Insights, Marketing, Web

How to build a winning B2B SaaS sales funnel in 9 simple steps

by Ryan James

Heard of a “sales funnel” but not sure about building one for your own B2B SaaS company? A sales funnel is the specific stages you take customers through, from lead acquisition to conversion and retention.

The idea behind a sales funnel is that you can track and optimise the journey your potential customers go through for first and repeat sales. Once you know what works and doesn’t, you can repeat the sales funnel to maximise leads and sales for your SaaS business.

Not entirely sure how to build an effective B2B SaaS sales funnel? Great, this guide is for you! We’ll show you how in 9 simple steps, beginning with creating a marketing funnel.

Step 1: Create a marketing funnel

There are three stages to any marketing funnel: Awareness, consideration, and conversion.
Depending on where your target audience is in the funnel, you’ll need different content to help them move to the next stage.

Awareness: The user has a problem and is searching online for B2B SaaS products and services like yours to provide the solution.

Create content that positions you as an authority and gives users introductory information with guides, blogs, explainer videos, and lead magnets.

Consideration: The user is diving deeper into your content and considering how you can fulfil their needs.

Develop content showing your expertise and real-world results with case studies, free demos, and SaaS sales presentations.

Conversion: The user is making their final decision by doing further research and comparing your SaaS company with competitors.

Develop content that helps customers compare your B2B SaaS offering with others with comparison sites, testimonials, pricing tables, and free trials.

Step 2: Outline your buyer journey

Now that you’ve developed content for every marketing funnel stage, it’s time to begin building your SaaS sales funnel by creating a roadmap of the specific steps your customers take before and after buying your B2B SaaS products or services.

Create standardised processes for every step of the buyer journey, which usually looks like this: Acquire lead, convert, onboard, support, and retain.

Your SaaS sales teams will use these processes to offer the best information to your customers at the right time.

Step 3: Attract leads with marketing

An essential part of any SaaS sales funnel for B2B companies is developing a solid marketing strategy to attract leads and convert them into long-term customers. Here are the key elements you should include:

• Audience & competitors: Research who your target audiences are and what they’re searching online to find you, and look at competitors to see what you can offer that they can’t.
• SaaS product spotlights: Define the most desirable products and services to your target audiences and highlight them.
• SaaS cost comparisons: See how much competitors charge for similar SaaS products and services and create a competitive pricing strategy.
• Marketing tactics: Outline the specific marketing tactics, campaigns, and landing pages you’ll use to attract, nurture, and convert your target customers.

Step 4: Turn leads into customers

When your marketing tactics begin attracting leads, it’s time for the sales team to nurture them into customers. Develop a solid sales strategy with:

• Lead scoring – to understand how “close” a lead is to converting
• CRM tools – to track leads and manage sales communications
• Sales decks – to support sales teams during their client pitches
• Sales scripts – to help close sales and prepare for objections
• Marketing – to nurture leads who don’t convert straight away

Step 5: Optimise customer onboarding

Acquiring a new customer can cost 5x more than retaining an existing customer, which is why you must have an onboarding protocol to give your new customers an excellent first impression.
This protocol might include things like:

• Automating a welcome email
• Offering guides to use your SaaS products
• Sending check-in emails
• Giving each customer their own contact

Step 6: Support user adoption

Secure user adoption and engagement by teaching customers how to use intermediate features, showing them how to integrate your SaaS product into their current processes, and highlighting success stories.

Step 7: Enhance your support process

One of the biggest complaints we see customers make regarding B2B SaaS products and services is the lack of quality customer support. Developing a solid support programme increases retention, so make sure you have processes in place for:

• Resolving complex customer issues
• Creating informative knowledge hubs
• Providing how-to tutorials
• Minimising customer support wait time
• Acquiring customer satisfaction data

Step 8: Make renewals easy

The likelihood of your customers leaving tends to increase around the subscription renewal period, when they consider the value you offer to their B2B business and whether they should continue with you.

Make it as easy as possible for them to renew their subscription with automated reminders, and don’t forget to offer upgrades in case they’re interested!

Step 9: Analyse and improve

Keep track of what’s working with your sales funnel and where you can improve it to continue optimising it for effectiveness. Set KPIs for every stage of the buyer journey, looking at important metrics, like:

• Website visitors
• Conversion rates
• User engagement
• Product activation
• Customer satisfaction scores
• Customer retention rates

That’s it! Time to build your B2B SaaS sales funnel

Congratulations, you’re now ready to create an effective SaaS sales funnel for your B2B business! Selling SaaS products or services can be tough – especially with so much competition.

But with a well-optimised sales funnel, you’ll have the processes and data you need to streamline the buyer journey and deliver exactly what your customers want at the right time to convince them to buy and stay.

Want us to do all the hard work for you? Rocket SaaS is a leading web design and digital marketing agency specialising in SaaS sales funnels.

With cancel anytime plans starting from just £3,000 per month, we become your dedicated SaaS marketing partner, helping you achieve your goals through outstanding website design and effective marketing.

Get in touch with us today to get started.