B2B Marketing Funnel: Attraction and Retention Strategy Tips!

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Truth be told : a B2B (business to business) marketing funnel is quite different from one aimed at B2C (business to customer). Although they all focus on attracting, winning over and retaining customers, there are essential particularities that must be observed .

Key takeaways from this article:
The B2B marketing funnel is a visual representation of a legal entity's purchasing journey. It includes all the steps taken by the lead from the first contact to the after-sales process and loyalty .
The B2B funnel helps the marketing team know how to transform leads into customers and when to send leads to be approached by the sales team.
It allows you to view company contacts and business progress, monitor the entire customer journey, perform a complete analysis of the results obtained, identify bottlenecks in the process, make adjustments to strategies, etc.
The stages of the B2B marketing funnel, in general, are: top, with content preparation and learning and discovery actions; middle, with materials aimed at showing the best solutions for the lead's pain points ; and bottom, time to convince the prospect to buy from the company.
To structure a B2B marketing funnel, study your audience and personas in depth, segment your contact base, define content for each stage of the funnel and measure the results periodically, making improvements.
Learn how to develop a sales process , setting up and managing your marketing funnel with a free trial of Agendor's CRM !
The first point to note is the sales cycle . While B2B has a longer one, since the purchase price of the product or service is generally higher and the purchase is not made on impulse, B2C has an extremely short cycle most of the time and works a lot with emotion.

From this, it is already possible to predict that the actions are differentiated, right?

However, how do you get attention from professionals from other companies and stand out in such a competitive market? Read until the end and learn!

Check out what a B2B marketing funnel is, what it’s for, its benefits, main steps and how to structure one from scratch. Enjoy your reading!

What is a B2B marketing funnel?
The B2B marketing funnel is a visual representation of all stages of a company's customer purchase, in this case, legal entities . Basically, it symbolizes the entire path taken by the public from first meeting and interacting with the brand to after-sales and loyalty.

The marketing funnel, like the sales funnel, is no longer a rigid and linear tool. It is dynamic and its stages vary (and overlap) according to the business model. In fact, it is 100% adaptable to corporate needs and the purchasing behavior of your customers .

What's more, marketing professionals don't just work to attract customers , they also work at almost every stage of the funnel, working alongside the sales team. After all, these people need to receive strategic, high-quality content to guide them throughout the entire journey.

Its inverted pyramid shape shows that the top is where potential customers (leads) arrive, which is why it is larger. The middle represents leads that have been qualified, that is, they have the ideal consumer profile. Finally, the bottom symbolizes the public that is interested in making a purchase and is just deciding who to buy from.

A strategy that impacts the success of companies is to include stages after closing, such as after-sales and loyalty .

What is the B2B marketing funnel for?
The marketing funnel for business-to-business deals is mainly used to transform leads into customers in an assertive, faster way and with a higher conversion rate . It literally “designs” the customer journey and allows managers and employees to understand what should be done and how.

In general, regardless of the number of steps the funnel has, it serves as a thermometer to understand the current situation and monitor the results of the strategies executed.

For example, if your company launched a campaign with ads on social media, email newsletters and WhatsApp messages, you can check the customer's behavior towards them and understand whether or not they are ready to move on to the next phase.

Understand what the B2B marketing funnel is for and its benefits to the business:

makes it possible to simply and practically monitor the customer journey and define the most appropriate stages and actions in each of them;
provides a more complete analysis of the current prospecting, negotiation and sales closing scenario, enabling the measurement of indicators such as conversion rate, churn , reasons for losses, etc.;
identification of bottlenecks in the process, allowing you to think about an improvement plan.
Also read: 5 Marketing Strategies for Sales You Should Learn

What are the stages of the B2B marketing funnel?
The business to business marketing funnel generally has three main stages, which can be divided into sub-stages or new stages: top, the moment of learning and discovery; middle, marked by the recognition of the problem and consideration of the solution; and bottom, the time of decision and closing of purchase.

By defining the stages of the B2B marketing funnel, it is possible to segment leads and create content associated with each phase with strategies adapted to all contact channels, such as email, social media, website and blog.

Understand each of them below!

Top of the B2B Funnel
We have already said that this is the moment of learning and discovering the client's potential. However, what exactly does the client learn and discover? Well, the client discovers their problem, need and/or challenge and, from there, learns what the possible solutions would be.

This stage corresponds to lead generation , and is therefore the widest in the funnel, including all leads generated by inbound marketing , for example, those that came from website registration, interaction on social media, customer referrals and Google searches, among others.

The important thing is to focus on nurturing this lead with lots of quality information, starting a relationship of trust and transparency with the brand. This is not the time to sell or talk about products and services.

Understand your audience's needs and generate high-quality content that serves to turkey mobile phone numbers database reflect on problems and solutions, but does not yet talk about your company's products or services.

Keep Learning: The Ultimate Guide to Lead Qualification

Middle of the B2B funnel
At this stage, the lead already knows their challenges and considers the best solution, intending to solve their problems. Therefore, the focus of marketing is to nurture them with content that talks about the benefits of the company's products or services, showing themselves to be trustworthy.

You don't need to talk directly about the solutions, but about the benefits generated, awakening interest and desire .

You can show market data and statistics, confirming the success of brands that have adopted certain corporate solutions.

Content about the challenges faced by the audience is also welcome. However, since the lead is more aware of their needs, it should be something more in-depth than the materials created at the top of the funnel.

Bottom of the B2B funnel
The bottom of the funnel is smaller, as only a percentage of qualified leads , who are in the middle of the journey, will actually close a deal with your company. This time is dedicated to salespeople, however, the marketing work still continues!

As soon as the lead enters this stage, they should receive rich content that speaks directly about the advantages of your solutions, company success stories, testimonials from current and former customers and all the data that shows that the company is trustworthy and the solutions really make a difference.

This way, the sales team will approach this lead and start negotiating with it.

Another point here is the responsibility of marketing in after-sales and in maintaining the relationship with the customer , just as the sales team must participate in these stages. Send messages periodically talking about the brand's launches, asking what the customer thinks of the solution, if they need any help and so on.

Additionally, you can send a marketing email aimed at cross-selling and up-selling , encouraging a repurchase.

How to structure a B2B marketing funnel?
To structure a B2B marketing funnel, you need to:

have a CRM system that collects, organizes and integrates all data from generated leads, automatically inserting them into the funnel created by the team;
study your target audience in depth and define the business personas, indicating the profiles of ideal customers;
segment your contact base and define which content is suitable for each stage of the funnel;
create strategies and actions at each stage, showing the marketing professional at which point the lead should be inserted into the next phase;
consider that, in many companies, there are several decision makers, so fit them all into the strategy;
constantly measure results and make adjustments.
Our final tip is to be patient and understand that B2B sales have a longer cycle. Therefore, marketing efforts make all the difference in the company's success!

Deepen your knowledge about B2B prospecting and take our training! With it, you will learn how to simplify your management and achieve significant results. And what's more: it includes practical classes focused on day-to-day market practices and a certificate of participation!