Forget Funnels: How to Build a Brand That Thrives in the Chaos Orbit

The traditional marketing funnel is no longer enough—and CEOs and CROs need to rethink how growth truly occurs today.

In 2025, we live in a new world I’ll describe simply as the Chaos Orbit — where buyers aren’t moving through clean stages, but are spinning, floating, and dropping in at unpredictable points based on timing, relevance, trust, and cultural pull.

There are a couple of preconceived notions that you’re going to have to let go of if you’re going to survive (marketing-wise) in this new world. Mostly, direct ROI tied to a specific marketing tactic, and the idea that you’re a B2B company and your audience doesn’t spend any time on Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, or YouTube. 

But first, let’s get into who’s going to capitalize within the Chaos Orbit, why, and how to get started. Simply, the brands that will succeed are those that stop trying to force linear journeys. Instead, they build ecosystems of magnetic touchpoints strong enough to pull their audience closer at every interaction through personalization and community engagement.

The Death of the Funnel (and Why It Matters)

The idea of a neat, progressive customer or buyer journey was never truly accurate—it was a convenient model. Work is different today compared to five, eight, and ten years ago. The work remains the same, but who is doing the work has dramatically changed. Today, younger generational buying behaviors have infiltrated the buying process, altering how companies and brands connect, how ideas spread from consumer to consumer, and how influence is built through networks rather than controlled, linear interactions.

What we’re seeing now is a profound shift led by Gen Z—and rapidly adopted by Millennials and Gen X—brand discovery occurs through memes, friends’ group chats, community shoutouts, and creator recommendations, rather than controlled brand sequences. Yes, even for B2B companies. Even Gartner reports that 77% of B2B buyers describe their last purchase as “non-linear, complex, or difficult to describe” (Source: Gartner Future of Sales Research, 2024).

Here’s what that means:

• Buyers don’t move step-by-step.
• Buyers constantly shift between seeking information, educating themselves, validating choices, evaluating options, converting to purchase, and advocating for products.
• Brands no longer control the journey — they influence the orbit.

What the Chaos Orbit Looks Like

Inside the Chaos Orbit, buyers fall into multiple roles:

Practical Framework: How to Build Moments That Matter:
Here’s how B2B leaders can implement strategies that resonate deeply, build trust, and drive meaningful engagement:

Seed Micro-Content for Discovery

Most brands try to convey everything everywhere and end up being memorable nowhere. Instead, think small and frequent. HubSpot, for example, consistently creates short, educational LinkedIn mini-courses and engaging memes designed specifically to pique curiosity without pushing the hard sell. 

Action: Identify your most compelling insights, then distill them into bite-sized content optimized for discovery channels like LinkedIn, LinkedIn Groups, Slack communities, forums, Reddit, or targeted email drip campaigns.

Engineer Shareable Experiences

Authentic brand advocacy rarely happens accidentally. Canva’s explosive growth didn’t just come from great software; it came from empowering users to effortlessly create personalized designs, making them feel like active co-creators rather than passive consumers.

Action: Build intentional touchpoints where your audience can easily personalize, remix, or share experiences—giving them a sense of ownership in your brand’s story.

Cultivate Creator and Community Networks (Not Just Audiences)

Stop marketing at your audience; start collaborating with them. Adobe unlocked tremendous organic reach by embracing a creator-centric approach through their Creator Collective, leveraging micro-influencers, niche communities, and genuine user advocacy over traditional paid media.

Action: Intentionally partner with influential creators and community leaders whose voices authentically align with your brand. Focus less on scale, more on trust and relevance.

Embrace Messy Attribution

The most impactful interactions are often the hardest to measure. Dropbox’s early growth strategy didn’t focus on conventional advertising—it thrived on invite-only networks and informal communities. Their success wasn’t always neatly trackable, yet it drove powerful, long-term growth.

Action: Shift your mindset (and expectations). Embrace less-than-perfect attribution. Focus instead on consistently reinforcing brand relevance across multiple touchpoints, understanding that influence accumulates over time.

In a chaotic, culture-driven economy, your brand either generates enough magnetic energy to stay relevant — or slowly drifts into irrelevance.

You’re no longer building pipelines.

You’re building orbits of influence.

⸻

Smart Questions Every B2B Leader Should Ask About the Chaos Orbit

At Rogue Marketing, we believe strategic shifts only matter if they translate into practical, actionable steps your team can understand and execute. Understanding the Chaos Orbit and the shift away from linear funnels is useful—but that’s just step one. Step two is turning that insight into practical actions. As a mid-market B2B CEO, CMO, or CRO, your real job is asking tough, actionable questions that ensure your team is ready to capitalize on these changes. Here’s your strategic checklist:

Connect Chaos to Revenue: How Will the Chaos Orbit Impact Revenue?
Your leadership team needs clarity on how adopting Chaos Orbit strategies directly impacts the financial health and growth trajectory of your organization. It is critical to explicitly connect strategic shifts to metrics such as profitability, cost of acquisition, and lifetime customer value.

This Looks Like:

• Evaluating historical cost-per-acquisition and comparing how new strategies can lower it.
• Identifying specific revenue streams (like referrals or community-driven leads) that might benefit from non-linear marketing approaches.
• Discussing with your finance team exactly how shifts in marketing strategy could influence quarterly or annual revenue forecasts.

Clarify Operational Realities: What Operational Changes Will You Need?
Operational clarity determines strategic success. Your teams need to understand exactly what internal shifts—budget reallocation, staffing adjustments, roles, and responsibilities—must happen to implement Chaos Orbit strategies effectively.

This Looks Like:

• A meeting with your CMO and head of operations to outline new team structures or workflows clearly.
• Determining which current projects or legacy activities should stop to free up resources for your new strategic focus.
• Clarifying exactly who owns the execution and measurement of these new initiatives internally.

Audit Your Tech Infrastructure: Is Your Martech Stack Ready for This Change?
Personalized, non-linear journeys require robust martech capabilities. You must openly evaluate if your current stack (CRM, customer data platforms, automation tools, AI-driven analytics) is equipped to handle the complexity of these strategic shifts.

This Looks Like:

• Scheduling a cross-functional martech audit with marketing, sales, and IT leaders to identify gaps or redundancies.
• Identifying the exact tools needed for improved personalization or real-time customer engagement.
• Clearly discussing potential tech investments needed in the next budget cycle.

Rethink Attribution and Measurement: How Do You Measure Success Without Traditional Attribution?
Traditional, linear attribution models no longer fully capture the complexity of individual customer journey moments. Your organization must become comfortable with alternative measurement frameworks that provide a more holistic view of success and customer engagement.

This Looks Like:

• Initiating discussions on adopting blended attribution or multi-touch models during your executive or board meetings.
• Working with your analytics team to introduce engagement-scoring methods as part of reporting and decision-making.
• Setting realistic expectations around what can and cannot be directly measured, ensuring stakeholders clearly understand the new metrics.

Anticipate and Mitigate Risks: What Risks or Pitfalls Should You Expect?

Every strategic shift introduces new risks and friction points. Executives should proactively address potential obstacles or resistance points, clearly outlining plans to navigate these hurdles as smoothly as possible.

This Looks Like:

• Holding proactive risk management sessions to discuss pitfalls that could arise during strategic transition.
• Creating clear contingency plans for possible scenarios (e.g., temporary dips in traditional lead flow during transition periods).
• Openly addressing internal resistance points and ensuring buy-in from key stakeholders throughout the process.

Brand Positioning: How Will This Strategy Create Your True Competitive Differentiation?

Mid-market B2B competition is fierce, and your organization needs tangible differentiation to stand out. Communicate internally how Chaos Orbit thinking sets your brand apart, creating lasting advantage and deeper customer connections.

This Looks Like:

• Clearly discuss in internal strategy meetings how your brand’s approach differs from competitors who remain locked into outdated funnel methods.
• Documenting precisely how your strategic shift can be communicated as a unique selling proposition to customers.
• Engaging sales teams to validate and embrace how this differentiation can help them close deals faster or at higher value.

Feeling Lost in the Chaos Orbit?

You understand the Chaos Orbit and why linear funnels aren’t cutting it anymore—but you’re likely asking practical questions:

How can your company realistically implement this at scale?

• What level of financial investment is required, and what ROI can you expect?
• What immediate steps should you take to build momentum in the next 30/90 days?
• Does your current team have the necessary skills, or is new talent needed?
• And, how soon can you expect tangible results?

These are exactly the conversations Rogue Marketing can help you navigate, providing clear guidance, realistic timelines, and practical first steps so your transition from theory to action is seamless and confident.

Reach out, and let’s talk about building a digital strategy that actually meets your buyers where they are—not where funnels say they should be.

And if this blog resonates with you, please share it. Let’s help more B2B leaders find their way.

⸻

Sources:

• McKinsey & Company, “The New Rules of Brand Engagement,” 2024
• Gartner, Future of Sales Research, 2024
• HubSpot LinkedIn Strategy Case Study, 2024
• Marketing Week, “Canva’s Playbook for Scaling Brand Advocacy,” March 2024
• Digiday, “Inside Adobe’s Creator-Led Growth Model,” February 2024
• Harvard Business Review, “Lessons from Dropbox’s Early Growth,” 2024 Update