Streamlining Your B2B Sales Funnel With Automation

B2B sales funnels are already longer and more complex than B2C.

So, if you’re still trying to do everything manually? You’re making things even harder for yourself!

Instead, when used correctly, automation will:

• Free up your time and that of your team by reducing manual work
• Remove the risk of human error
• Speed up your B2B sales funnel
• Improve your lead management, conversions, and sales
• Increase your revenue as a result

A game-changer, right?

Let’s look at how you can embrace B2B sales funnel automation, then!

Best practices for automating your B2B sales funnel smoothly

Automation isn’t about turning EVERYTHING into a hands-off task! So, focus on:

• Identifying your goals to then work way backwards and see where and how you’d benefit from automation
• Maintaining a human touch: only automate the most repetitive tasks, and personalise your messaging and touchpoints whenever possible
• Ensuring seamless integrations among your tools, especially your CRM
• Reviewing your automations regularly and optimising them based on data

Key automation features for B2B sales funnels

Automation is particularly popular and effective for:

• Lead capture and scoring – With tools like ScoreApp, you can build interactive quiz lead magnets, using them to reach more people, capture their details, pre-qualify them, segment them, and add this valuable data to your CRM
• Email marketing – With platforms like Mailerlite, Mailchimp, and ActiveCampaign, you can schedule your emails and build workflows. Connect them with ScoreApp to trigger the right sequence as soon as someone completes your quiz, and personalise it based on their answers 
• CRMs – Keep all your lead and customer data in one place with tools like HubSpot, Zoho, Keap, or Klaviyo (psst: ScoreApp connects with the most popular CRMs!). Harness automated features like lead scoring, workflows, follow-ups, and task reminders, too
• Appointment scheduling – When booking calls, use tools like Calendly or Microsoft Bookings to avoid endless back-and-forths 
• Analytics and reporting – Measure the success of your campaigns and funnels with platforms like Google Analytics, or make the most of the built-in reporting features of your chosen marketing and sales tools (for example, ScoreApp comes with a handy analytics dashboard)

How to enhance each stage of your B2B sales funnel with automation

There are all kinds of automation opportunities for each stage of your B2B sales funnel (and guess what? ScoreApp can help with every single one of them).

Awareness stage – Attracting potential clients

At the top of the funnel, you need to reach your target customers and generate interest in your B2B products or services. Do that by meeting them where they are right now (= experiencing a problem), educating them, entertaining them, and showing them how that pain point can be solved.

Most importantly, you must turn some of those eyeballs into proper leads by collecting their contact details. Otherwise, you won’t be able to communicate with them directly throughout the rest of your funnel, and you’ll lose them along the way.

Automation can speed this up and save you time with tactics like:

• Scheduling your social media content
• Offering a lead magnet that collects your audience’s details, like a ScoreApp quiz
• Running ad campaigns that drive traffic to a lead-generating landing page
• Tagging and segmenting your new leads 

Example of B2B automation for the awareness stage

Create a valuable ScoreApp quiz lead magnet for your target customers. For example, a sales coach could lead with “What’s stunting your business growth?” and a time-tracking SaaS company with a “Time-Management Scorecard”.

Then, use your organic marketing (like your scheduled social media content) and/or some paid ads to drive traffic to your quiz landing page, which will capture their details automatically.

Your ScoreApp quiz will also pre-qualify and segment your leads depending on their answers, and it’ll add all this juicy data to your CRM and email marketing platform (more on that soon!).

Consideration stage – Nurturing and engaging leads

Go more in-depth with your content, and nurture your middle-of-the-funnel leads to build trust and position your offers as the logical solution to their problem.

Unfortunately, it’s particularly easy to lose your leads during this phase. So, set yourself up for success by personalising your messages and touchpoints, making them super relevant to each prospect.

Automation can help you through:

• Lead scoring to identify the right-fit prospects
• Personalised email sequences triggered by specific actions (like quiz completion, resource downloads, or someone clicking on a link in a previous email)
• CRM notifications and task reminders

Example of B2B automation for the consideration stage

Don’t nurture everyone with the same generic email sequence! Set up separate ones, or personalise certain elements (like your subject lines and calls to action) based on your leads’ ScoreApp quiz results.

For example, your nurturing sequences could welcome them into your world and set the right expectations, include tailored advice, focus on the biggest problem each lead is facing, and show them why you care about solving it. Then, they could debunk their biggest misconception, send them relevant sales-enablement content, and share a case study of when you helped someone who used to be in their shoes.

Decision stage – Closing and converting leads

Now, it’s time to compel your bottom-of-the-funnel leads to take action. 

If you don’t make this both a no-brainer and a breeze, they could give up or choose your competitors instead.

So, simplify and speed this up through:

• Automated marketing-to-sale hand-off
• Appointment scheduling tools and automated reminders
• CRM notifications to remind your sales teams to follow up
• Abandoned cart emails
• Pre-built sales presentations, proposal templates, and contracts sent automatically 

Example of B2B automation for the decision stage

Once your leads have been nurtured and primed for a sale through your email sequences, make them a personalised offer.

This will obviously depend on their ScoreApp quiz answers. You can either recommend the best option for them or invite them on a call with a tailored message, offering them to discuss their challenges together.

Oh, and share their ScoreApp answers with your sales team so that they know exactly what to lead with during the call! You could use them to tailor your onboarding too, matching each lead’s preferences and priorities. 

Measure your B2B sales funnel automation success with regular reviews

Planning your automation properly will allow you to get started with solid foundations. However, what if something goes wrong or isn’t as effective as it could be?

You most definitely DON’T want to leave it to chance, as you could end up annoying or losing your leads throughout your funnel. Instead:

• Identify your key metrics – Do this for each stage of your funnel. For example, you could monitor your reach and website visitors, your landing page conversion rates (like the number of visitors who sign up for your ScoreApp quiz lead magnet), your engagement rates, your lead-to-client conversion rates, your overall cost per lead and per customer, your sales call close rate, and so on
• Track them regularly – Set time aside to review these metrics: what went well? What could be improved? Where are you losing most of your leads? For example, ScoreApp shows you how many landing page visitors took your quiz and where some of them dropped off. You can then use your email marketing tool to see how they interacted with your nurturing sequence
• Check your automations – Is everything still working smoothly? For example, do your email sequences get triggered right after someone completes your quiz? Is each segment receiving the correct one? Are the emails spread out properly, giving your leads enough time to read them but without losing momentum?
• Improve your B2B sales funnel automation accordingly – Use your data to optimise your funnel even further, ensuring it all proceeds smoothly without leaks or bottlenecks

Build a fully-automated B2B sales funnel with ScoreApp

Stop wasting time on manual tasks or missing out on leads and conversions! With ScoreApp, you get to:

• Attract more target customers with a valuable quiz lead magnet
• Pre-qualify them and segment them into groups based on their answers
• Add their details to your CRM and email marketing platform
• Set up email sequences that nurture your leads in a personalised way, building trust and priming them for a sale
• Recommend the best option for them, or invite them on a call with a tailored message
• Ensure your sales team has access to their data and quiz answers, setting them up for success

… all automatically! 

So, start automating your B2B sales funnel: create your ScoreApp quiz lead magnet today and for FREE.