How to Build a B2B Sales Funnel That Converts (6 Steps)

Why do you need a B2B sales funnel?

The sales funnel is the core of every successful sales process. Without an effective funnel in place, you are leaving your sales plan to chance.

A well-made sales funnel enables prospective customers to get all the information they need to make a buying decision while keeping them engaged. A thought-out sales funnel is a salesperson that never sleeps.

If you bring people through your website’s proverbial door your sales funnel will turn them into customers and leads.

B2B sales funnel stages

Before we jump into the steps, let’s break down the stages of a typical B2B sales funnel that looks like this:

Each stage represents a different mindset of your potential customer. Understanding these stages allows you to tailor your approach.

Step-by-step guide to building an effective B2B sales funnel

Now that we’ve covered the stages of the funnel, here’s how to build an effective B2B sales funnel.

1) Align goals with customer demands

The first step in creating a successful B2B sales funnel is to align your company’s goals with what your customers need. If there’s a disconnect here, no amount of marketing or sales effort will work.

Start by researching and creating your ideal customer profile. Understand their pain points, challenges, and what drives them to make buying decisions.

What problems are they trying to solve? How does your product fit into their business?

When your business objectives align with customer demands, you’re not only selling a product, you’re offering a solution.

You can use customer surveys, interviews, and market research reports to gain valuable insights into your customers’ needs.

Once you have a clear understanding of your audience, tailor your funnel to meet those demands. This approach keeps your funnel grounded and ensures you are providing real value to your customers at every stage of the sales cycle.

2) Organize your teams

For a B2B sales funnel to work efficiently, your teams, most especially, your sales and marketing teams, need to align.

One common mistake businesses make is treating sales and marketing as separate entities. In reality, they need to work hand in hand to move prospects through the funnel.

Marketing teams work on awareness and interest, while sales handle engagement and purchase. Without alignment, the handoff from one stage to the next can be clunky.

To fix this, ensure both teams have a clear understanding of the funnel stages and their respective roles.

Regular communication between sales and marketing ensures both teams are pulling in the same direction.

Hold joint strategy meetings to discuss lead quality, handover processes, and metrics for success.

With smooth collaboration, you can ensure your leads don’t fall through the cracks.

3) Create assets for each sales funnel stage

Content is king when it comes to driving prospects through your B2B marketing funnel. But it needs to be tailored to each stage of the customer journey.

For example:

In the awareness stage, you need a type of content that educates and informs. Educational content can include blog articles, industry reports, infographics, and social media posts.
For the interest stage, use more in-depth sales collaterals like ebooks, white papers, and case studies. Show potential buyers how your offerings can help solve their specific problems.
For the evaluation stage, use comparison guides to help B2B buyers understand why your solution is the best option. FAQs like the one below also help:

In the engagement stage, use interactive content like webinars, Q&A sessions, or live product demos to build relationships and address any lingering doubts.

Every piece of content you create should guide the prospect to the next stage of the funnel. If you don’t have the time to create relevant content from scratch, you can leverage generative AI to help you.

4) Use relevant channels

Knowing which channels to use is as important as the message itself. Your potential customers are on different platforms at different stages. So, tailor your content strategy to meet them where they are.

For top-of-funnel prospects, platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter work well.
For middle-of-funnel leads, try webinars or email campaigns.

Check out this email from Stripe addressing the user’s payment/billing problems.

You can also leverage retargeted ads. Just make sure you create a relevant landing page for each ad. Tools like Clickfunnels and other alternatives you can afford.

Keep in mind some of these tools offer only landing page capabilities, so you’ll still need to integrate them with your email nurturing sequences.

A more efficient solution might be a platform like GetResponse, which offers multi-channel capabilities like landing pages, webinars, and emails under one roof.

For bottom-of-funnel leads, use personalized sales pitches via email or phone.

The key here is to be strategic. Research the platforms where your ideal customers are most active and focus your efforts there.

5) Enable easy communication at all sales funnel stages

One of the biggest deal-breakers in the sales process is poor communication. You don’t want a prospect falling out of your funnel because they couldn’t get a simple question answered.

In fact, 65% of customers will jump ship after a bad customer experience with a brand. Make sure you offer seamless communication at every stage of your funnel.

Use live chat, chatbots, or automated email responses so your prospects can always reach you. Train your sales reps to be responsive and proactive when handling inquiries.

To make their job easier, you can go the extra mile and create a response guidebook for your team based on your prospects’ usual questions. For each question, craft an original response.

Then just use a sentence rewriter to tweak that according to the communication platform used.

Why do you need to do this? Well, remember, each platform has different characteristics. While your team can give lengthy responses via email, they can’t do this via X.

A quick, helpful response suited to the platform can often be the difference between losing a lead and closing a sale.

Make sure your internal communication is tight. Everyone on your team, from marketing to sales should be on the same page.

Miscommunication within your team can lead to missteps with prospects, which can hurt your sales pipeline.

6) Track results and optimize

To keep your funnel effective, you need to track your results and optimize where necessary.

Use metrics like conversion rates, cost per acquisition, and customer lifetime value to gauge performance.

Look for patterns and identify areas where prospects are dropping off. This will help you pinpoint weak spots in your funnel and make the necessary adjustments.

For example, if you notice that many leads drop off at the evaluation stage, you might need to revisit your sales pitch or offer more detailed product comparisons.

Continuous optimization keeps your funnel in line with evolving business and customer needs.

Now go build your funnel!

Sales collateral templates

Creating sales collateral for each stage of the funnel can be challenging.

You need to tailor content to different buyer needs—educational materials for awareness, detailed comparisons for evaluation, and interactive demos for engagement.

With pre-designed layouts for each stage, interactive sales collateral templates make it easy to create content that engages prospects and moves them through the funnel smoothly and efficiently.

Just grab one.

How to Build a B2B Sales Funnel That Converts (6 Steps)

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What is a B2B sales funnel?

Why do you need a B2B sales funnel?

B2B sales funnel stages