B2B Sales Funnel

07/29/2022 By marketing 3 Minutes

Contents

What is the B2B sales funnel?

The illustration of corporate buyers' steps from first contacting your company to closing the sale is called a sales funnel.

In general, it is represented by an inverted pyramid, with defined stages, showing the path that the lead goes through until becoming a customer.

The B2B sales cycle (for companies) is different from B2C (for the final consumer), and this must be taken into account when defining the strategy to be followed.

By creating your own B2B sales funnel, you can understand the behavior of buyers at the different stages of this path and thus adapt your sales strategies for each stage, seeking the growth of business opportunities.

How does this funnel work?

This funnel should be based on your customers' purchase trajectory and reproduce each step of the process and their respective triggers.

Initially, we consider that when a visitor contacts your company and informs their data, they are called leads. Leads need to be “nourished” and qualified so that they become customers when they make a purchase.

Top of Funnel

In this stage, discovery and awareness take place, it is where buyers identify a need for their companies.

These contacts should receive content relevant to your business in exchange for their data when visiting your company, becoming leads, and will advance through the sales funnel as they realize your problem and learn about the solutions your company offers.

Middle of the Funnel

At this stage, the leads are at the moment of recognising the difficulty and that they need to seek a solution.

They still don't know how to solve it exactly, but they know they need to, so you should qualify your lead with knowledge, nurturing them with relevant content and tips.

In this way, you will be preparing the lead to make a purchase decision.

Funnel Bottom

In this stage, the lead is closer to the decision to close the deal, with significant information and qualified to receive a sales contact with a business opportunity.

If the path through the funnel went well, the chances of closing a sale are great.

How to create a B2B sales funnel?

This step-by-step guide we have described should serve as a reference for your company, but you will create your own course according to the particularities of your business and sales process.

Tips:

Define the profile of your target audience, searching and analyzing information about the companies, such as performance, relationship with the market, current suppliers and those responsible for purchasing. In this way, it will facilitate your process of capturing leads to the top of the funnel.
Create rich and quality content to attract your audience. B2B buyers are also motivated in their decisions by the authority factor shown in the materials developed.
Focus on lead qualification, remembering that B2B purchases are longer processes, where there is more research, with more decision makers. More advanced and more technical content and a pre-sales contact, where technical aspects will be discovered, nourish the lead. Think about a relationship because the moment of purchase may not be exactly this.
Dedicate the effort to schedule the first meeting, either in person or using available technology tools, with the participation of your best salespeople, to advance to the final stage. With the data collected during the previous steps, the salesperson's approach can be more assertive, considerably improving the chances of making the sale.

At the time of closing the deal, the financial and bureaucratic procedures of B2B can make the outcome more time-consuming. This is to be expected, but you should have tools and processes in place that make it easy for your new customer to onboard.

This step is very important for retention and loyalty, as ensuring a better experience increases the chances of a long-term relationship.

By developing the sales funnel and working each step carefully, the goal is to sell and, above all, to generate trust, which will naturally lead to the sale, making the cost of acquisition per customer (CAC) lower.

The B2B sales funnel is the best way to naturally lead your customers to the purchase decision.

Business Oportunities

Now that you know how to deal with your customers, what about start receiving contact from them?

B2Brazil is a B2B platform for international business with more than 200,000 companies registered.