B2B lead generation. Automated funnels modeling
Short and simple on building consistent and predictable inflow of b2b leads with automated funnel modeling.
Every b2b business owner dreams about leads that come on their own and want to pay right away.
While b2b lead generation and sales are complicated processes requiring a lot of effort in building relationships with prospects, it is still possible to set up well-automated funnels guiding leads from the first contact to a closed deal.
At Clarity Supply Co, we help our customers figure out the best scenarios and build automated funnels that create a consistent and efficient flow of incoming leads.
In this post, we look at What are the funnels and their function? Let’s start with the top-level concept understanding. Good automated funnels delay the moment of selling 😧 Here’s why.
Don’t sell. Make your leads come & buy instead.
Direct sales are a source of pain, especially for your prospects. Nobody wants to listen to sales pitches about your product when they don’t feel an urgent need.
Instead, you need to invest time and resources to build relationships with your target audience before selling something. Here are four critical things to do:
- build trust and showcase your expertise among the target audience;
- become a top-of-mind solution to a particular problem;
- stay in front of your prospect’s eyes when the need comes up;
- be ready with your offer and everything your lead would need to pay the bill.
Automated funnels provide an infrastructure to make this happen. The process involves a variety of expertise and skills, from product positioning, business modeling, and customer experience mapping to copywriting performance marketing. Here we will keep it simple.
How to model a b2b lead gen funnel?
You never know what will work for a particular case, so don’t be afraid to experiment. The more you test, the higher chances of building an effective and scalable model that will bring you a consistent inflow of leads.
To make such a Soft-launch testing mode possible, you need to simplify everything from thinking to production—draw the logic, draft your content, and use no/low-code tools to build funnels.
But always start from a simple model and make it visual (use our free template).
In this highly-simplified model example, you can see four stages, from Reach to Closing the deal. Connections between touchpoints inside these phases provide conversion rate estimates based on past performance and industry benchmarks.
Funnel KPIs and benchmarking
It also makes sense to go deeper into a funnel performance forecasting. You won’t guess them precisely, but this exercise will help build the unit economy model for further analysis.
This additional layer of KPIs shows us that at a $3K campaign budget, the funnel will bring you ~2 closed deals at a $1.5K cost per customer. Assuming that you know your average customer’s LTV, you can see if this model is feasible at all or not.
All these metrics and correlations between them are critical for your funnel soft-launch tests to see the areas of optimization.
Go to production as soon as you have designed your low-detailed model and your team feels it looks feasible. And again, keep it simple, but do not neglect the quality. The content, message, offer, and usability across the funnel are critical for the performance.
Where to start?
If your sales are already in place, but you want to test new strategies, it will make sense to run this process separately, both technically and staff-matter.
You will need a project manager, marketer, copywriter, and designer to model, build and test your new funnels. The process looks like this in outline:
In our experience, it takes 3 to 6 weeks to model and launch a new complicated funnel, including integration with existing CRM, EMP and analytics software and content production.
Happy modeling!
