages helps pinpoint the cause. For example, a product with strong appeal but weak action may have an affordability or accessibility problem rather than a sales problem.
Using the framework for a new product launch
Before launching a new product or service, set targets for each stage and plan activities to achieve them:
- Aware: which channels will reach your target customers, and how many do you need to reach?
- Appeal: what message, proof and creative will make the product attractive to them?
- Ask: what clear, low-risk next step will you offer?
- Act: how will enquiries be followed up, quoted and closed? Is the product available where customers want it?
- Advocate: how will you delight early customers and encourage them to recommend you?
Then measure each stage weekly during the launch, and adjust quickly where results fall short of targets. A launch plan built around all five stages is far more likely to succeed than one focused only on awareness.
Building a five-A dashboard
Track the five stages monthly:
- Aware: reach, impressions, website visitors, event attendance.
- Appeal: followers, subscribers, return visitors, content engagement, newsletter sign-ups.
- Ask: enquiries, quote requests, calls, store visits, demo requests.
- Act: new customers and sales.
- Advocate: repeat customers, referrals, reviews, testimonials and Net Promoter Score.
Calculate the ratios between stages, look for the weakest link, and focus improvement there. Re-measure after changes.
A business-to-business illustration
An industrial cleaning equipment supplier runs the five-A analysis on a year of data. Around 4,000 facility managers in its region are aware of the brand, through trade shows, advertising and its sales team. About 600 engage with its content or visit its showroom, an appeal ratio of 15%, which is reasonable. But only 60 request demonstrations or quotes, an ask ratio of 10%, and of those, 30 buy, an act ratio of 50%.
The weakest point is clearly the ask stage: many interested facility managers never request a demonstration. Conversations reveal why. They are unsure whether the equipment suits their sites and worry that a demonstration will lead to high-pressure selling. The supplier adds a short online site-suitability checklist, publishes case studies by facility type and offers no-obligation trial weeks. Over the following year, quote requests double, and because the act ratio holds steady, sales double too, without any increase in advertising spending. The analysis took an afternoon. The improvement came from fixing the one stage where customers were stalling.
Frequently asked questions
What are good conversion rates? They vary enormously by industry, price point and channel. Compare your own ratios over time and, where possible, with similar businesses. The weakest stage relative to your own other stages is usually the best place to start.
How do we measure awareness? Use reach and impression data from advertising and social platforms, website visitor numbers, brand search volumes and, for larger businesses, brand awareness surveys.
Do the stages always happen in order? Not always. Some customers buy on the first contact, and some advocates recommend a business without buying. The framework is a simplification, but it is a very useful one for finding problems.
How often should we review the five-A numbers? Monthly is practical for most small businesses, with weekly reviews during launches or campaigns. Look at trends over several months rather than reacting to a single month’s figures, which can be distorted by seasonality or one-off events.
Summary
The five-A customer path of aware, appeal, ask, act and advocate turns marketing into something you can measure and improve stage by stage. Calculate conversion ratios between stages to find where customers drop out. Avoid the common mistake of pouring money into awareness while later stages leak. Fix weak appeal with better messaging, weak asking with content and low-risk first steps, weak action with sales training and follow-up, and weak advocacy with better products, experiences and referral programs. Make early customers highly successful, and let their advocacy carry the business from one customer to many.
Sources: small-business training notes on the acceptability, affordability, accessibility and awareness marketing method, the five-A framework and increasing the customer base, including lessons from an Indian hospitality founder, together with Philip Kotler and colleagues’ Marketing 4.0 (2016). Figures are illustrations.
