In the world of B2B marketing, building a robust marketing and sales funnel is essential for driving revenue and growth. A well-structured funnel can efficiently guide potential customers through the buyer's journey, from initial awareness to conversion. However, even the most well-designed funnels can experience leakage points that hinder the conversion process. In this blog post, we'll explore three common points of funnel leakage for B2B companies and more importantly, how to fix them.
1. Web Form to MAP Integration
The first common point of funnel leakage for B2B companies occurs at the integration between web forms and Marketing Automation Platforms (MAPs). A seamless connection between your website's forms and your MAP is crucial for capturing leads accurately and efficiently. When this integration is faulty, leads can get lost or misrouted, causing potential customers to slip through the cracks.
How to Fix It:
- Leverage native MAP forms: While you may have to sacrifice some design control, leveraging the native forms from your MAP provides small and scrappy teams with one less integration point to maintain. Out-of-the-box sync errors help you focus on your MAP to CRM integration instead.
- Regularly audit your integration: If you can’t use native MAP forms, conduct regular checks to ensure that your web forms are correctly integrated with your MAP. Regularly run QA and submit test leads through your forms, especially from paid channels, and look for any discrepancies or missing data.
- Don’t forget about existing contacts: Buyer’s journeys at many B2Bs, particularly in enterprise sales, can be long. That means you may have the same contact submitting a contact us form multiple times over several weeks or months. Make sure you have the appropriate triggers setup to flag existing contacts who may fill-out the same form for a second time, even if they are already a member of the campaign.
2. MQL Dispositioning
The second common point of funnel leakage is mishandling Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs). MQLs are prospects who have shown interest in your products or services, but if they are not properly nurtured or prioritized, they can end up going cold or choosing a competitor.
How to Fix It:
- Define clear MQL criteria: Ensure that your marketing and sales teams are aligned on what constitutes an MQL. Define specific criteria based on lead behavior, engagement, and fit with your ideal customer profile.
- Implement a lead scoring system: Create a lead scoring system to prioritize MQLs based on their readiness to buy. This allows your sales team to focus their efforts on the most promising leads.
- Establish SLAs and escalation points: Set clear guidelines with the marketing and sales team on the time needed to update lead statuses. If a lead has not been advanced, disqualified, or returned to nurture in the agreed upon time, create automated alerts to flag at-risk leads.
3. Bottom-of-Funnel Content
The third common point of funnel leakage is the absence of or ineffective bottom-of-funnel (BOFU) content. BOFU content is critical for guiding prospects towards the final decision-making stage, but many B2B companies neglect it.
How to Fix It:
- Create a customer story pipeline: Case studies are an extremely effective way to address the specific needs and concerns of prospects at the bottom of the funnel. Work with Customer Success to create a targeted list of customers to engage with and create new written and video assets.
- Personalize the content journey: Use data and segmentation to deliver BOFU content tailored to the prospect's industry, role, or pain points. Make sure to collect this data at the prospect level and classify your content using the same data architecture. Personalization increases the relevance and effectiveness of your content.
- Enable the sales team: Whenever new BOFU content is published, alert the sales team, and provide guidance on how they can leverage. Create a centralized location of marketing content and include things like suggested sales cadence copy, links to design resources like social images, and the industry, roles, and pain points the content is aligned to.
Addressing these three common points of funnel leakage is essential for B2B companies looking to optimize their conversion rates and drive revenue growth. By ensuring seamless web form integration, effective MQL dispositioning, and compelling bottom-of-funnel content, you can plug the leaks in your sales funnel and guide prospects towards becoming satisfied customers. Regularly monitoring and refining these areas will help you maintain a healthy and efficient B2B sales funnel.
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