A simple guide on: understanding the b2b sales funnel

Since the time the classic B2B sales funnel was developed in the late 19th century, over many decades it has gone through a lot of changes. Today due to the digitalization of world B2B sales funnel has a different approach in its 5 stage model. But the basis of the B2B sales funnel remains the same. It is a great way to analyze at which point you are losing your customers and figure out the best way to grab those lost customers back into your business. According to this model, the value of the potential customers or leads keeps increasing the further they go into the funnel.

Before we go on how to adapt to new changes in the B2B sales funnel, we need to understand the classic B2B sales funnel. There are 5 stages in classic B2B sale funnel:

1. Awareness
2. Interest
3. Evaluation
4. Engagement
5. Purchase

Awareness

In this stage, the potential buyer is looking for solutions for their problems. Generally, they are looking to educate themselves about the problems and trying to find the right resources, information, and tools to solve their problems. At this stage, the value of the potential buyer or lead is at its minimum. To push this lead down the B2B sales funnel it is important to understand their problem and provide them enough data on probable solutions to their problems. This will get the potential buyer interested in your product/services.

Interest

Here the lead will examine the products/services you are offering them as a potential solution to their problems. These problems can be simple or complex, but providing multiple probable solutions will give the potential buyers the options to choose from, this will improve the trust between the lead and the business. As trust builds, the value of the lead increases as well. Also when you provide multiple solutions to the problems of the potential customer, it increases the brand image of your business. And we all can agree on the fact that brand image plays a major role in generating new leads to your business without any much extra work.

Evaluation

The evaluation stage is where complete honesty pays off. In this stage it is important to completely grab the attention of the potential customers or leads to the solutions you are providing them and why is your solution a right choice for the leads to solving their problems. In case all your solutions aren't advisable for the problems of the lead, then this is the stage to let them know that your solution isn't the right fit to solve their problems. Being honest in this stage will further build the trust of the lead. Though this honest might lose you a potential buyer or lead, it will pay off in the future as you don't have to start to build trust from the scratch and this will also help you build a better brand image.

Engagement

Once you successfully push the lead down to the engagement stage of the funnel, it is time for the sales force to take up from here. In this stage, you need to pitch in different solutions to the lead and show them that you understand their problem and are here to find a solution for their problems. It's very important to show the lead that you understand their problem as it communicates to them that you are working in their best interest. This will create much better trust. If you fail to create trust in this stage then you will fail in sending the lead into the final stage.

Purchase

This is the final stage where the entire transaction is approved and the final purchase is made by the lead, who is your customer now. This is where the traditional or classical B2B sales funnel ends, but in today's world CRM plays a huge role in feeding new potential customers to the funnel. Your Post-purchase service doesn't only increase customer satisfaction but also builds trust with your customers which will convert a customer into a regular customer. For instance, if a business owner facing an issue with the installation of the billing software that he has purchased from you, you need to be in a position to solve his issue without any extra charges. Retaining a customer is much hard than finding a new customer. In B2B sales more than 80% of the leads come from mouth to mouth marketing. So, post-purchase services become an essential method to generate new leads.

The major change that has occurred in the B2B sales funnel is the digitalization of the entire process. Starting from the Awareness stage where you need to find your leads through the internet as most of your potential buyers are looking for solutions for their problems online. So, having a digital presence is a must now. Due to digitalization, to create awareness regarding your business you need to conduct webinars, digital marketing campaigns and follow new digital trends to be visible to leads.

The process of creating trust is also much harder through the internet. So, brand image plays a huge role in creating trust in this digitalized world. You need to collect the data on the problems of your potential buyers through the internet. This can be done by survey methods. Examples of some of the survey methods are Google surveys, YouTube Ad surveys, Email surveys, etc.

Email Survey is generally more accurate as you can create a personalized questionnaire to understand the problem of each potential lead. Whereas Google surveys and YouTube Ad surveys are good to get data on larger groups with similar problems.

No matter if it was classical 19th century B2B sales funnel or modernized & digitalized 21st century B2B sales funnel, marketing, sales and CRM has to go hand in hand to form a successful B2B sales funnel. The advantage of digitalized B2B sales funnel is that the barrier of miscommunication between marketing, sales, and CRM has reduced due to the internet. This makes the entire process more effective, efficient, and frictionless for everyone. AverickMedia provides B2B database service which will help you improve your lead generation process.

Revolutionize Your B2B Marketing With These Easy Tips

Do you know, its year 2020, but when it comes to B2B marketing, many B2B businesses are still making the same mistake of treating their sales strategies as it is still 1999. The year 2020 is all about technology and its advancement, and the B2B buyers are not lagging in using these technologies. Just like others, they also have access to the world of the Internet via a small device that fits in the pocket. So, now is the time to reach these buyers through the online platform and revolutionize the entire B2B marketing strategies with these easy marketing tips. Let's undertake these simple steps for better results and higher sales.

Step1- Understand the modern B2B buyers' journey

As a B2B vendor, you need to understand that your traditional selling techniques have now become obsolete for four key reasons. Firstly, the maximum of your buyers are now millennial, and they avoid cold calls by sellers. Secondly, unlike earlier days where there was only one person who used to make buying decisions, now there are many people involved in B2B purchase decisions. Thirdly, B2B buyers are now doing their researches through online mediums. Fourthly, almost 99% of the buyers are looping and going back to at least one or several other tasks in their buying journey.

Therefore, it is obvious that their buying journey has now evolved into a loop. Where the the loop starts from awareness, which is taken over by multi-participant consideration, along with research and discovery loop, then comes the purchase phase and which is followed by post-purchase experience and loyalty loop. The the loop can also be named as the see-think-do-care loop, where the buyers see what they need, think via research and discovery, do the purchase and care by establishing the loyalty loop with their sellers.

You need knowledge about the buyer's journey, which will be based on their digital experience.

Step2- Plan your B2B marketing strategy

After you have a framework to operate within, and after you have understood your buyers' journey, now is the time to start planning. You need to plan your marketing channels for retention of customers and their recovery, for lead generation, and also demand generation.

Before you start hunting for leads, it is imperative to have a website. Get your website designed by experts in the market and make sure that it contains these five essential things so that it can generate leads and sales, make it fast, secure, mobile-friendly, actionable, and professionally designed.

After getting the website designed, get into B2B marketing strategies for demand generation.

·        Demand generation strategies- These are the strategies that help you generate demands for your products and services. SEO, these prominent strategies are content marketing, email marketing, video marketing, and social media marketing. All these demand generation strategies make your buyers aware of the products and services you deal with. For all these marketing strategies, you can take the help of experts in the market, such as AverickMedia.

·        Lead generation strategies- After generating demands, you need to generate leads. Take the help of top B2B marketing ideas and strategies for B2B lead generation. For lead generation get involved into pay per click search advertising, remarketing, events, content marketing, and SEO marketing. By adopting these strategies, you can generate leads for your products and services, which you can later convert into future promising customers.

·        Customer retention and recovery strategies- After generating demand and leads you to have new clients now, and its time to retain them because it is more profitable to sell to an existing client than to a new one. Here the main aim is to make your clients start the process of buying all over again. You can get indulged in content marketing and automation marketing, including email marketing. You can take the service of AverickMedia for email marketing. They are the experts in the market and can provide you with a targeted email list, where you can find email ids of all the B2B buyers looking for products and services that you also deal with. You can take their service and get directly in contact with your tentative promising clients.

Step3- Execute your B2B marketing plans

The the last step in revolutionizing your B2B marketing strategy is the execution of the plans. With the help of the following mentioned steps, you can easily execute your plan. Therefore incorporate these simple steps for better results.

·        Step1- Identify who is your target audience and understand their movement and behavioral characteristics. Do a deep study of their general demographics. Gather information to know about their general common interests—research on what motivates them to use your products, also their problems that your product solves. Also, gain knowledge of their preferred means of communication.

·        Step2- Identify your weak points with the help of digital competitive analysis. Such analysis will help you stay a step ahead of your competitors. Know your score and win the game. You can get your website evaluated, or your search engine rankings evaluated. Also, you can go for marketing content evaluation and online advertising evaluation. You can check your score through such an analysis and improve your marketing strategies.

·        Step3- Identify your goals and objectives. Write down where you want to reach with your B2B marketing strategies, how you can stay ahead of your competitors, and generate more business. Write them down and review them from time to time. Also, make the necessary changes in your strategies and try to incorporate new marketing tips.

·        Step4- Match the top B2B digital marketing strategies along with your goals. If your main goal is to increase leads, then leads generation should be your marketing strategy. If you want than maximum people should be aware of your products, demand generation should be in your top priority list. Hence match your goals to the relevant digital marketing strategies to execute your plans well.

·        Step5- track, test, tweak, and repeat all your marketing campaigns and new strategies as and when necessary.

Some of the benefits of including email marketing in your B2B marketing campaign:

·        Provides a customized message

·        Cost-effective

·        Mobile and tab friendly.

·        Easily measurable

Final words to wrap up

When you enter into digital marketing, the entire process is a web, but when you start solving each web, it becomes a series of simple steps for better results. If you want that your business marketing strategies work as per your expectations, do a deep study on each step and unfold each strategy. Involve in doing researches and make strategies fruitful for you. If you find yourself stuck anywhere, you can also take expert services. Companies like AverickMedia are there to help you with every step.