Top 5 Signs of a Weak B2B SaaS Funnel and What to Do About It

As the B2B SaaS space gets more competitive, a well-optimized sales funnel is crucial for driving growth and maximizing ROI. However, even the most sophisticated marketing strategies can suffer from weak points that hinder their effectiveness.

If your lead generation and conversion efforts aren’t delivering the expected results, it might be time to scrutinize your funnel for hidden flaws. A weak B2B SaaS marketing or sales funnel doesn’t just lead to lost opportunities—it can significantly impact your bottom line. 

In this post, we’ll explore the top five signs that your funnel needs attention and provide actionable insights on how to fix them. Addressing these issues head-on can transform your funnel into a powerful engine that drives consistent growth and higher conversions.

Top 5 Signs of a Weak B2B SaaS Funnel

B2B SaaS funnel conversion benchmarks can be a helpful tool in assessing your funnel’s performance. It turns out that conversion rates often vary by the business size. Below are benchmark conversion rates based on the size of the business.

Weak B2B SaaS Funnel

Source: First Page Sage

Now let’s look at the top 5 signs of a weak funnel, and how to fix it.

Sign #1: Flatlining or Declining Lead Generation or Conversion Rates

One of the most obvious signs of trouble is when your SaaS funnel metrics plateau or decline. If your retention rate or other once-promising metrics have stalled, your funnel isn’t performing as it should.

How to reverse declining lead gen and conversion rates:

Start by analyzing each stage of your marketing or sales funnel to identify where prospects are dropping off. Are you attracting the right audience? Are your messaging and value proposition aligned with their needs? 

Consider revisiting your content strategy, refining your targeting, and A/B testing different elements of your funnel, such as landing pages, CTAs, and email campaigns. Additionally, leveraging tools like heatmaps and analytics can provide deeper insights into user behavior, helping you pinpoint and address the areas where your funnel is losing traction.

Sign #2: High Abandonment Rates Throughout the Funnel

A high abandonment rate is another telltale sign of a weak funnel. If potential customers consistently exit your funnel before completing a conversion, friction points or gaps in your process must be addressed.

How to fix your funnel’s high abandonment rates:

Optimizing the user experience at every touchpoint is essential to reducing abandonment rates. Simplify your forms, ensure your website and landing pages are fast and mobile-friendly, and make your value proposition clear and compelling. 

Personalization can also significantly reduce abandonment, so tailor your messaging and offers based on user behavior and preferences. Finally, implement retargeting campaigns to re-engage those who drop off and guide them back into your funnel.

Sign #3: Siloed Teams and Disjointed Marketing Efforts

When your marketing and sales processes operate in silos, it can lead to inconsistent messaging, misaligned goals, and, ultimately, a disjointed funnel. This fragmentation often results in missed opportunities and inefficiencies that weaken your marketing efforts.

Here’s the fix for disjointed marketing efforts:

Breaking down these silos requires fostering a culture of collaboration between your teams. Implement regular cross-functional meetings and establish shared goals aligning with your business objectives. Utilize collaborative tools and platforms for seamless communication and data sharing across departments. You can create a more cohesive and effective funnel by ensuring everyone works towards the same objectives with a unified strategy.

Sign #4: Difficulty Attributing Revenue to Marketing Efforts

If you need help to clearly attribute revenue to specific marketing efforts, it can be challenging to determine what’s working and what’s not. This lack of visibility can lead to inefficient spending and missed opportunities for optimization.

How to attribute revenue to marketing efforts:

Invest in advanced analytics and tracking tools that provide a comprehensive view of your customer journey to improve attribution. Multi-touch attribution models can offer deeper insights into how different channels and campaigns, such as social media, contribute to conversions. Additionally, integrating your CRM with marketing automation platforms can help you track the entire lead lifecycle, from initial contact to closed deal, giving you a clearer understanding of your marketing ROI.

Sign #5: Lack of Clear Visibility into the Entire Customer Journey

A weak funnel often lacks clear visibility into the entire customer experience, making it difficult to understand how prospects move from one stage to the next. Without this visibility, optimizing your funnel becomes a guessing game, leading to inefficiencies and missed opportunities.

How to gain clear visibility into the customer journey:

Clear visibility into the customer’s journey requires mapping out each stage of your funnel and identifying key touchpoints. Use tools like user journey analytics to track interactions across channels and gather insights into user behavior. 

By creating a detailed journey map, you can identify potential bottlenecks and optimize your funnel to ensure a smooth and consistent experience from start to finish.

What to Do Next: How a Full Funnel Conversion Audit Can Help You Grow

If you’ve identified one or more signs of a weak B2B SaaS funnel in your organization, it’s time to take action. The most effective way to address these issues and optimize your funnel is by conducting a full-funnel conversion audit. 

This comprehensive evaluation goes beyond a simple website analysis; it delves into every aspect of your marketing operations to identify and fix leaks, streamline processes, and enhance performance.

A full-funnel conversion audit can provide a wealth of benefits, including:

Identifying and Fixing Leaks Throughout the Entire Funnel

A thorough audit uncovers the specific stages of your funnel where prospects are dropping off. By pinpointing these leaks, you can implement targeted solutions to keep leads engaged and moving toward conversion.

Improving Lead Gen and Conversions

By optimizing each stage of the funnel based on data-driven insights, you can enhance the efficiency of your lead gen efforts and increase conversion performance. This increased efficiency boosts your pipeline and ensures that you’re attracting suitable leads who are more likely to convert.

Increasing Qualified Leads

A well-optimized funnel attracts and nurtures leads more aligned with your ideal customer profile. Refining your targeting, messaging, and nurturing strategies can increase the quality of leads entering your funnel, resulting in higher conversions and more revenue.

Optimizing Marketing Spend

You can allocate your marketing budget more effectively with a clear understanding of what’s working and what isn’t. A full-funnel audit helps you eliminate wasteful spending and invest in the channels and strategies that deliver the best ROI.

Streamlining Workflows and Team Collaboration

By addressing silos and fostering collaboration between marketing and sales teams, an audit can help create a more efficient and cohesive workflow. Again, you’ll see efficiencies leading to better alignment, faster decision-making, and a more effective funnel.

Gaining Clear Data-Driven Insights for Future Strategies

The insights from a full-funnel audit provide a solid foundation for future marketing strategies. With a data-driven approach, you can continuously refine your funnel to adapt to changing market conditions and customer behaviors.

By regularly assessing and adjusting your funnel, you can maintain a high-performance lead conversion system that drives sustained growth.

Moving Ahead

As you know, a weak B2B SaaS funnel can significantly impact your ability to generate leads, convert them into customers, and ultimately grow your business. By identifying the signs of a weak funnel and taking proactive steps to address them, you can transform your marketing efforts and achieve better results.

Ready to take your funnel to the next level? Reach out to Funnel Envy today to get a High-Performance Lead Conversion Blueprint and an actionable plan to optimize your entire funnel in 21 days. Whether you need to fix leaks, optimize your funnel, or align your teams, this blueprint will provide the roadmap you need to drive more conversions and grow your business.

By |2024-08-21T17:30:35-07:00September 2nd, 2024|General B2B Funnel Advice|0 Comments
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Why You Need Both Conversion Rate Optimization and Marketing Ops for B2B Funnel Success

2.3%. 

That’s the top end of most SaaS websites’ “visitors to lead” conversion rate. The most obvious takeaway is that SaaS companies must drive (or attract) lots of qualified traffic to their website to scale.

The challenge is that more than simply generating website traffic is needed. Conversion rate optimization and marketing ops for B2B funnel success depend on an overall strategy that considers all marketing channels and sales teams’ priorities. 

Your funnel’s goal is to be a well-oiled system that builds trust and increases conversions at each stage of the prospect’s journey, leading them to the ultimate goal: customer success. 

Let’s look at the two critical ingredients for a successful marketing strategy.

The Recipe for Sales Funnel Success: Two Key Ingredients

Before we dive in, let’s take a quick look at the chart below. It helps you see where your conversions stand relative to your industry. Although the chart includes B2C, the differences in conversion rates don’t seem to depend on whether the customer audience is consumers (B2C) or businesses (B2B).

Regardless of your industry, the chart offers two takeaways: CRM and retail companies may offer valuable examples of top-of-funnel approaches to adapt for your audience, and don’t copy telecom or design! Lol.

Conversion Rate Optimization and Marketing Ops for B2B Funnel Success

Source: FirstPageSage.com

So, where should you start if the goal is to meet or beat the industry average? 

Optimizing your B2B conversion funnel requires a powerful combination of two key ingredients in your digital marketing strategy: Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) and Marketing Operations (Marketing Ops). Let’s break down what each entails:

Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) is about maximizing the percentage of visitors who take a desired action at each stage of your funnel. A well-optimized B2B funnel starts with attracting qualified leads at the top. 

Strategic blog posts and social media strategies are essential to the awareness stage and your top-of-funnel strategy. Search engine optimization (SEO) is crucial for driving organic traffic and fuels the conversion funnel.

Conversion optimization is different. It refers to optimizing the website experience to maximize the number of prospects that “convert.” Conversion goals may include signing up for a free trial, downloading a white paper, or requesting a demo. CRO specialists utilize A/B testing, landing page optimization, and call-to-action refinement to identify and implement changes that increase conversion rates across the board.

  • Marketing Ops: Marketing Ops focuses on streamlining the processes and tools that power your marketing initiatives. This includes managing customer data, automating workflows, and implementing marketing technology. Effective Marketing Ops ensures your marketing engine runs smoothly, providing clean data and efficient workflows supporting practical CRO efforts.

As you analyze your funnel and metrics, remember that you are looking at interdependent pieces of a bigger puzzle. Digital marketing breaks the marketing journey down into specific, measurable steps. Sometimes, it’s tempting to forget that each step is part of a bigger plan directly related to how people (your prospects) feel about your brand and company during their customer journey.

The ultimate guide to funnel performance is not only sales but customer success. Loyal, happy customers turn into repeat buyers and brand evangelists. Repeat customers are your most valuable asset because they drive profitability by contributing to the bottom line without increasing costs.

Why Both CRO and Marketing Ops Are Essential

Imagine a well-oiled machine – that’s how a B2B funnel should function for optimal performance. Now, imagine this machine with two crucial components:

The Engine (CRO): This powerful engine identifies opportunities to improve conversions at each funnel stage. It analyzes user behavior, pinpoints bottlenecks, and suggests data-driven optimization strategies. Funnel Envy has extensive resources about CRO optimization; you can check out several articles grouped conveniently here. 

The Fuel System (Marketing Ops): This efficient system ensures the engine runs smoothly. It provides clean, reliable data for CRO testing, automates workflows for faster implementation, and manages marketing technology to support optimized experiences.

Combining CRO and Marketing Ops allows you to create a system that drives qualified leads and fuels your business growth. Both CRO and Marketing Ops are crucial for tracking key metrics that indicate the health of your B2B funnel, such as conversion rates, lead generation, and customer acquisition cost (CAC). By monitoring these metrics and implementing data-driven optimizations, you can ensure your marketing efforts deliver a positive return on investment (ROI).

When CRO and Marketing Ops work together, they create a powerful synergy that drives exceptional results:

  • Data-Driven Optimization. Marketing Ops provides CRO with clean, accurate testing and analysis data. This ensures that CRO efforts are based on reliable insights, leading to more effective optimizations.
  • Seamless Implementation. Effective Marketing Ops automate tasks and streamline workflows, allowing you to implement CRO recommendations swiftly and efficiently. This prevents bottlenecks that could hinder the impact of CRO strategies.
  • Continuous Improvement: The synergy between CRO and Marketing Ops creates a feedback loop. CRO identifies areas for improvement, and Marketing Ops implements those changes while optimizing workflows for ongoing success.

The Pitfalls of a Single Focus

While both CRO and Marketing Ops are crucial, relying solely on one can lead to significant drawbacks. Here are some symptoms of an ailing marketing structure:

Conversion Rate Optimization and Marketing Ops for B2B Funnel Success

Do any of those symptoms look familiar? Let’s take a look at some possible culprits.

Conversion Rate Optimization Without Marketing Ops 

Imagine a powerful engine with a faulty fuel system. This analogy is what happens when you focus solely on CRO without a robust Marketing Ops foundation. Here’s why it can be problematic:

  • Implementation Bottleneck. Inefficient workflows and manual processes can slow the implementation of CRO recommendations, delaying results and limiting the impact of CRO efforts.
  • Data Issues. Messy or unreliable data can lead to inaccurate test results and skewed optimization decisions. Without reliable data, CRO efforts can be like throwing darts in the dark without reliable data.

Marketing Ops Without CRO 

Imagine a perfectly functioning fuel system feeding a broken engine. This is what happens when you prioritize marketing ops without focusing on CRO. While streamlined processes are essential, they don’t guarantee increased conversions. 

  • Misdirected Efforts. Streamlining workflows in areas that don’t directly impact conversions might not yield the desired results. You might be optimizing the wrong aspects of your funnel.
  • Prioritization Challenges. Identifying which optimizations will have the most significant impact on lead generation can be challenging. Does the user experience need tweaking? Or is the initial conversion offer not landing with the audience? A CRO strategy helps you identify the most critical lead conversion roadblocks.

While both CRO and Marketing Ops offer benefits on their own, their combined power unlocks the true potential of your B2B marketing funnel.

Moving Ahead With Continuous Improvement in CRO and Marketing Ops

The B2B marketing landscape continues to evolve, especially with advances in AI. Staying ahead of the curve requires a strategic approach to funnel optimization. By combining the power of CRO and Marketing Ops, you can create a well-oiled machine that drives quality leads and fuels your business growth.

Do you need help figuring out where to start? A fresh look at how you have your funnel and marketing ops currently set up can be helpful. At FunnelEnvy, our expertise is taking a comprehensive 360-degree view to pinpoint exactly what to tweak to have the most impact.  

By combining CRO and Marketing Ops expertise, FunnelEnvy ensures that your B2B marketing efforts are optimized for conversions and supported by efficient workflows and reliable data. This translates to a well-oiled marketing machine that consistently generates MQL and SQLs and drives revenue growth.

Our Full Funnel Conversion Audit is the first step towards achieving optimal funnel performance and maximizing your return on marketing investment (ROI).

Schedule your free consultation today. We welcome the opportunity to help you elevate your B2B marketing.

By |2024-07-10T15:37:02-07:00July 22nd, 2024|A/B Testing, General B2B Funnel Advice|0 Comments
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Capitalizing on Google’s Algorithm Adjustments for AI-Generated Content

In the early days of the internet, Google won the search engine wars against companies like AltaVista by developing more sophisticated algorithms rather than solely focusing on keyword matching. For example, Google’s PageRank algorithm incorporated authority, relevance, and keywords.

Since that time, Google has continued to provide search results based on user experience and search intent. At the same time, SEO strategists have continued to try to predict what the algorithm wants and create content that “hacks” the algorithm without violating Google’s guidelines.

In response to ChatGPT’s meteoric adoption rate, Google has significantly updated its algorithm and content guidelines in 2022 and 2023.

Google AI SEO

Source: The PHA Group

ChatGPT presents the first serious threat to Google’s dominance in many years. Google has been scrambling to adjust to the tidal wave of AI content that is just beginning to build. Google also recognizes that if users can get direct answers from a ChatGPT query, why would they still use Google? 

Like most technology earthquakes, the first big jolt has seen sharp aftershocks, such as copyright infringement lawsuits and questions about AI ethics. Predictions of Google’s demise are premature. The company is already responding to marketers about what generative AI means for content, SEO, and website traffic optimization. 

As AI transforms content creation strategies, CMOs want to leverage AI to meet Google’s standards. AI will continue to improve, but it’s still unable to do all the heavy lifting of a good marketing strategy. For content production, human supervision of AI content is vital. 

Google’s stance on quality content has stayed the same even with AI. Before AI, they punished keyword stuffing and other attempts to manipulate searches at the expense of quality information and user experience. In the AI era, they will do the same. 

Google continues to seek meaningful, informative, and engaging material that resonates with a target audience, whether the author is a human or a bot.

Let’s take a look. 

Google’s Algorithm Adjustments and Current Content Guidance

With some algorithm updates, Google releases additional content guidance. Google’s September 2023 Helpful Content Update modified its AI and third-party content guidelines. 

The update supports AI-generated content and emphasizes quality and user-centricity by removing “written by people.” Most experts interpreted this to mean Google would not penalize AI content simply because AI writes it. For Google, the main points are quality and user experience.

Google AI SEO

Source: Google

In Google’s view, helpful content should be high-quality. What do they mean by that? Let’s look at some additional content guidance.

E-E-A-T Content Framework

Google’s guidelines for evaluating quality content are known as the E-E-A-T framework. The acronym stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. While E-E-A-T is not an algorithm, it is an SEO fundamental because it influences how Google assesses and ranks content.

Content that conforms to the framework is more likely to rank higher. Here is a bit more detail about what each term means: 

Experience: This evaluates the content creator’s experience and firsthand knowledge of the topic, ensuring the content uses practical, real-world understanding.

Expertise: Focuses on the content creator’s qualifications and knowledge in a specific field, particularly important for specialized or technical topics.

Authoritativeness: Measures the credibility and recognition of the content creator and the website in their field, assessed through credentials, external citations, and industry recognition.

Trustworthiness: Relates to the reliability and accuracy of the content and the website, ensuring the information is truthful, transparent, and dependable. Consistent posting also increases the trustworthiness score. 

The E-E-A-T framework is essential for Your Money or Your Life (YMYL) topics, where accurate and reliable information is crucial. It guides content creators in producing high-quality content that Google’s search algorithms favor.

You can refer to Google’s guidelines on E-E-A-T for a detailed understanding.

Hidden Gems

In November 2023, Google announced its “Hidden Gems” algorithm and ranking, separate from the Helpful Content algorithm. Hidden Gems aims to promote content based on personal insights, experiences, or deep expertise from forum posts, social media, and blog posts. 

Content Dont’s, According to Google

Finally, sometimes it’s easiest to know what to do by looking at what not to do. Google has clear guidelines on what qualifies as unhelpful content, whether the creators use AI or not. The overall situation Google is trying to avoid is rewarding a tidal wave of unhelpful content because AI makes it easier to produce it. The following list includes types of content to avoid.

  • Search engine-first content focused on keywords
  • Content with little to low-added value
  • Content repeating what other sources have already said
  • Content that makes false promises
  • Publishing content only on trending topics
  • Repetitive content to meet a specific word count

How Google’s AI Changes Affect SEO 

When you consistently produce high-quality E-E-A-T content, that makes Google’s algorithm happy. Will your website traffic likely increase?

Unfortunately, there is no guarantee. As you know, in the past, Google would offer up links to ranked content in response to a query. The user then would click through to the content source to gather more information.

In response to losing users to ChatGPT’s conversational searching style, Google is developing its own generative AI results format. They are changing the user experience on the search page. It’s like a search workspace, where users can get complete answers to their questions (with citations) and ask follow-up questions.

Google AI SEO

Image source: TechCrunch and Google

This new functionality likely means more users will get the answers they need directly from the Google page, resulting in lower click-through rates to source material (like websites). 

Optimize Landing Pages – Job One for Maintaining Conversion Rates

With the risk of lower traffic due to Google’s on-page search changes, optimizing your website content and landing pages is more important than ever to increase visitors’ conversion. 

The good news is that AI can be your friend in improving your site’s on-page experience and conversions. AI can personalize the visitor’s experience in engaging ways and simplify scaling A/B testing for dozens of landing pages. If you need help figuring out where to start, FunnelEnvy can help. 

AI Integration SEO Strategies

Besides optimizing landing pages, consider developing a plan to create more search-friendly content. Given the changing dynamics of search, here are some tips for search-friendly content that improve the odds of traffic coming to your site:

  1. Optimize your content brief and outline for SEO before you use AI. Then, edit the AI-generated content with original thought and research, brand voice, anecdotes, and expert insights.
  2. Keywords are still your friend; just don’t overuse them. Use the keyword phrase in the title, the first 100 words, and one header. 
  3. User experience is very important to Google. Format your post for easy reading and indexing. Use headers and bold emphasis. The post should have a logical flow. One of the telltale signs of a poorly edited AI article is that it is hard to follow. 
  4. Use internal and external links. 
  5. Create comprehensive content so users won’t click away to find more info elsewhere. 
  6. Content should be concise and not repetitive. Avoid passive verb tense. 
  7. Always check AI content for accuracy. Editors and SMEs can fact-check and improve AI-generated content.

You can check out SemRush’s Content Marketing Guide for more in-depth suggestions.

Moving Ahead with AI-Generated Content for Google

You are not alone if you feel overwhelmed with all the changes from AI’s transformation of SEO and content marketing. The good news is Google’s fundamental stance on quality content has not changed, even with the advent of AI. Level up your content with E-E-A-T, and focus on optimizing your landing pages. If you have questions about a strategy for maintaining search and conversion results amid the changes, reach out for a call today; we can help.

By |2024-01-11T02:05:26-08:00January 22nd, 2024|General B2B Funnel Advice|0 Comments
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2024 B2B SaaS Buyer Preferences: Human-Centric Digital Experiences over Sales Calls

Unsurprisingly, artificial intelligence is the big news for B2B SaaS marketing and sales in 2024. Yet while generative AI is transforming B2B SaaS marketing, the other big news is not about tech disruption but about people – specifically about the sales experience buyers want now.

The sales process, in particular, is undergoing a transformative shift. We’ll go over some research about what modern SaaS buyers are looking for in the sales experience. 

First of all, though, you should revisit the difference between sales and marketing before you revamp your strategies. Many teams understand this, but it can also be confusing because the rise of “growth marketing” may blur the line between marketing and sales.

B2B SaaS Marketing vs.Sales

Gary Vee, mega influencer and Vayner Media’s CEO has talked about authenticity and consistency as the key to audience engagement for several years. Digital super-marketer Neil Patel’s recent email to his million-plus subscribers said brand authenticity and consistency are critical for 2024. 

Forbes echoes these thoughts, pointing out that B2B brands create interconnected experiences to differentiate themselves in 2024. Experiences such as virtual reality product demos, interactive webinars, and personalized online journeys can enrich a digital-first sales process. 

Additional B2B Digital Marketing Trends for 2024 Include: 

  • Using artificial intelligence (AI)
  • Video marketing, especially short-form videos
  • Automation to speed up time-consuming tasks
  • Authentic marketing
  • Personalizing the audience’s experience
  • Focusing on sustainability marketing

How should brands hit the ground running with these trends? The first step is to clarify marketing vs. sales. A lot of content online offers tips on marketing strategy alongside sales advice without clarifying the difference. This lack of clarity can lead to feeling overwhelmed or pushing on the right actions at the wrong time.

Marketing creates awareness to attract and educate potential customers. The goal is to generate interest in the product through content marketing (like social media and blogs), SEO, and digital advertising.

Some B2B SaaS businesses contract with marketing agencies to create marketing strategies. To develop these marketing plans, the marketing agency focuses on SaaS trends and the customer journey. 

The sales function truly begins when the marketing funnel increases demand generation. Sales converts prospects to paying clients by understanding the prospect and personalizing their journey. Yet, regarding engaging in sales conversations, recent research shows that most buyers no longer want to talk to salespeople. 

This post focuses on solutions to help sales update SaaS sales processes and where to optimize to increase customer acquisition in a world where buyers prefer seamless digital experiences over in-person calls.

A Shift Towards Digital Engagement over Traditional Sales Interactions

Safe money suggests that AI and automation will scale the processes that fuel sales and revenue growth in the future.

2024 B2B SaaS Buyer Preferences

Source: Garnter, The Future of Sales: Digital-First Sales Transformation Strategies

Gartner’s B2B buyer preference research found that 75% of B2B buyers prefer a rep-free sales experience. Share on X

Buyers today prefer to explore options, compare solutions, and make decisions without engaging with a salesperson. This shift reflects a broader trend in the digital transformation of business operations and the growing comfort of buyers with online transactions.

Digital marketing funnels are second nature to the SaaS industry. SaaS products naturally lend themselves to a digital sales approach. The opportunity for developing a competitive advantage lies in Gartner’s finding that buyers purchasing via self-service channels are far more likely to regret the purchase.

Focusing on customer retention via optimizing human-centric digital experiences is critical. Let’s look at some practical steps teams can consider. 

How to Reduce B2B Sales Friction in the Digital Journey

In simplifying the digital sales process, the goal is a user experience that is as frictionless as possible, enabling buyers to find information, evaluate solutions, and make purchasing decisions easily. Here are three ways to do that:

Streamlined Website Navigation and User Interface

Design your website with straightforward, intuitive navigation and a user-friendly interface. Frustrating websites are an automatic turn-off. 

Responsive Websites

Invest in technology that helps you serve personalized content to visitors based on their actions. This content improves the user’s experience, increases conversions, and builds trust. If you have questions about how this works, we can help.

Interactive Chatbots 

AI-powered chatbots on your website that can provide immediate, 24/7 assistance to visitors. The key is to ensure a high-quality interaction. We’ve all had the experience where the chatbot was more frustrating than helpful.

Navigating this shift towards a more digital-centric sales process takes time and effort. It requires not only an understanding of technology but also of the changing dynamics of B2B buyer behavior. 

Creating Human-Centric Digital Experiences

As digital interactions become the norm, the challenge for B2B SaaS companies is to create interactions that mimic authentic and engaging in-person experiences. Designing digital touchpoints that resonate with emotions is a great start. 

It’s easy to see that social media is the perfect vehicle for emotionally resonant content. It’s about connecting with the buyer, understanding their needs, and building relationships. 

However, social media is usually more influential during awareness and discovery. For the sales funnel, here are some ways you can optimize content:

Personalized Video Messaging

A personalized video message can convey warmth, sincerity, and a genuine interest in solving the client’s problems.

Interactive Webinars and Virtual Product Demos 

Webinars can be an excellent stand-in for prospects who want to avoid 1:1 sales calls. Host webinars or virtual product demos that are informative and interactive, giving sales representatives a chance to talk with prospects and answer questions.

Tailored content and recommendations

Use data analytics and AI to understand your prospects’ interests and behaviors. 

Technology plays a pivotal role in crafting these human-centric digital experiences. You can use advanced analytics, AI, and machine learning to understand buyer behavior and preferences, allowing for more personalized and relevant interactions. 

Create a personalized website experience where visitors see content based on their customer journey. Not sure how you can make all that happen? No problem, we’re here to help. 

The Role of Self-Service in SaaS Sales

SaaS products have a natural alignment with self-service sales. From free trials to subscriptions, SaaS prospects often look for a quick way to try and purchase products. 

With buyers now looking for more self-service options, the information-gathering segment of their journey is a logical place to optimize and stand out. 

Here are two suggestions:

Comprehensive Knowledge Bases and Resource Centers

Develop a thorough knowledge base or resource center easily accessible on the website. This resource should include detailed FAQs, how-to guides, tutorials, and case studies.

Interactive Product Tours 

Interactive product tours allow prospects to explore the features and functionalities of the SaaS product at their own pace. These could include virtual walkthroughs, interactive demos, or customizable feature explorers.

Moving Ahead in 2024 with B2B SaaS Buyer Preferences

The future of B2B SaaS sales will reveal rich digital interactions, personalized experiences, emotional touchpoints, and seamless self-service options. Companies can increase profits by creating more effective, efficient, and customer-centric sales processes focusing on these areas.

We know that implementing a digital-first landscape can be challenging. Funnel Envy specializes in helping B2B SaaS companies adapt to these changes. We know you have unique concerns and are here to help you. Reach out today to get the conversation started.

By |2023-12-28T00:56:42-08:00January 8th, 2024|General B2B Funnel Advice|0 Comments
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The Power of Short B2B Videos for Marketing: Leveraging the TikTok Effect

Even before the internet, corporate video was a powerful (and expensive) tool in the marketing mix. During the 2000s, video production costs plummeted, bandwidth increased, and B2B videos quickly became a staple for online marketing.

After its 2005 launch, YouTube was the dominant video platform until TikTok’s meteoric rise in US popularity from 2018 to the present. Initially popular with mostly young viewers watching videos for entertainment, TikTok’s bite-sized videos offer an increasingly viable option for B2B marketing.

For example, after almost changing careers due to a lack of business traction on LinkedIn, B2B Marketing expert Jade Tambini now leverages 30,000 followers on TikTok and a growing YouTube presence. Only after she grew and monetized her TikTok following did she re-invest time into LinkedIn.

From B2B SaaS to high ticket sales, video is the perfect format for providing richer content to keep fans engaged. Share on X

Today’s B2B buyer wants as much self-service info as possible on their customer journey with brands. From B2B SaaS to high ticket sales, video is the perfect format for providing richer content to keep fans engaged.

B2B Video Marketing

Source: Sprout Social

Regardless of the platform, the versatility and accessibility of short videos make them a powerful option in the B2B marketer’s toolkit, providing opportunities to connect with audiences that increasingly prefer video.

How can your business tap into B2B video? Check out our tips and best practices in this post.

Planning B2B Short Video Campaigns  

Before you press Record, the first step is establishing clear, measurable video marketing campaign objectives. These goals include increasing brand awareness, generating leads, or boosting engagement. By setting specific targets, you can focus your efforts and measure the success of your video content more effectively.

Compelling videos share a few common traits. Let’s explore this a little further. 

Choose one key point: Simplicity is vital in short-form video content. Focusing on one core message per video is essential to avoid overwhelming your audience. This singular focus ensures that your message is clear, concise, and memorable, making it more likely for viewers to take the desired action.

Importance of the Hook: The opening seconds of your video are crucial. Captivating your audience right from the start is necessary to keep them engaged. The hook should be intriguing, relatable, and relevant to your audience, enticing them to watch the entire video.

What is the One Thing? Narrow down your key point even further – What is the one takeaway you want your audience to remember? Mention it early in the video and right before your CTA at the end. 

Always use captions: Most people watch videos with the sound off. Be sure to use captions for accessibility and a better user experience. 

Know Your Audience

Understanding your audience is crucial in creating impactful video content. Before you start brainstorming videos, check in with your marketing basics.

Buyer Personas for B2B videos

Now is the time to lean on your Buyer Persona. Relying on your buyer persona information helps you develop a personalized approach that ensures higher engagement and a deeper connection with your messaging. Here are three ways to leverage Buyer Personas for impactful B2B video content:

Addressing Specific Pain Points and Interests: Craft your video content to address your personas’ specific challenges or interests. For example, if your persona is a marketing executive concerned about ROI, create content demonstrating how your product or service can enhance marketing efficiency and profitability.

Using Appropriate Tone and Style: Align the tone, style, and language of your videos with the preferences of your personas. A more formal tone may suit C-level executives, while a casual and energetic style might appeal to creative professionals. 

Choosing Relevant Topics: Select topics for your videos that are relevant to your buyer personas’ industry and professional interests. For instance, IT professionals may appreciate videos on the latest tech trends or cybersecurity tips. 

Tailor B2B video content to the B2B funnel stage

Each stage of the buyer’s journey requires a different approach. You can customize short videos to address these various stages, from raising awareness to nurturing leads and closing sales. Here are some examples:

Awareness Stage

Educational videos, explainer videos, and brand videos

Interest Stage

Webinars, how-to videos, and product demos

Consideration Stage

Testimonials and case studies, detailed product demos, and comparison videos

Decision Stage

FAQ Videos, customized product demos, and consultation offers.

Retention Stage

Training and tutorial Videos, customer success stories, updates, and new features videos. 

Advocacy Stage

User-generated content (UGC), community-building videos, and referral program explainers

Videos that meet the needs and objectives of the respective stage in the sales funnel establish trust and help keep potential customers moving through your funnel. 

What Platform is the Best for B2B Videos – TikTok or YouTube?

When it comes to choosing the right platform for your short video content, there are several considerations. Both platforms offer unique advantages and cater to different audience behaviors and expectations. 

Here’s some info to consider to determine which platform aligns best with your B2B marketing goals:

TikTok: Known for its virality and creative content, TikTok is ideal for reaching a younger demographic. The platform’s algorithm is excellent for discoverability, making it easier for new audiences to find your content.

YouTube Shorts: As an extension of YouTube, Shorts allows you to leverage the platform’s vast audience. It’s well-suited for longer-form content edited to shorter clips. YouTube’s detailed analytics can be invaluable for understanding audience engagement and refining your strategy.

Audience Demographics: Evaluate where your target audience spends their time. If your buyer personas skew younger or are more engaged with trendy, fast-paced content, TikTok might be the better choice, although, as we’ve seen with Jade’s example, TikTok can also work to reach the Millennial B2B audience. For a more diverse age range and a preference for informative, detailed content, consider YouTube Shorts.

Integration with Existing Marketing Channels: YouTube’s strength lies in its seamless integration with Google’s ecosystem, offering advantages in SEO and content discoverability. TikTok is growing fast and offers unique social sharing and engagement opportunities. If Facebook is critical to your brand, then Instagram reels can have a ripple effect on your Meta outreach strategy. 

Choosing between TikTok and YouTube for your short video B2B marketing efforts hinges on understanding your audience, content style, and marketing goals. By aligning your platform choice with these factors, you can create more effective and engaging video content that resonates with your target audience.

Maximizing LinkedIn for B2B Short Video Marketing

LinkedIn holds a unique position for B2B video marketing, and it’s not entirely positive. LinkedIn’s process for uploading videos is not seamless, and they gatekeep who can go live on the platform.

The good news is that a LinkedIn video can be valuable for targeted outreach if you put in some extra effort. LinkedIn videos get 3x more engagement than text posts. Members also reshare B2B short videos more than other types of content. 

Use LinkedIn’s networking capabilities to amplify your video content. Engage with comments, share your videos in relevant groups, and tag industry influencers or partners to expand your reach. 

Ideas for video content on LinkedIn include industry trends, thought leadership, case studies, webinars, and how-to guides. Be sure to keep them concise and informative. Well-done videos have a higher value than most written content, so sharing a video as part of a LinkedIn messaging outreach can also be an effective tactic.

Moving Ahead with B2B Short Video

Video for B2B marketing is a valuable tool, but it takes extra work. Creating the content is only half the story. Planning, testing, integrating analytics, and tracking the results of your video marketing efforts can be complex and time-consuming. These steps are critical in understanding your campaigns’ effectiveness and making data-driven decisions for future strategies.

FunnelEnvy has helped many clients across diverse sectors better understand the impact of their video content. If you’re interested in discovering how our services can align with your needs and to get more information on our pricing, we invite you to fill out a brief questionnaire. Click here to get started and see if we’re the right fit for your needs.

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By |2023-11-29T00:43:00-08:00December 11th, 2023|General B2B Funnel Advice|0 Comments
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Optimizing B2B Customer Journey with Paid Ads

B2B buyers don’t want to talk to salespeople anymore. Paid B2B ad spend is way down. 

These two converging trends create a window of opportunity to increase sales and market share via B2B paid ads. 

What does optimizing the customer journey with paid ads have to do with these trends?

Two converging trends create a window of opportunity to increase sales and market share via B2B paid ads. Share on X

The first trend is that B2B buyers now prefer a self-serve, DIY approach to buying. Gartner’s 2023 research shows that by 2025, a whopping 80% of B2B sales transactions will occur through online platforms. 

Not only that, 33% of all buyers prefer a sales experience without a seller, with 44% of millennials being the most allergic to interacting with salespeople. 

The second trend is that B2B spending on paid ads has dropped considerably since pre-pandemic levels, and the recovery is uneven. This drop may signal that companies are still grappling with recovery and resetting strategies. Their hesitation means a window of opportunity for proactive fast movers to grab market share.

B2B Customer Journey with Paid Ads

How can you capitalize on these trends? 

One idea is to drive paid traffic to a customer journey optimized for what customers want – frictionless digital interactions, especially on mobile devices. 

A place to start is by optimizing the B2B customer journey with paid ads to capitalize on buyers’ preference for using digital channels. At the same time, competitors in your industry may be waffling on paid ad strategy. 

This post will guide you through the key strategies for using paid ads to optimize your B2B customer journey.

When to Consider Paid Ads for B2B

In the B2B customer journey, timing is everything. Paid ads can be beneficial at various stages and critical touchpoints in the customer journey, but the key is understanding the customer’s journey and their stages—Awareness, Consideration, and Decision— so you can pinpoint when to deploy paid advertising for maximum impact.

Awareness Stage: Getting on the Radar

At the awareness stage, potential customers recognize that they have a problem that needs solving but may not know the available solutions yet. This stage is an excellent time to use paid ads to create brand visibility. 

Examples of content: Blog posts, videos, or infographics can attract prospects and introduce them to your brand.

Consideration Stage: Nurturing Leads

During the consideration stage, prospects actively seek solutions and evaluate options. They are reading reviews, comparing features, and asking their network for opinions. 

Examples of content: Paid ads at this stage can drive traffic to more detailed content like webinars, whitepapers, or case studies that position your product or service as the solution to their problem. 

Remember that you can use retargeting strategies to keep your brand top of mind with prospects at this stage. 

Decision Stage: Encouraging Conversions

At this point, prospects are ready to make a decision. They’ve done their research and are leaning towards a solution. The goal of paid ads here is to get the prospect to take that final step. 

Types of content matter. Paid ads should lead to landing pages with apparent calls to action, leading them to convert—whether purchasing, signing up for a service, or contacting your sales team. Consider running tests with promotions, discounts, or exclusive features to lure them to the close. 

Ongoing Relationship: Upselling and Cross-Selling

Even after a sale, the customer journey is still ongoing. Existing customers can be even more lucrative than new prospects. Target paid ads to upsell or cross-sell additional products or services or introduce new features that benefit the customer to increase the lifetime value and retain customers for the long term.

By understanding when to leverage paid ads at various customer journey stages, B2B companies can make smarter advertising decisions that yield better results. But the buyer stage is only one part of the puzzle. You need to consider segmenting the audience, too. 

Audience Segmentation and Targeting in Paid Ads

Audience segmentation and targeting are crucial for the success of any paid advertising campaign, especially in a B2B context where the decision-making process is often more complex. 

Below is a more in-depth exploration of how to implement these strategies for your paid ads.

Understand Your Audience’s Pain Points and Goals

Before you start any campaign, review your understanding of the audience’s needs, pain points, and objectives. A deep understanding informs your segmentation strategy and helps you tailor your ads to resonate with each group. In a B2B setting, consider variables like industry, company size, and job roles as basic segmentation criteria.

Types of Segmentation in Paid B2B Advertising

Generally speaking, the more specific your segment, the better your ad results. If you haven’t revisited your customer personas in a few months, it’s a good idea to review and optimize them for the persona in the context of the ad campaign. Other things you can consider are: 

  • Firmographic: Business entity characteristics, for example, industry, company size, and revenue
  • Technographic: Technology stacks used by the company
  • Demographic: For example, age, gender, education
  • Geographic: Location-based targeting
  • Psychographic: Interests, opinions, and lifestyle
  • Behavioral: Previous interactions with your website or app or purchasing behavior

Remember that as you test your ads, the successful ads can also be a feedback loop, giving you more accurate information about your personas. 

Tailoring Creative and Messaging

Once you’ve segmented your audience, tailor your ad creative to each group’s unique needs and challenges. For example, a healthcare SaaS company could target hospital administrators with ads focusing on operational efficiency while targeting physicians with messages about patient care and workflow.

A/B Testing B2B Ads for Continuous Refinement

A/B testing allows you to test different versions of your ads to see which performs best for each segment. You can try anything from headlines and calls to action to images and overall layout.

Remarketing and Retargeting Ads in B2B

These strategies involve showing ads to people who have previously interacted with your brand. In B2B, retargeting can be incredibly practical to stay top-of-mind during a long sales cycle.

Implementing Multi-Channel Marketing

Implementing a multi-channel marketing strategy involves deploying your advertising and content across multiple platforms to engage your audience wherever they are. The key to success lies in maintaining a consistent brand message while tailoring the delivery format to suit each channel’s unique characteristics. 

Whether using search engines, social media, or email, the goal is coordinating efforts to provide a seamless customer journey. Leveraging data analytics is crucial; it allows you to monitor performance across channels and refine your approach for better ROI. 

By embracing a multi-channel strategy, B2B businesses can increase touchpoints, enhance customer engagement, and drive more conversions.

Conversion-Driven Landing Pages

Conversion-driven landing pages are the crucial link between your paid ads and the desired action you want the visitor to take, whether signing up for a webinar, purchasing, or contacting sales. These landing pages should offer a seamless experience that aligns with the messaging and visuals of the ads that led the user there. 

Elements like compelling headlines, concise copy, and clear calls to action are essential. Utilizing A/B testing can help you refine these elements for optimal performance. You can also consider dynamic landing pages, where the system uses different landing pages based on a visitor’s journey.

In the B2B context, where sales cycles can be lengthy and complex, a well-crafted landing page can be a powerful lever for business growth, effectively turning prospects into customers.

Moving Ahead 

Even with more automation and AI-driven data integration tools, B2B marketing complexity is increasing. Coordinating paid ads, audience segmentation, and conversion-driven landing pages can seem overwhelming.

While it may seem daunting, you don’t have to go it alone. FunnelEnvy can help you set up a system to track and test results at every stage of the customer journey. We work with clients in many industries, from consumer healthcare to industrial equipment. We provide customized assistance to our clients with all elements of their landing page design, from technical aspects like page speed and caching to form fields and CTA design.

Are you interested in finding out more? Just click here to complete a short quiz that we’ve created to help us learn more about your needs and how we may be able to help.

By |2023-11-01T01:47:19-07:00November 13th, 2023|General B2B Funnel Advice|0 Comments
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Top 3 Demand Gen Strategies of 2023 and Beyond

In the fast-moving landscape of B2B marketing, demand generation isn’t just a buzzword; it’s the backbone of success. You may have the best product or service in the marketplace, but growth will be challenging if your target audience doesn’t know about you. 

This gap is where the power of demand generation comes into play; the art and science of creating awareness, interest, and desire among your potential customers. This blog post will review three tried and true strategies to improve your demand generation.

As a backdrop, let’s review the difference between lead and demand generation. They sound similar, but they are very different.

Remember, demand generation is for the top of your funnel, where people notice and interact with your content. Share on X

Remember, demand generation is for the top of your funnel, where people notice and interact with your content.  This chart from Gartner will help you clarify and create content for your demand gen phase.

Top 3 Demand Gen Strategies of 2023

The information in the chart speaks to implementation. Let’s look at the strategies to boost your demand gen efforts. 

Clarify Your Unique Selling Point (USP)

Before diving headfirst into demand generation, it’s crucial to answer one fundamental question: What sets your business apart? Your Unique Selling Point (USP) is your competitive edge, differentiating you from the competition. It should be something that you could sum up in a short statement. 

Your USP isn’t always the same as a company slogan or tagline, although it could be. For example: 

“Fast, efficient deliveries” is not unique to one company.  That is a tagline. 

“Overnight or it’s free” – that’s a USP.  

To pinpoint your USP, look for a corner of the market where you can establish dominance. Take a fresh look at your industry to uncover gaps, unmet audience needs, or underserved niches. 

Study what your competitors offer, not to copy them but to identify the untapped potential your business can uniquely fulfill. The book Blue Ocean Strategy is one resource to help you think outside the box and craft a strong USP. 

The authors include many examples of how some companies have created new markets with few or no competitors. One technique is to reconstruct an existing market’s boundaries. 

With an emphasis on carving out unique market space, Blue Ocean Strategy is a toolkit for taking advantage of untapped market space in almost any industry, including tech, healthcare, and manufacturing.

Create a Targeted Social Media Plan

Social media can be a potent tool for B2B demand generation. However, social media creation and distribution are resource-intensive and time-consuming. It’s essential to have a content strategy in place before you begin ramping up your socials.

Tailor your tactics to match your goals. An organic growth strategy is the long game of consistently posting free content and sharing or commenting on others’ posts. Paid strategies are usually part of a strategic funnel, with content focused around a specific outcome, like driving traffic to a landing page or freebie.

Once you have your content strategy in place, here are some tips.

Tip 1 – Repurpose Your Blog. 

To increase efficiency, use your blog as the foundation of your content. Doing this makes it easy to repurpose snippets from blog posts for social. 

Tip 2: Create a Social Metrics Dashboard

Be sure you have a dashboard for capturing metrics on your posts to help you avoid the trap of posting just to put some content out there, aka “spray and pray.”

Tip 3: Be Choosy About Platforms.

Remember, you don’t have to be on every social platform.

To decide where to post, check out where your prospects are spending time on social. For most B2B companies, LinkedIn is the obvious choice. X (as in ex-Twitter) is also a popular B2B and B2C channel.  X has an informal chat format with more flexibility than Linkedin for interacting with people.

Tip 4: Consider TikTok

Finally, don’t discount TikTok as a source of leads. Successful B2B marketer Jade Tambini says most of her leads come from TikTok.

Top 3 Demand Gen Strategies of 2023

Source: DataAI via HootSuite

TikTok is the current growth metrics winner for both B2B and B2C. In 2022, people averaged more time spent per month on TikTok than every other platform except YouTube.

Tip 5: Link to Your Website Early and Often.

While not every social post has to include a link back to your site, the overall goal of social media should be to drive traffic to your website. That’s because when prospects visit the website, you can track their progress through the conversion funnel. 

Incorporate Data into Decision-Making

The best part of marketing today is the data it provides versus the pre-internet era. Data is the compass that helps cut through insider bias and assumptions that may or may not be on track. 

An important step to remember is to ensure you have a good sample size before drawing significant conclusions. Small sample sizes can lead to skewed insights and misguided decisions. 

Also, remember that not all metrics are critical. Ensure your dashboard tracks the correct numbers, not just vanity metrics. If you need clarification about what to track and why, Funnel Envy can help. 

Moving Ahead

Demand generation is like the broader net for your lead generation that can also be an accelerator for your lead gen efforts. Improving demand gen can create a ripple effect that enhances results through the rest of your funnel and organization. The flip side is also true. A weak demand generation strategy wastes resources and undermines sales from the top to the bottom of the funnel.

Interested in learning more about leveraging demand gen and getting expert help optimizing your results? Our team at FunnelEnvy is ready to help. We’ve got many years of combined experience with funnel optimization, CRO, and other vital elements of demand gen across several industries, from tech to healthcare to manufacturing.

To learn more about working with us and see if we’re a good fit, fill out this short quiz.

By |2023-08-24T03:21:34-07:00September 4th, 2023|General B2B Funnel Advice|0 Comments
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Tips for connecting product development and marketing

The broader tech and startup world has seen a significant hiring contraction over the last few years. Some of the biggest names in the space (Meta, Google, and Microsoft, for example) eliminated thousands of jobs and cut back on adding new employees. Recent data published by CNBC shows that tech layoffs in 2023 are up 38,487% compared to last year. 2023 is on track to be the worst year for tech layoffs since the Dotcom bubble burst in 2001.

Layoffs and contractions can be challenging, but they can also free companies to create efficiencies and innovations for role responsibilities across the organization.

Layoffs and contractions can be challenging, but they can also free companies to create efficiencies and innovations. Share on X

One result of this situation is the creation of hybrid-type positions that combine roles from several different traditional positions. These positions have been around for many years in some industries, but new ones are being created across various fields all the time. 

Business layoffs and contraction certainly aren’t the only reasons for hybrid positions. And not just a single team member who fills multiple roles on your team out of necessity. This particular article focuses on a unique connection: marketing and product development. While these two departments should always be closely connected, in reality, there’s often a lot more distance than there should be.

Whether you’re looking to bring on a hybrid team member, broaden the responsibilities of existing departments, or simply ensure these two parts of your business are more connected, this article will help.

What Are Marketing and Product Development?

Both functions focus on a larger concept: your company’s product or service. 

Product marketing refers to getting your brand and its offerings in front of the right people to encourage them to enter your sales funnel. Product development refers to all the people and processes involved in designing, launching, and updating the offering.

They’re both vital to the overall health of your business. You’ll hear arguments from proponents of both sides about how marketing or product development is more important. But you must be effective at both for optimal success in today’s business environment. You can develop an industry-leading, cutting-edge solution – but if you’re not getting it in front of the right people, its success will be limited. On the other hand, if you have a poor-quality product but great marketing, you’ll find customer complaints and frustrations everywhere. As the legendary ad man David Ogilvy once said, “Great marketing only makes a bad product fail faster.”

Connecting Marketing and Product Development in the Business

Now that you understand the two ideas better let’s review some practical strategies for making them work better together.

Clearly Define Roles From the Beginning

When was the last time you sat down and listed the specific duties and roles of team members working in each function? If you’re like most startups, it’s probably been quite a long time. If you want your team to work more effectively together, it’s essential that each team member knows what they should and shouldn’t be doing. One of the most significant sources of friction in the modern workplace is when people feel like they are doing a job someone else should be doing.

Only you can know for sure which particular job roles fall into these two categories, but here are a few common ones to start with:

  • Marketing Manager
  • Marketing Analyst
  • SEO Strategist
  • Content Marketer
  • Social Media Manager
  • Graphic Designer
  • Product Manager
  • Backend Developer
  • Product designer
  • Go-to Market Manager
  • Product Development Coordinator

Remember, this applies not just to internal roles but also to members of the team who may be contract or freelance.

Make a Preferred Meeting Cadence 

For two teams to work well together, they have to communicate regularly. Luckily, thanks to today’s technology, there are more options than ever before for how that meeting takes place. With the prevalence of agile principles, many companies are implementing “stand-up” meetings – quick check-ins that may only last 15 minutes to provide quick progress updates and highlight any specific sticking points.

We can’t tell you exactly how to have meetings within your business, but we can tell you how to decide: evaluate the people involved. Because your marketing team may have different preferences and requirements than people on the product side, doing this may stir up some challenges. The key is coming to a happy medium that can satisfy (at least partially) both sides’ requirements. Some companies have even been able to go entirely away from meetings, relying on async chat and messenger tools to communicate. Whatever style you choose, be confident it helps the maximum number of people on your team work efficiently. 

Define Shared Goals and Data

Even though the product and marketing teams are ultimately working towards similar ends, they may feel distant from people in other departments. This distance often happens because the tools, information, and objectives vary across business functions.

To overcome this obstacle and attain a more cohesive working style, ensure you have at least a few goals shared by those in different functions at the company. These goals should be related to the product and its marketing, but they should also be controllable by both sides. The marketing team can’t do much to influence code sprints, just like the development team may not be able to help your latest social media ad campaign meet your desired numbers. 

To set practical cross-disciplinary goals, recall the idea of lagging and leading indicators. You cannot directly change the lagging indicators any more than you can your weight on a scale or quarterly revenue. There’s no way to force more people to buy your product or service. But if you focus on the factors you can control for leading indicators – the time you spend tweaking your offering – you’ll find that the lagging indicators eventually get where you want them to be.

Final Thoughts on Merging Product Development and Marketing

If you’ve never even thought about connecting these two essential functions of your business, the ideas in this article may seem a little overwhelming. And while it’s certainly possible to survive and even grow as a company, if your departments aren’t working cohesively, you’ll eventually find a ceiling on the level of efficiency and size you can achieve.

For best results, you should consciously connect team members across departments or even consider hiring hybrid-type employees, as we described in the intro. Downsizing and layoffs aren’t the main drivers for this kind of cross-disciplinary interaction – instead, it’s intended to achieve maximum internal efficiency and reach as many clients as possible.

Looking for some help attaining this kind of connection at your own firm? Our team at FunnelEnvy can help. We have many years of experience working with companies of all sizes who want their marketing and product development teams to work better together for the good of the overall business. To get started, click here to fill out a short quiz so we can learn more about your specific problems and determine the best way to assist.

By |2023-06-29T11:18:34-07:00July 10th, 2023|General B2B Funnel Advice|0 Comments
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Why Audience Data is Vital to Your B2B Funnel

There’s a famous quote often attributed to John Wanamaker, an early American department store entrepreneur: “Half my advertising budget is wasted – the trouble is, I don’t know which half.” The phrase has become somewhat trite these days, showing up often in PowerPoint presentations given by marketers across the world.

But the saying itself speaks to a problem at the heart of many marketing departments: it’s just tough to know which of your marketing campaigns are successful and which are a waste of time and resources. 160 years after Wanamaker opened his own retail store, in our advanced digital age with AI and automation galore, his words seem to ring more true than ever before.

One of the easiest ways to minimize waste in advertising – or any other part of your marketing budget – is gaining a better understanding of your audience. Knowledge about the people you’re selling to and how you can help them solve their problems has been the holy grail of all kinds of marketing and advertising since the inception of human commerce. 

Today, audience knowledge is arguably more important because of the huge volume of noise prospects face every day in the marketplace. Below, we’re diving into more specifics about why knowing your target audience may be the key to unlocking more success – and ROI – from your marketing.

Reduces Content Costs

As we mentioned in the intro, greater audience knowledge means less money spent on the wrong thing. For marketers today, a significant chunk of their resources go towards creating content. From blog posts to social media updates to email newsletters, companies in all sectors spend lots of time and money on creating content.

But what’s actually in all that content? Is it really helpful, or is it only being produced because there’s a need? Robert Rose, a strategy executive with the Content Marketing Institute, frequently talks about the problematic concept of the content team operating as a “vending machine” – you need a piece of content for a funnel, so you push a button and the staff member, team or contractor produces it. The problem with this approach is it creates a siloed attack where different arms of your marketing campaigns function with different goals.

In an ideal situation, audience data serves as a connecting factor that ties the creators of content in your business to all other areas: including the broader goals of the company. When this happens, there is in turn less money and time wasted creating content that doesn’t resonate with your target audience. 

Improves Brand Reputation

The impact of strong audience knowledge on brand reputation might be most apparent in B2B sales. When your audience operates in a highly technical field that requires specialized knowledge, it’s easier for them to tell if you really know what you’re talking about. This can serve as something of a double-edged sword, however – it also means that if you have authentic knowledge of your audience and their goals, you’ll stand out in your marketplace.

When your audience operates in a highly technical field that requires specialized knowledge, it’s easier for them to tell if you really know what you’re talking about. Share on X

The key here is to stay current by studying and immersing yourself in communities of people like your target customer. Whether it’s a sub-forum on Reddit, a Discord channel, or a social media group, it’s important to take time to understand the newest concerns and discussions among your audience. Ideally, these are communities you already are or were present in at one time. This is a big reason why many of the most successful healthcare services and product companies are created by former doctors, nurses or healthcare office employees. They have first-hand knowledge and experience in a highly specialized field where it’s easy for prospects to pick out impostors.

Guides Direction of Your Business

Great companies respond quickly and effectively to the most important requests of their prospective customers. The idea has been ingrained into the modern business community, particularly since the rise of the Lean Startup model popularized by Eric Ries and others in the startup community. 

But the best companies are able to predict what their customers want in the future. Reaching this level has the potential to put a business in rarefied air reserved for the biggest brands in history: Nike, Microsoft, IBM, etc. Steve Jobs once famously paraphrased Henry Ford, believing that he’d once said: “If I asked my customers what they wanted, they would’ve told me a faster horse.”

Over the years, this quote has been twisted into an argument against customer research. If people wouldn’t have asked for a car or an iPhone, why bother paying attention to their input on your product or service? This interpretation neglects the first part of the quote, where Jobs says “our job is to figure out what they’re going to want before they do.”

You don’t reach that depth of audience understanding by ignoring relevant data. Just the opposite: the only way you can really predict what your customer wants before they do, like Jobs and Ford, is by so deeply understanding your audience that you begin to think the same way. This level of familiarity can only be attained with an extremely strong grasp of prospect data, and typically takes a long time to achieve.

Final Thoughts on Audience Data for Your Funnel  

The specific methods you use to collect data and learn about your audience will vary depending on the kind of product or service you offer. We’ve covered individual tactics like landing page and form optimization on many other posts here on this blog.

We believe, however, what’s more important than any one tactic or data collection method is adopting a broader philosophy about audience data within your company. The truth is, audience data is important to your B2B funnel and almost every other part of your marketing, from the initial creation of customer avatars right on through to the way you hire and build your team.

As your organization changes and grows, you’ll find that the particular campaigns you deploy may change. Sometimes you’ll focus on high-level content intended to make your prospects think deeply; other times you’ll just be creating a simple demonstration video that shows off one of the key features of your product or service. No matter what particular actions you are taking, they’ll always be more successful with a foundation in audience data. If you can pay close enough attention to what your ideal client wants, what’s stopping them from achieving it, and what they need to be convinced that you can help them in this pursuit, all of your marketing endeavors will flow much more easily.

And if you need a little veteran help to give you a better perspective on how to wrap your head around customer data, FunnelEnvy is here to assist. We have a wide breadth of experience helping businesses of all sizes in all different industries get a better handle on their audience. Whether you’re a brand new startup or a seasoned marketer looking to enter the next phase of growth, we can help fill in some of the natural gaps that may occur as your marketing gets more and more developed. The more things you have going on, the more difficult it is to keep your audience central to your mission.

To start the process, just click here to fill out a quick quiz that will help us learn more about ways we may be able to assist.

By |2023-04-25T09:04:40-07:00May 1st, 2023|General B2B Funnel Advice|0 Comments
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Optimizing Your Funnel With Video Content

If you aren’t already taking advantage of the power of video content, you’re missing out on one of the most important channels for any type of marketing – especially B2B. Research shows that video makes for some of the most engaging content. Over 9 in 10 marketers already use video in their funnels to help capture the right audience and serve them relevant, helpful content that allows them to accomplish their business goals. Moreover, nearly the same number of consumers report that watching a brand video has convinced them to buy a product.

At this point, it’s far from groundbreaking to say that video should be a key element of any organization’s marketing funnel. Clients often experience difficulty with the specifics of video content and understanding the optimization process. How exactly should you use video in your funnel? What kinds of videos should you make? And how will you know if your videos are effective?

Clients often experience difficulty with the specifics of video content and understanding the optimization process. Share on X

Though it’s tough to definitively answer these questions for any company without specific knowledge of their campaigns, we can offer some advice based on the trends we’ve seen working with clients to help them wisely incorporate video into their existing strategies. Let’s jump in.

Select the Right Kind of Videos

There are dozens of different kinds of video types and endless variations or tweaks you can put on those types to make them even more unique. Just spend a few minutes on YouTube, and you’ll see exactly how diverse video content can be! 

In a business marketing context, we can generally group videos into one of three buckets:

  • Quick snippets are meant to explain one specific concept or express a single idea. Software companies often create these using a screenshare that shows off a particular feature.
  • Medium-length videos are longer and go more in-depth on a broader area. These videos are anywhere from five to 20 minutes in length. For example, one type of feature video could be a medical research company showing off different parts of its facility.
  • Feature videos are anything longer than about 20 minutes. These are often pre-recorded speeches or conference sessions shared with the audience.

Again, these categories aren’t perfect, and you can probably come up with endless video types. Don’t get caught up in the specific traits of one type or another – instead, use them as a springboard to think about which type of video may be best for your business. As you go through the process of creating, promoting, and analyzing your video content, be sure to sort them by type so you can get more data on the effectiveness of each kind.

Let Your Prospects See Themselves

Think about some of the best movies, books, or television shows you’ve consumed over the last few years. For many people, the stories in these mediums are much more effective when they feel a connection to the characters in them. That could mean their job, geographic location, family status, etc.

The best marketers have figured out that this concept doesn’t just apply at the box office or the bookstore – it also works in a B2B marketing funnel. Whether you’re planning to create half-hour explainer videos with multiple scenes and people speaking, or you simply want to run a 45-second screenshare showing a single feature, do what you can to ensure your prospects connect with something. You could use language they recognize, name a process they frequently use in their business, or something completely different.

A case study or testimonial-style video is the best video to achieve this connection. Just be aware that many viewers are naturally skeptical of testimonial videos, so you should strive to include an authentic, balanced evaluation of your company and its offering. 

Connect Performance, Budget, and Analytics

Even after you’ve decided on a particular type of video to use, planned its production, and included it in the right channels, your job is still unfinished. The time after you’ve placed your videos into your funnel and published them on social media, your newsletter, etc., is one of the most critical periods for determining the overall success of your video efforts.

That’s because this is when you can get honest feedback from prospects about how effective your videos are at helping you achieve business goals. This feedback comes in the form of data – views, conversions, form abandonments, meetings booked, and so on. Ideally, you can compare this data with a preexisting, deep data set. 

Once you’ve analyzed the numbers and determined which kinds of videos are performing best for you, double down on them by redirecting more of your budget toward making them. Unless you have a specific reason, there’s no point continuing to spend money on content that doesn’t maximize the return.

An easy way to think of video is a virtuous cycle with three parts: budget, analytics, and performance. The cycle starts when you invest marketing dollars into creating a video (budget), continues when you dive into the numbers and metrics behind the video (analytics), and finishes with an ultimate evaluation of the video’s effectiveness in helping you achieve business goals (performance).

From there, the cycle starts over with the budgetary phase. As each part of the cycle becomes more and more optimized, it carries over to the other parts of the video cycle, helping them improve. 

Final Thoughts on How to Optimize a Funnel With Video

In 2023, it’s essential to get beyond just “doing video” and into optimizing your video for maximum funnel success. Barriers for video have dropped so much that you should already be incorporating them into your funnels.

To reach the next level of success with video, you need to know which types of videos your prospects respond to, how to include a hook that connects them to the content of the video, and what steps are necessary to iterate on videos to attain continued success. After all – you probably already spend time analyzing other elements of your conversion rate, so why not devote some of the same attention to the specific performance of your video?

While it’s possible to handle all of these steps within your organization, many companies find it easier to get them taken care of with the help of an outside specialist. A well-qualified B2B marketing expert will be able to give you a broader, more strategic perspective on the way you incorporate video into your funnel. They’ll assist you in identifying which kinds of videos to produce and how to track their metrics so that you end up getting the most out of the investment you make into a video for your funnel.

FunnelEnvy has helped many clients in various industries attain greater efficiency with video production and a better grasp of whether or not their content is moving the needle. To learn more about our pricing and determine if we are a good match for your needs, click here to complete a short questionnaire.

By |2023-02-27T12:23:28-08:00March 6th, 2023|General B2B Funnel Advice|0 Comments
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