B2B Sales Funnel for Faster Lead Conversion

by James Mac B2B Expert

A well-structured digital marketing funnel is something you need to attract new leads, nurture prospects, and generate sales in the B2B marketplace. However, the road to B2B buyers' journey will be difficult and tiring, including multiple touchpoints and marketing channels.

Customer development cycles in B2B can take months or even years before they are converted into sales opportunities or paying customers.

Digital marketing and automation to deliver consistent and personalized experiences has unlocked a whole new world to experience your potential customers and leaders at all touchpoints. Having an on-demand B2B sales funnel will help provide abstraction less experience at every step of the buyer's journey and guide them towards the final sales funnel box.

The sales funnel helps you move towards effective and efficient marketing while increasing your conversion rates and closing more deals for you.

The Progression of the B2B Sales Funnel

The 5 B2B sales funnel stages are explained here, but before that let's understand the broader perspective.

The B2B digital marketing funnel is a smart system that targets potential customers with personalized messaging and offers made throughout the buyer's journey. From awareness to conversion, your B2B funnel is ready to attract leads and prospects to potential customers and nurture them until they turn into paying customers.

The B2B sales funnel can be broadly classified into three main stages:

Top of Funnel - Finding potential customers
Mid-Funnel - Lead Generation
Bottom of the Funnel - Complete the deal

The top stage of the funnel represents the awareness stage to attract new potential customers and educate them about specific trouble spots or challenges that your products or services are helping to solve.

The middle stage of the funnel helps build your relationship with the potential customer by showing the issues resolved by your products or services.

The lower stage of the B2B sales funnel helps the potential customer make the final decision to buy or financially invest in your offers; by resolving objections and encouraging intermediate action.

You want to feed your sales funnel with as many targeted leads as possible.

However, unlike the B2C funnel, you target a large group of people, whereas in B2B, you only want to be successful in related accounts that make or affect decisions in one company.

Users move from one stage of the funnel to supporting their interactions with content / offer.

This interaction is known as a conversion and it is usually a process that brings the user to the next level. Digital marketing offers you a wide variety of options to use as conversions.

From an easy click of an ad, to engaging content on social media, viewing important pages on your site, optimizing your potential customers, signing up for a demo, etc. Up, each conversion is often used as a beacon qualifying the user for the next funnel stage. .

For example, when a user selects your lead magnet ebook, that means they are interested, so you will move them to the next funnel stage to keep the momentum going.

B2B digital marketing funnel is usually short or long depending on your sales cycle. Each funnel stage includes a pitch and a point of contact.

For example, just because people choose your promotional book (a typical MoFu offer) doesn't mean they can buy your product yet. You may need to feed them further before other Mid-Funnel (MoFu) content and bids move to the Lower (BoFu) stage of the Funnel.

So the next step of MoFufer is a webinar, then a case study etc. Presents. Cultivation takes place one step at a time before you decide to lead them to the next funnel stage.

This is very true for high-cost, complex and disruptive products/services where decision-makers within a company need strong and persuasive reasons to evaluate your offerings.

But before that, let's examine the B2B sales funnel stages in detail.

B2B Sales funnel Stages

The humble sales funnel has undergone a series of revisions since the 19th century when science emerged. A sales funnel can have three or more stages, depending on who you are talking to and what business is being discussed. Basically every sales funnel is the same in operation. However, there is no one-size-fits-all model for the B2B sales funnel.

To turn the total stranger into paying customer, the sales funnel helps visualize and understand the essential steps at its core.

To find the best possible way to lose your business and at what stage your customers are losing, you can define all of these from the key stages of the B2B sales funnel. This will help you move your potential customer to the next stages of the sales funnel. And you can have an optimized and efficient sales process.

Every different business requires different versions of the B2B sales funnel. The following are the basic and important stages of the B2B sales funnel, regardless of the business.

Awareness Stage of B2B Sales Funnel

The B2B customer is looking for answers at the awareness stage of the B2B sales funnel. Solves all necessary needs issues such as resources, training, data, opinions and insights. The problem can be as simple as looking for a new supplier for some manufacturing issues. It can be a bit complex, like software that integrates front-end and back-end processes without manual support.

Leadership at this stage is of low value because there is no sure way to be sure that they will buy your service or product. But in the same situation, if you provide high-level and detailed informational content, the chances of dealing with your company increase. At the top of the B2B sales funnel, you have to understand the buyer's personality and how they think it will be more helpful to them to solve the problem.

Interest Stage of B2B Sales Funnel

At the interest stage of the B2B sales funnel, they started researching your products / services to find out more. It is generally regarded as a very important process in which trust is built about your products / services. In the eyes of the buyer, nurturing leadership at this point focuses on raising your company's mind.

Evaluation phase of B2BSales Funnel

During the evaluation phase, you got the buyer's attention solidly. Now is the time to master how your solution is perfect for his needs. To further cement trust, it's often time to let potential customers know if your solution is in their best interest. Demonstrating honesty and integrity at this stage may work in the future, even if your product or service does not meet the buyer's needs at this point.

The Participation Phase of the B2BSales Funnel

While your leader is in the interaction phase, they will interact with your sales department. This may include product demonstrations, sales conversations, and only clear communication where you understand the buyer trouble spots and need to help them come to an answer. The degree of relationship and trust you create at this level can be an important thing in the final stage of leadership.

The Acquisition Stage of the B2BSales Funnel

In a traditional funnel, the acquisition stage is this end. The purchase order is written or the purchase commitment is approved. But just because money and commodities move around doesn't mean you've reached the top of the B2b sales funnel.

Post-purchase interaction not only makes the customer happy; It further feeds the funnel and is vital to building a B2B sales pipeline. This is because most or 84% of B2B sales start with the recommendation of a lover or colleague, and those referrals lead to 30% better conversions.

While this traditional sales and B2B marketing funnel remains the most widely used model, account-based marketing advances are changing the ideal role of the funnel. Stay tuned for a future article on this new way to align sales and marketing.