For business-to-business (B2B) companies, having an effective sales funnel is crucial for generating leads and closing deals. However, B2B sales funnels can be much more complex than typical consumer funnel. There are more decision makers involved, longer sales cycles, and many moving parts that need to be optimised.
Here are some tips on navigating the intricacies of B2B sales funnels in the UK.
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Understanding the Buyer’s Journey
The first step is understanding the typical B2B buyer’s journey and the buyer personas you are targeting. B2B buyers tend to be more logical, analytical, and detail-oriented in their decision making. They often have to build consensus amongst multiple stakeholders in their organisation. Map out the buyer journey stages – from initial research to final purchase decision. Identify the key activities buyers undertake at each stage, such as downloading whitepapers or requesting demos. This will allow you to tailor your sales funnel to their needs.
Lead Nurturing Throughout the Funnel
With B2B sales cycles spanning weeks or months, having an effective lead nurturing strategy is vital for moving prospects through the funnel. Create a lead nurturing workflow with email campaigns, content offers, and sales outreach cadences tailored to where prospects are in their buyer journey. For example, top-of-funnel leads may receive educational content to build awareness. Sales-ready leads can receive trial offers and pricing demos. Effective nurturing keeps your brand top of mind and builds trust with buyers.
Align Sales and Marketing Strategies
Make sure sales and marketing teams are aligned on the target personas, their pain points, and how to message to them. Content, digital campaigns, and sales collateral should all speak to the buyer’s needs. Sales reps should have access to relevant content for sending to prospects. Keep refining based on insights from sales on what resonates with different accounts. Alignment improves conversion rates through the funnel. This is something a B2B sales and marketing firm like Revegro can help you with.
Optimise Different Parts of the Funnel
Look at metrics for each funnel stage – traffic, leads, opportunities created – to identify weak spots. If your traffic metrics are low, focus on SEO, social media, PPC, and outreach to drive more inbound leads. If lead to opportunity conversion is poor, examine how effective your lead scoring and sales contact strategies are. Optimise underperforming areas of your funnel in turn to improve overall results.
Make the Most of Your CRM
An integrated CRM platform like Salesforce helps manage complex B2B sales funnels with features like lead scoring, workflow automation, and reporting. Ensure sales and marketing teams are fully utilising CRM capabilities to nurture leads, capture prospect interactions, and analyse funnel performance. CRM will give you the visibility needed to fine-tune your approach.
B2B sales funnels require more strategic coordination compared to simpler transactional sales. Taking the time to map your buyer’s journey, nurture leads effectively, align sales and marketing, optimise underperforming areas, and utilise your CRM will help navigate the intricacies and drive more B2B sales for your organisation. With careful execution, your sales funnel can convert prospects into long-term customers.
