A well-structured digital marketing funnel is something you need to attract new customers, increase sales leads, and generate sales in the B2B marketplace. Although the journey to a B2B buyer would be difficult and tedious, involving multiple points of contact and marketing channels.
The cycles of growing forecasts in B2B can take months or even years before they turn into sales opportunities or pay customers.
To provide a consistent and personalized experience, digital marketing and automation has opened up a whole new world to experience your prospects and sales leads at all points of contact. The presence of an optional B2B sales funnel helps reduce the buyer’s shopping experience with less experience at every step and directs them directly to the final sales funnel box.
A sales funnel helps you facilitate effective and efficient marketing while increasing conversion rates and getting you more deals.
B2B sales funnel progress
Here are the 5 stages of B2B sales funnels, but before that we understand its broader perspective.
A B2B digital marketing funnel is a smart system that targets potential customers through personalized messaging and offers that are made throughout the buyer’s journey. From awareness to conversion, your B2B funnel is ready to attract and grow leads and potential customers until they become profitable customers.
The B2B sales funnel can be broadly divided into three main stages:
Top of the Funnel — Finding Prospects
The central part of the funnel — the leading generation
Completion of the underlying funnel transaction
The top stage of the funnel represents a level of awareness to attract new prospects and teach them about a specific pain point or challenge that your product or service can help solve.
The middle stage of the funnel helps build relationships between potential customers and you by demonstrating the problems your product or service solves.
The lower stage of the B2B sales funnel helps the prospect make a final decision on the financial purchase or investment of their offers; clarifying objections and encouraging interim measures.
You want to convey your funnel with as many targeted leads as possible.
Unlike a B2C funnel, however, you target a large number of people, while in B2B, you want to succeed only with relevant accounts that make or influence decisions in the company.
Users are taken from one stage of the funnel to support their interaction with content / bidding.
This interaction is called a conversion, which is often an action that qualifies the user for the next step. Digital marketing gives you a wide range of options to use as conversions.
From simple ad clicks, engaging social media content, viewing key pages on your site, optimizing lead magnets, signing up for demos, and more, every conversion is often used as a badge that qualifies the user for the next step of the page.
For example, if a user selects an eBook with your lead magnet, it means they’re interested in it, so if you keep moving, you’ll move them to the next funnel.
The B2B digital marketing funnel is often short or long depending on your sales cycle. Each funnel step contains one step and a point of contact.
For example, if users choose your White Paper (a typical MoFu offer), it doesn’t mean they can still buy your product. You may still need to take care of them with the contents and offerings of the center of the funnel (MoFu) before moving them to the bottom of the funnel (BoFu).
So, in the next phase of the MoFuoffer webinar, then in the case study, and so on. Nurture takes you one step at a time before you decide to maneuver them to the next funnel.
This is true for very high-end tickets, complex and disruptive products / services where business decision-makers need strong and compelling reasons to consider your offerings.
