Are your marketing and sales working together at every stage of your B2B funnel? Because they should!
By funnel, we simply mean the journey your target customers go through until they buy from you. And when you plan it and take control of it, you’ll get to reach more leads and help them move to the next stage smoothly.
So, we’ll show you how to optimise your B2B marketing and sales funnel to get the very most out of it and sell more.
The B2B funnel from a marketing and sales perspectives
Some companies make the mistake of looking at their marketing and sales separately, with their teams rarely interacting. Instead, to create a smooth funnel and maximise your results, you’ll want them to work together.
We’ll soon show you the best marketing and sales tactics for different stages of your B2B funnel. To make sure we’re on the same page, though, let’s start with a quick overview of these phases:
- Awareness – Your target customers become aware of their problem and/or your B2B company. So, with your marketing (and especially your content), you can boost your brand awareness, reach more people, and educate them
- Interest – Here, your potential customers go from problem-aware to solution- or product-aware. Now that you have their attention, you should also turn them into proper leads by collecting their details (for example, through a ScoreApp quiz lead magnet) so that you can contact them directly
- Consideration – While your prospects compare options to find the best solution for them, help them make the right decision. Use sales enablement content to answer their questions and reframe their concerns
- Intent – Your prospects are ready to take the first proper action (for example, sending an enquiry, booking a call with you, or signing up for a free trial), and you can compel them to do that sooner rather than later
- Decision – This is when your prospects become paying customers! From strategic sales calls to personalised emails once their trial begins, make this choice a no-brainer for them. Your sales team should also access your marketing data to tailor their approach and close more calls
ScoreApp, our quiz-building platform with a big focus on lead generation, can help at every stage of your B2B marketing sales funnel!
Your quiz lead magnet will reach more people, collect valuable insights, and segment your new contacts based on their answers. Then, you can nurture them with automated and personalised email sequences until it’s time to offer them the most relevant next step. A game-changer!
Create your ScoreApp quiz today and for FREE
9 best marketing practices for an effective B2B funnel
The right marketing strategy won’t just “reach more people”: it’ll put the foundations in place to then sell to them more easily!
Here’s how you can do that with your sales funnel for B2B marketing.
1. Create a strong inbound content strategy
One of the biggest B2B lead generation mistakes is relying on referrals, which are outside your control. Instead, help your audience find you organically.
Create targeted content that meets your potential customers where they are (especially when they’re still trying to understand their problem and what’s causing it, but for the rest of your funnel, too), answers their questions, educates them, and entertains them.
For example, your content marketing could include:
- Blog posts
- Videos
- Whitepapers
- Social media
Then, once you have more eyeballs, capture your audience’s details by directing them to a lead magnet (more on that soon!).
2. Optimise your website for SEO
The biggest chunk of your audience isn’t aware of your company yet. However, they are looking for your type of products and services or googling relevant questions.
So, don’t send your target customers straight to your competitors! Give yourself the best chances of appearing in their searches.
- Optimise your website pages for keywords that describe your business, products, or services (for example, “content marketing agency in London” or “freelance graphic designer for hire”)
- Optimise your blog posts for SEO (for example, using the questions or keywords your audience is searching, like “advantages of content marketing” or “Why am I losing email subscribers?”)
3. Run paid ads
Content marketing and SEO are excellent long-term strategies.
If you need results fast, though, you should complement your organic tactics with paid ads. This can also work well for targeted promotions (for example, if you want to focus on a specific product to get rid of excess stock).
- Create a landing page with one compelling call to action (for example, to book a call, buy a product, or sign up for your lead magnet)
- Use paid social media ads or Google ads to drive traffic to it
4. Utilise lead magnets
Attention is a valuable currency, but it’s not enough on its own.
To take full control of your B2B marketing and sales funnel, you must collect your audience’s contact details. Otherwise, they might enjoy your content or read your website… but then they’ll leave and forget about you.
A great way to make sure this doesn’t happen is by having a strategic lead magnet. This is a free resource that you offer to your audience in exchange for their contact information.
Most businesses are still relying on generic and static PDFs, but they’re so overused that they only convert at 3-10%. So, consider more engaging B2B lead magnets like:
- Quizzes (like a “FREE Content Marketing Scorecard” or “What’s your entrepreneur profile?”), which convert at a whopping 30-50%. Huge, right?!
- Webinars
- Whitepapers
- Mini-courses
ScoreApp quizzes are particularly effective because they also collect a tonne of data (you’ll literally be asking targeted questions to your ideal customers!). You can then use it to inform and personalise the rest of the funnel, sharing it with your sales team, too.
5. Leverage marketing automation
To grow your B2B business sustainably, you can’t continue to do EVERYTHING manually. Not only would it be ridiculously time-consuming: there’d be more room for human error.
So, embrace marketing automation for your most repetitive tasks or to trigger workflows without keeping your leads waiting. For example, this is helpful when:
- Scheduling social media content
- Automating your emails and set sequences
- Managing and nurturing your leads using a CRM
Your ScoreApp quiz will automatically email its results to your participants’ while also adding them to your CRM and/or email marketing platform as a contact. You can also set up different nurturing sequences for each segment, so that they start going out smoothly (without you having to lift a finger).
6. Focus on retargeting ads and emails
From browsing your product page to clicking on a social media ad: maybe someone engaged with your brand but didn’t buy or follow through with that initial action? All is NOT lost!
You can retarget them with strategic, personalised ads or emails that speak to them and reference their situation.
For example, if someone signed up for your ScoreApp quiz but didn’t complete it, they’ll receive a tailored email encouraging them to go back to it to get their results.
7. Provide value with webinars and events
These are super effective tactics to reach more people, stand out, and position yourself as an expert, building brand awareness, trust, and authority at the same time.
You can host your own or be a guest, do this online or in-person, or even plan a joint event with a relevant business (for example, a B2B company offering complementary services) to harness their audience.
Just make sure you have a system in place to capture their contact details. For example, how about inviting them to take your valuable ScoreApp quiz?
8. Segment and personalise your marketing campaigns
Your audience is bombarded with marketing content and campaigns, especially in the B2B world. So, to stand out, make yours more relevant to them.
Personalised marketing leads to a 20% increase in sales, and you can tailor your messages and touchpoints based on someone’s:
- Demographics (for example, are they the company founder or the CMO?)
- Behaviours (have they interacted with your brand before? Have they opened some of your emails or clicked on a link?)
- Needs, wants, likes, and dislikes (for example, what’s their biggest problem?)
With your ScoreApp quiz lead magnet, you get to do aaaaaall that, especially when you plan the right questions and segment your audience accordingly. Then, you just need to personalise your email sequences and touchpoints for each group (they’ll probably wonder if you’re reading their mind!).
9. Measure performance with analytics
You shouldn’t rely on guesswork for your B2B marketing and sales funnel!
Sure, planning everything properly and putting strong foundations in place is a great start. You must measure your results regularly too, though.
This will show you what resonates the most with your audience and how they interact with your content and funnel. Then, you can optimise it accordingly to make even MORE sales.
- Run some A/B testing, showing different versions of the same element (like a landing page) to different people
- Review your analytics and track your campaigns with metrics like click-through rates, conversion rates, or cost per lead
ScoreApp gives you built-in analytics that are both in-depth and easy to understand. For example, you can see how many landing page visitors sign up for your quiz, where most of your participants drop off (hint, hint: change those questions), and much more.
8 best sales practices for an effective B2B funnel
Use these tactics and your marketing insights to set yourself up for success when selling to the right-fit prospects.
1. Qualify your leads early
“The more, the better” isn’t usually true when it comes to leads. Do you reeeeeally want to waste your sales team’s time (or yours) on pointless conversations with prospects who aren’t serious about buying from you or who wouldn’t be a good fit, anyway?
That could cost you a lot of money and make you miss out on bigger sales, because you’d have less time to speak with perfect-fit prospects.
So, instead of engaging or speaking with everyone, pre-qualify your leads before talking to them 1:1. For example, you can do this through:
- Your marketing
- A lead scoring system (many CRMs have it as a built-in feature)
ScoreApp takes this to the next level because… you can literally ask pre-qualifying questions through your quiz!
For example, a web designer could ask “What’s your budget for a website that brings you at least 10 new leads every week?”, “Have you worked with a web designer before?”, or “Do any of these sound true to you?” (followed by common concerns or misconceptions in your industry). Then, a tailored email sequence would nurture the right prospects accordingly.
2. Use data-driven insights
Your sales team shouldn’t start from scratch when approaching or getting on a call with a prospect.
- Use a CRM to gather and update insights about each lead (so that, no matter when and who gets in touch with them, your team members will know exactly where to pick up from and what to focus on)
- Make sure your marketing and sales team are communicating regularly and have access to the same platforms and analytics (we’ll share more tips on that soon)
For example, with a ScoreApp quiz, your sales team will get to understand each lead’s unique situation (based on their answers) and how they interacted with your email sequence.
3. Tailor your sales pitch
If you want your prospects to care about your products or services, you must make your offer relevant to them.
So, just like you used personalisation in your marketing, keep tailoring your touchpoints, messages, and sales calls to each prospect’s situation.
For example, you can do this by:
- Sending them a personalised invitation to get on a call (like referencing their ScoreApp quiz results)
- Recommending the best product or service for them, or creating a bespoke offer
- Focusing on their needs and wants during the call, instead of pushing your solution
ScoreApp makes this a breeze by showing you each lead’s quiz answers and behaviours!
4. Address objections proactively
When selling, be prepared, and make sure you really know your audience: why do some of them say no or maybe? What concerns have they got? For example, you can find this out by analysing their behaviour and fostering communication between your marketing and sales team.
Then, you can:
- Create sales enablement content that tackles those objections before a call (for example, through strategic videos and blog posts in your email sequences)
- Train your team on how to do that during calls, too
With your ScoreApp quiz, you can uncover each lead’s objections and debunk them through personalised email sequences.
5. Leverage social proof
You can’t expect your target customers to just take your word or believe your promises. In the B2B world, in particular, your audience (who cares a lot about ROI) needs proof.
So, show them how you’ve already helped clients who used to be in their shoes, making the most of:
- Testimonials
- Stats
- Case studies
- User-generated content
- Whitepapers
As well as using social proof on your website and the rest of your marketing (for example, throughout your ScoreApp quiz email sequences), share it with your sales team so they can harness it during calls.
6. Offer valuable solutions, focusing on benefits
We bet your products or services are the best, but don’t lead with them. You don’t want to confuse your prospects with technical features or give them the impression that you just force the same option on everyone.
Instead, lead with how your business will benefit theirs, highlighting those advantages at various touchpoints.
For example, you could talk about ROI, efficiency, how your solution will save them time and money, and so on.
With ScoreAp, you get a head start. Your quiz can literally uncover what each lead values the most (for example, with questions like “If you had a magic wand, which of these problems would you get rid of first?” or “What matters to you when collaborating with a marketing agency?”).
7. Follow up consistently
Worried you’ll come across as desperate? That’s a big (and dangerous) B2B sales myth!
Of course, you shouldn’t be pushy, but remember: people are busy and already have a lot on their minds, especially in B2B sectors. If someone hasn’t replied to your email, it’s probably because they forgot.
So, plan the right systems and automations to stay on top of these follow-ups.
With ScoreApp, you can personalise them by referencing someone’s situation or quiz results.
8. Focus on relationship building
If your customers feel like you just want their money no matter what, they’ll be unlikely to buy from you or continue that relationship.
Instead, show them you really care about what’s best for them and prove you’re in it for the long run. That way, instead of one-off sales, you’ll build more meaningful partnerships.
You can do this during and after your main B2B marketing and sales funnel stages. For example, consider:
- Strong onboarding
- Upselling and cross-selling relevant products or services
- Offering the right support, especially for tech products and SaaS
- Referral programmes
- Getting feedback
- Incentives and rewards for existing customers
With ScoreApp, you can do all this more effectively by focusing on what each lead values the most.
Aligning your marketing and sales teams for a stronger funnel and results
We know it’s a bit of a buzzword, but your marketing and sales should really work in synergy. Otherwise, your funnel could end up being scattered and… nowhere near as effective as it could be!
- Align your KPIs – Ensure your teams are working towards the same overall goals and using relevant metrics, like revenue targets, lead quality, and conversion rates
- Use a shared CRM – Nothing should get lost in the shuffle! So, give both teams access to the same data
- Maintain and encourage communication – Hold regular meetings, offer channels to keep that communication line open, and develop a feedback loop (for example, if your salespeople provide insights on lead quality, your marketing team will get to adjust their strategy accordingly)
- Implement a lead-handoff process – When it’s time to pass your marketing-qualified leads to your sales team, the process should be smooth for all parties. For example, your teams could access the same information, and they could also inspire a sense of familiarity by letting each lead know the name of the person who’ll take over
- Share relevant resources – Both teams should have access to all your sales enablement content. By communicating regularly, they’ll also get to add to it and keep it updated
- Track the entire funnel together – When both your marketing and sales team are involved, it’ll be easier to monitor how your leads move through your B2B sales funnel and optimise it even further
Bring your B2B marketing and sales funnel together with ScoreApp
By implementing these B2B marketing and sales funnel tactics, you’ll get the very most out of your strategy.
As you now know, ScoreApp can support you at every single stage:
- Reach more people with a compelling quiz
- Segment them automatically and collect insights
- Use your new data to personalise the rest of the funnel, and share it with your sales team
- Nurture your leads more effectively, and close more sales
The first step? Creating your ScoreApp quiz today and for FREE!
