B2B sales funnel is a popular topic among sales and marketing folks. The idea of a standardized process to push buyers to take an action is not a new concept — especially in B2B sales.
A B2B sales funnel or a marketing funnel helps you get your prospective customer from point leads to point conversions in a systematic manner. The only things you can refine here are the modalities, and personalize them as per your market requirements for better sales conversions.
So, how can you set up your B2B sales funnel for maximum growth? Let’s start with the basics.
Why does your B2B business need a sales funnel
A B2B customer journey is complicated — even with the most straightforward decisions. A typical B2B journey consists of six to ten decision-makers.
Each decision-maker has a specific interest, and you will need to cater to all of them to make a sale. It will be hard if you don’t have a plan of action for these six sales funnel stages.
What are the various B2B sales funnel stages
1. Awareness
This B2B sales funnel stage is more focused on creating brand awareness – it drives demand. In this stage, you’ll need to figure out how aware your prospective customers are of your brand.
2. Interest
At this stage in the sales funnel, you must track the content with which your prospects engage. It’ll help you figure out how motivated your prospective clients are.
3. Consideration
Your prospective clients have recognized their pain points and are now evaluating your offerings as a potential solution.
4. Intent
This stage is all about refining leads. The prospective clients have considered all their options and know that your brand offers a similar solution.
5. Evaluation + Decision
It is where you close the sales deal — the evaluation and decision stage of the B2B sales funnel. Ensure that your sales team contacts the prospects regularly to answer questions, highlight the benefit of your offerings, and work out the deal.
6. Purchase
Ensure that your purchase processes are smooth, convenient, intuitive, and easy to use.
How to create a cohesive B2B sales funnels for your business
Your B2B sales funnels should be unique to your specific industry niche. Even your closest competitors will not have the same stages, model, resources, etc. Copying a pre-made blueprint won’t do any good. Here’s how you create cohesive sales funnel stages for B2B sales growth.
1. Set clear objectives
Businesses who write down their goals are 20% more successful in accomplishing them. Therefore, outline what you want to do. Your end goals could be anything, including focusing on:
- total sales
- average sale value
- sales conversion rate
- percentage of repeat sales
- customer satisfaction
Your sales goals may differ depending on your audience. Therefore, set clear key performance indicators and assess your progress.
2. Understand your target audience
Understanding your audience is everything. You won’t see the potential of your B2B sales funnels unless you get this step right. B2B sales funnels focus on the customer journey. Therefore, you must understand your customer’s wants, needs, and pain points to take the right actions at the right time.
3. Organize your team
Comprehensive B2B sales funnels have many elements. So, to maximize the effectiveness of all aspects, you will need to draw on a range of talents and knowledge. Ensure your sales and marketing teams collaborate on all B2B funnel stages to get the best possible outcomes.
4. Choose the right channels
You need to be present where your target audience is. It depends on the precise demographics that your audience lies in. For instance, if you are trying to reach an audience aged 50 and above, Instagram might not be an ideal option. Find out where your audience hangs out the most and tailor content to fit through those specific channels.
5. Create your assets
You need to produce high-quality content consistently throughout the B2B sales funnels. Be it the top, middle, or bottom of the B2B sales funnels; you need to plan the creation of assets at every step in the sales conversion journey.
6. Track your overall progress
It doesn’t end with setting up your B2B sales funnels, so you can’t just sit back and relax. You need to update it constantly. You need to monitor results and optimize your funnels frequently for maximum B2B sales growth.
Start your B2B sales growth today
So, now you know how to create a great b2b sales funnel framework to maximize your funnel velocity. Now, you can start working on the fine details to skyrocket your sales. Make sure you have got a process to evaluate your B2B sales funnels regularly.