In B2B environment, there is a buying process where companies with marketing teams and sales teams leading their customers through a funnel. The funnel is often called the sales funnel.

But what are the exact phases where your sales team and marketing teams work the potential customers into the sales funnel? Let’s map out the entire sales process.

  • Phase 1: Awareness
  • Phase 2: Interest
  • Phase 3: Evaluation
  • Phase 4: Decision, Purchases and Review

It is important to combine the process with marketing automation for email campaigns. First we will start with awareness and interest.

Phase 1: Awareness

When putting this phase into marketing, it is the marketers who would put up online banner ads. Certainly some of the display ads may be appearing where exactly you need i.e. Many small niche sites that are within the industry of your business.

This is still the very early stage in the buying process of your potential customers. Even with the ads the marketers have placed, it may take at least a few weeks, or usually even months to drive enough attention or awareness from people visiting the niche sites.

Phase 2: Interest

This is the phase when people have a subtle memory of your brand, and start looking for your business through a brand name.

This is when your search engine optimization should be ready. Your business brand names should have been optimized to show up on the number one spot of Google’s search results.

Why is ranking your business brand name high up on Google important? The first reason is that in the awareness phase your marketing effort was on placing display ads on niche websites. Most people visiting these niche sites and saw your ads at that time wouldn’t be ready to go further down your sales funnel. But the next immediate step for them would be to search your brand names on Google. That’s why you must make sure your online or inbound marketing plan include SEO.

If you aren’t yet able to rank your brand names on top of Google search results, there is an alternative way. You could sign up to use Google Ads and buy keyword ads. Set up a campaign and some ads for your brand name keywords should be simple. This way, you will have your brand name showing up on Google, whether it is organic search results or a text ad on Google.

Some time later when your brand ranks high up in Google’s search results, then you won’t only rely on the Google ads paid search.

Phase 3: Evaluation

Whether potential customers came to your site through paid ads, organic search, or direct visits, most of them won’t end up buying your B2B product. They would leave your site. But what can you do about this?

With a B2B product of this nature, you could offer something or freebie. The objective is to capture your users’ email addresses, and then you can follow that with automated email marketing.

Finally

The rest is needless to say. Your marketing effort will continue to follow through the phases in decision, purchases, review, and then re-purchases.