About 68% of companies have never identified or attempted to measure their sales funnel.
Generating leads is critical when it comes to growing your business. If you want to do this effectively, you need to have a strong B2B marketing funnel. But how do you lay the groundwork and build a b2b marketing sales funnel that works?
Keep reading to learn all about building a marketing funnel that can bring in leads and generate sales.
What Is the B2B Marketing Sales Funnel?
When trying to make B2B sales, you need to do more than provide quality products or services. You need to have a solid B2B marketing strategy in place that will take leads from the point they first hear about your company through to being paying customers.
This is where a marketing sales funnel comes in. It consists of several steps, and when each one is optimized, you’ll be able to generate far more B2B leads.
The B2B sales cycle typically takes a lot longer than the consumer sales cycle. Due to the length of it, it’s important for the whole funnel to be effective and efficient so potential customers don’t leave partway through.
On the plus side, a B2B marketing funnel is more sustainable in the long term, so you can get more long-lasting results. It can also serve as a good way to segment your audience. You can adjust your messaging so it’s more suitable for different categories when they’re at specific points in your sales funnel.
B2B Marketing Funnel Stages
Creating a marketing funnel will help you better understand the businesses you’re trying to sell to. There are three key stages of a typical marketing funnel.
Top of the Funnel (TOFU)
This is the awareness stage, where your customer acknowledges the problems they’re facing and starts looking for solutions. At this point, they’re not yet ready to buy.
You want to make them aware of what your business offers and how it can help them. This is often done using things like social media marketing, blog posts, and paid ads.
Middle of the Funnel (MOFU)
This is when a business understands the problems and is looking at different solutions. You can now introduce your product and highlight what makes it better than what your competitors can offer. Focus on how you can help other businesses achieve their goals.
Bottom of the Funnel (BOFU)
When a business reaches this stage, they’ll have shortlisted a few options, and are on the verge of purchasing. You’ll want a skilled marketing development representative to take over here and drive the sale.
There are certain things you can offer at this stage such as:
- Free trials
- Testimonials
- Training and tutorials
- Consultations
- Quotes and estimates
- Coupons and discounts
All of these will help you secure sales and improve your lead conversion rate.
Building a B2B Marketing Funnel
Typically, marketing funnels have the same key steps. As every business is different, however, your marketing funnel will look different from others. As such, you need to build one specifically for your business if you want it to be effective.
1. Awareness
You need to make people aware of your company, and you can do this by finding a way to drive them to your website. From there, you can map the customer journey. You need to know what action you want leads to take when they’re looking into your brand.
A typical example would be to direct them to a page or form to “find out more”. Another common choice is to encourage them to sign up for your newsletter. This is a good choice as you can then start sending them useful content.
2. Consideration
Once a lead is aware of your brand, they’ll start thinking about their options. Competitors are always ready to get ahead of you, so you want to beat them to the punch.
There are various tactics you can use here, such as using nurture campaigns. Make sure you have valuable, engaging content. This will give you a chance to show other businesses why your solution is better than your competitors.
3. Action
When it comes to your B2B marketing plan, this could be the most important step. This is the part where a lead decides what they’re going to purchase. They’ll compare their different options and determine the best solution for their business.
Some of the things they’ll look at include features, benefits, and cost. Bear in mind that their opinion of your business will be an important factor, so providing good service at all times is vital.
4. Re-Engagement
As leads proceed through your marketing funnel, you’ll lose some. Just because this happens, that doesn’t mean you should give up.
You can still engage with these leads to keep building up a stronger relationship. Doing this will help to maintain their interest, and you might be able to make a sale further down the line. A good email marketing campaign is an effective way to do this and it will help stop a lot of potential customers from slipping away.
5. Retention
This is another crucial step, and it might be the most easily forgotten. Once you have customers, you need to make sure you’re working to keep them. It’s a lot easier to retain customers than it is to get new ones, so doing this will help provide the best ROI.
Providing excellent customer service will help keep customers with you. You should also have an inbound marketing team working on strategies to ensure your existing customers are happy. On top of generating more future sales, this can result in more referrals, helping you get more leads.
Driving Sales Home
The entire B2B marketing funnel is incredibly important, but the part that many companies often struggle with is actually securing sales. Selling is a skill, and finding the right person to sell your products is ideal.
The Selling Factory specializes in helping organizations make sales. We manage college students who can do the necessary research, make calls, and generate leads. Take a look at our Sales Support page to find out more about how we can help your business today.
