B2B Sales Funnel: How to Build and Optimize It
Modern business-to-business (B2B) companies are taking longer to close deals than in previous years. In 2023 alone, 53% of surveyed brands experienced an increase in sale cycle length and we expect more of the same in 2024.
In order to keep clients interested in your company and on track to purchasing from you across this extended selling process, you can assess their position in your B2B sales funnel. Your B2B sales funnel tracks your customers’ buying journeys—from initial awareness to post-purchase.
Let’s uncover the intricacies of B2B sales funnels, learn about their different steps, and explore how to create a successful model to implement in your business.
What Is a B2B Sales Funnel?
Whether a business sells directly to other businesses (B2B) or to consumers (B2C), they can benefit from implementing a sales funnel. More or less, sales funnels are visual representations of a customer’s path to purchasing your products.
Most products don’t fly off the shelves as impulse buys. Usually, customers first become aware of their existence, assess their value, and then make an informed decision about whether or not to purchase them.
This is especially true of B2B purchases, which:
Often have multiple decision-makers involved in the purchasing process
Must work within budgets and gain leadership’s approval before making large purchases
Can require enterprise solutions that they want to implement across their organization—meaning even more decision-makers to consult before purchasing
The idea of a funnel represents the nature of lead loss while negotiating deals. Many more potential customers will join in at the top during the Awareness phase than actually convert on a purchase.
Lost leads are to be expected. In fact, across all industries, only about 20% of potential customers actually close on deals. As long as you’re tracking your customers’ journeys through your funnel, however, you’ll get a solid sense of which clients are likely to end with a win and which may fall off before closing.
B2B vs B2C Sales Funnel
B2B and B2C sales funnels share many similarities. For starters, they both start with generating awareness from your customers. Likewise, they also both ideally end with a closed sale i.e.conversion.
In general, however, B2C sales funnels feature a much larger mouth that’s intended to capture a wider array of customers. In contrast, B2B sales funnels seek to attract more qualified, engaged customers right off the get-go.
B2B sales funnels also take longer to navigate. Buyers may spend more time at each step and carefully consider their options before moving toward closing. They may even move up and down the funnel as they become hotter and colder on a product or receive input from others within their organization.
Stages of B2B Sales Funnel
There are multiple B2B sales funnel stages that a customer must go through before closing a deal. And, even after closing, there are still post-purchase considerations such as customer retention and advocacy to think about.
Not every business’s sales funnel looks exactly the same or features the same stages, but they all track the same path from awareness to closing. These steps are more or less the standards most businesses include in their funnel:
Awareness
The largest number of prospects will join on at this stage. This is when potential clientele identify an issue with their business, acknowledge it needs to be fixed, and begin actively seeking solutions to sort it out.
The Awareness stage begins when a prospect first learns of your business. Whether it’s through content marketing, an email outreach campaign, or any other avenue, once they know your company and consider it a potential fit for their issues, they’ve officially entered your funnel.
Interest
This is when customers begin actively learning more about your business, products, and available solutions. They’ll generally reach out to your sales reps with burning questions about your product’s use cases, limitations, and more.
This is also the stage where you’ll start providing concrete information about product pricing, guarantees, service, and more. Stoke their interest in your brand by explaining the unique features you offer, how your product is a perfect fit for their issues, and the exclusive deal you’re willing to offer them.
This is also the best opportunity to give them a product demo and show them first-hand how your offerings can work for them.
Evaluation
During this stage, prospects will consider the ins and outs of your product and its fit for their needs. They’ll look at your offer, determine whether or not it fits into their budget, and may even try to negotiate a different price.
At this time, you’ll then have the opportunity to:
Put up counter offers
Renegotiate the deal
Rework different aspects of your contract
Your actions during the Evaluation stage have a strong bearing on your prospect’s decision and, ultimately, have a high chance of persuading them to close or pass.
Decision
This is the Yes or No you’ve been waiting so long to hear. During the decision stage, your prospects will make the ultimate choice about whether to purchase your products and services or go with another option.
Obviously, you want each buyer’s journey to end with a sale. Making it all the way to the Decision phase just to be turned down at the last minute represents a significant waste of organizational resources. Be sure to make a hard press during the Evaluation stage and be willing to negotiate your prices and terms to end with as many conversions as possible.
Purchase
The Purchase step is the time to iron out the final details in your contract, firm up your pricing structure, and ultimately, strike ink on the deal. Once your prospects have made this final leap from lead to purchaser, they’re officially one of your customers and, therefore, need to be nurtured and maintained to stay with your brand long-term.
While many B2B sales and marketing funnel concepts end with the buy, there’s another crucial step to ensure enduring growth and repeat patronage for your business: Post-Purchase.
Post-Purchase
Assisting your clients after their purchases is necessary to upholding your reputation and creating repeat purchasers. Key activities in the post-purchase stage include:
Onboarding and training
Customer support
Deedback collection
Relationship building
Uspelling and cross-selling
Renewals and loyalty programs
By giving them the most supportive, positive, and mutually beneficial post-purchase experience possible, you can ensure that customers are satisfied, loyal, and more likely to engage in repeat purchases or refer other potential customers i.e. become advocates.
Creating a Successful B2B Sales Funnel
Just like there are many stages within a B2B sales funnel, so too are there many steps that go into implementing one. To establish yours and begin more accurately tracking your clients’ paths through the buyer’s journey:
Identify your target audience and decision-makers – Who are you selling to? What problems are your products meant to solve? String together common characteristics about your ideal buyers and utilize them to steer your marketing and sales strategies. In other words, create your buyer personas.
Map out your customers’ journeys – As mentioned, not every B2B sales funnel looks exactly the same. From Awareness to Post-Purchase, consider the steps your customers take before ultimately pulling the trigger on a purchase and line them up in a logical, followable model.
Create content and strategies for each stage of your funnel – When a customer reaches the next level of your funnel, your staff should immediately know how to react to continue nurturing the lead. Create repeatable rules and strategies for every phase of your funnel so your employees have the guidance they need to close the deal.
Set up a lead generation system – The process of drawing potential prospects into your funnel is known as Lead Generation and it’s necessary to maintain a steady stream of clientele. Whether you leverage cold calls, social media ads, marketing software, or any other solution, ensure you have a reliable means of continually generating new prospects to promote sustained growth.
Use targeted content to nurture prospects – If many of your customers are from a certain industry, area, or other demographic, create catered content aimed specifically at them. Collate your customer data, learn about their common characteristics, and craft videos, infographics, and other media that strikes a chord with your ideal buyers.
Identify and address leaks in your funnel – Assess where customers are most likely to fall off and attribute additional resources to nurturing prospects during this stage. Leads are more likely to lose interest closer to the top of the funnel so, if you notice more are leaving in the final stages, you may have to rework your company’s closing strategy.
Use feedback to refine your funnel – Ask your customers about their experience during the purchasing journey and if there are any ways you could have better supported them. Take their feedback to heart and, if multiple clients offer similar criticisms, rework your strategies to address their concerns with your selling process and maximize your B2B sales success.
Automate and personalize when possible – There are lots of organizational duties that don’t need to be done by humans. In fact, around a third of sales tasks can currently be automated and, with advancing technology, that figure continues to grow. One prime use case for sales automation is crafting personalized responses to customer objections—a necessary step for nurturing leads, but one that can be time-consuming and tedious as well.
Meet Nimbler, an AI-powered sales platform with over 120M B2B contacts.
B2B Sales Funnel Best Practices
When implementing your sales funnel, be sure to establish a strong lead qualification process. Lead scoring can be an effective strategy but, whichever technique you choose, it’s key to vet qualified leads from the get-go so you don’t waste organizational resources chasing prospects that fall off in the final stages.
Similarly, you’ll want to craft strong communication policies between different stages of your funnel. Have staff huddle during handoffs to discuss the intricacies of different prospects and effective strategies for nurturing their account as they move through your funnel.
Effective communication between different departments is at the heart of aligning sales and marketing—another key strategy for tightening lead nurturing and converting on more prospects. You can also utilize robust sales automation software such as Nimbler to promote harmony between different teams and optimize the effectiveness of your sales funnel.
Generate, Nurture, and Close On More Leads With Nimbler
Creating an effective B2B sales funnel lets you track your customers’ purchasing journeys, nurture leads more effectively, and close with more wins. There are many different kinds of sales funnels but, with an effective lead generation system, clear communication between departments, and robust automation tools, you can create the perfect model to match your business.
Nimbler is the ultimate sales automation platform for your B2B business. With the ability to prospect, engage, and nurture leads with little to no manual input, it can help you attract a wider customer base, bolster client satisfaction, and convert on more opportunities.
Try Nimbler for free to create a bespoke sales funnel and marketing strategy to support your business’s ambitions.
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