In sales, conversion funnels are a crucial idea in B2B marketing. Personally, I picture the funnel as that giant terrifying slide you always wanted to attempt when you were a kid. Your interest was piqued when you noticed your companions speeding down. While performing your investigation, you observed how much fun they were having in B2B marketing. Then you went up and flew down since the rewards of having fun outweighed your fear.
B2B (business-to-business) marketing is defined as any marketing strategy or content used by one company to target and sell to another. B2B marketing is used by firms that offer services, goods, or SaaS to other businesses or organizations.
When deciding whether or not to buy from you, customers take a similar journey via your conversion funnel. You must stimulate their attention, earn their trust, and motivate them to act.
While the customer journey is more complicated than my slide instance, understanding how conversion funnels function will help you boost your conversion rate.
What Is A Conversion Funnel, And How Does It Work?
A conversion funnel is a path that prospective customers traverse before taking a desired action (i.e., convert). You guide individuals through it as a salesperson in order to convert them from potential purchasers to consumers in B2B marketing.
The top of the funnel is where all leads begin. They progress down the page as they learn more about your company and get closer to acquiring your product or service. Because organizations frequently have more leads than consumers, the top of the funnel has a wider pool of people than the bottom.
Understanding how individuals move through your conversion funnel is critical to being a successful marketer or salesman because it allows you to engage leads more effectively.
Related: What is a sales funnel?
Customer Experience
The customer journey in B2B marketing is similar to, but not identical to, the conversion funnel. Customer journey maps, in contrast to the conventional, linear conversion funnel, highlight the unique and circuitous journeys consumers take from the moment they find your brand to the time they complete a purchase.
Assume you’re a cookbook-selling food blogger. Here are some examples of how your clients’ trips may change.
Customer A sees your banner ad and clicks on it, then visits your blog, reads an article, subscribes to your newsletter, receives a discount email, and buys a cookbook.
Customer B discovers your cookbook at a bookstore and decides to buy it. She then cooks the dishes, reads your site, and signs up for your newsletter.
Customer A and B’s outcomes are fundamentally the same in B2B marketing, but their paths and touchpoints are not. You can optimize for those entry points if you know the many ways individuals enter your funnel. You can meet potential buyers where they are and persuade them to convert this way.
Most funnels, however, include comparable stages in B2B marketing that eventually lead to conversion. So, let’s take a look at an example of how to attract a man.
Visualization Of A Conversion Funnel
The top-middle-bottom funnel is a classic sales approach that focuses on generating interest, enlightening potential consumers, persuading them to buy, and building loyalty so that they become repeat customers.
HubSpot has switched from thinking of the customer journey as a funnel to thinking of it as a flywheel that builds momentum as consumers progress. Here’s how a traditional funnel compares to a more modern flywheel approach to conversion:
Related: What is sales training?
But First, Let’s Return To Traditional Conversion Funnels:
The awareness phase is at the top of the funnel (TOFU). When a potential customer interacts with your brand, whether it’s through your website, an ad, an email, or social media, they enter the TOFU.
The contemplation phase is located in the middle of the funnel (MOFU) in B2B marketing. The potential customer is aware of your brand and is interested in learning more about it. They might subscribe to your email newsletter, follow you on social media, or download instructions and templates from your website.
The conversion step is at the bottom of the funnel (BOFU). When a prospect comes to you immediately before making a buy, it shows you’ve provided them with useful information and relevant touchpoints.
While some conversion funnels are straightforward, others can be quite complicated. The complexity of your funnel is determined by the length of your sales cycle. The longer your sales cycle is, the more complex your funnel will be. If your sales cycle is short, your funnel will be simpler.
Consider the time it takes to sell a $2,000 piece of B2B software versus a $20 t-shirt. Months of sales calls, marketing brochures, FAQs, and demos are frequently required when purchasing software. Each of them represents a distinct stage in your conversion funnel. However, it may only take five minutes for potential purchasers to determine whether the t-shirt is the proper color and fit before making a purchase. Taking it off the rack and trying it on are the needed touchpoints.
Analyze The Conversion Funnel
Barriers and friction abound in funnels. Analyzing your funnel allows you to see how potential customers move through each point.
To get a sense of how users end up in each stage of the funnel, look at significant traffic sources and high-exit pages.
It’s also a technique to spot roadblocks that cause visitors to abandon a page before converting. If a particular page has a high drop-off rate, for example, you’ll know to prioritize it as you try to optimize your funnel.
Follow these steps for an in-depth study of your funnel:
Related: Lead Generation: Can It Be Useful For Your Products?
1. Look For Pages With A Lot Of Traffic But Low Drop-Off And Conversion Rates.
Pages with a lot of traffic provide a lot of helpful information for B2B marketing. Not only are these the most popular pages, but they’re also where individuals decide whether or not to stay. Examine the pages where people abandon (or leave) and those where they convert (take your intended action). The following are some metrics to collect:
- Per-acquisition cost (CPA)
- Customer Value Over Time (CLV)
- Rate of Attrition
- Rate of Conversion
- Marketing Qualified Leads (Number) (MQLs)
- Conversion Rate of MQLs to Customers
- Per Channel Conversion Rate (i.e., social, email, and paid search)
2. Find Out Where Your Best Clients Originate From.
Not all leads are created equal B2B marketing. Some people leave towards the top of the funnel, while others continue all the way to the bottom. That is why it is critical to keep track of leads. You may study that touchpoint or channel to see what you’re doing properly after you know where your high-quality leads come from. Consider the following questions:
- What distinguishes this touchpoint from other touchpoints?
- What information is getting through to people?
- What (if any) impediments or friction exist?
- How many steps must someone complete before converting?
It’s just as vital to figure out what you’re doing correctly in your funnel as it is to figure out what you’re doing poorly. If you want assistance, please contact us.
Related: What Is Lead Nurturing And What Are The Right Tactics?
3. Make A Strategy For Optimization.
It’s time to build an optimization plan once you’ve figured out where customers are dropping off and converting. This should include the objectives you want to concentrate on (i.e., more leads, newsletter signups, demos, or software purchases).
Goals help you figure out what you want from each touchpoint in your funnel so you can see how effective it is.
You’ll have a list of priority touchpoints that need to be optimized after your funnel analysis. Make the most of your time by concentrating on the locations with the highest drop-off rates.
Optimization Of The Conversion Funnel
To maximize the amount of people who become customers, every element of your conversion funnel may be adjusted.
1. TOFU: Consciousness
Do you have issues at the top of your sales funnel in B2B marketing? Examine how you generate fresh leads. Compare every customer-acquisition channel (e.g., social media, search engines, your blog, and paid advertisements) to see which one attracts the most people.
Send a survey to your consumers if you’re not sure how they found you. Look for patterns in how people discover new businesses and devote more time to your most effective channels. Just make sure you’re attracting people who fall into your desired demographic.
2. MOFU: Take Into Account
You’ve gotten potential consumers to the middle of your funnel, but now it’s up to you to keep them moving toward the bottom.
If you’re having problems with this step, consider how people find out about your company.
Consider the following suggestions for improvement, depending on your obstacles:
- Photos and videos of the product
- Page with Frequently Asked Questions
- Whitepapers, case studies, and blog entries are all good options.
- Options for filtering and searching
- Obtaining a newsletter
- Discounts
- Examine pages for broken elements and slow loading times.
- Examine pages for broken elements and slow loading times.
3. BOFU Stands For “Conversion” In Japanese.
This is the final step in the process of converting potential purchasers into consumers in B2B marketing. You should eliminate as much friction as possible to encourage people to complete the conversion process.
Make sure product or service pages are fully filled out with compelling descriptions, videos, and photographs to maximize this final phase of your funnel. Examine your checkout process to discover if customers are having problems with payments or cart abandonment. Make it easy for visitors to compare prices and list all of the product’s features. You can also design adverts or send specific BOFU emails to remind folks of their intention to convert.
Do you believe your job is finished once a consumer converts? Wrong. While
Invite your consumers to sign up for a new webinar series, download additional templates, email promotions, join a loyalty club, or follow you on social media once they’ve made it through the funnel.
Find out what works best for your sales cycle in B2B marketing and keep in touch using your existing content and platforms. Make sure they like your business and want to return since you never know who they’ll bring to the top of the funnel.
