When it comes to closing deals and guiding buyers, the Sales Funnel has been a critical part of the journey. In fact, the Sales Funnel has existed for almost a hundred years, in the form of the ‘AIDA’ model, Awareness, Interest, Desire, Action. But like most things that stand the test of time, changes have been made and the traditional Sales Funnel is not what it used to be. We are living in a new era of business and the days of pitching in person to a room full of buyers is becoming few and far between. But aside from this, people expect more from pitches and are far more interested in self-discovery, rather than sitting through a presentation. It is for this reason and more why in the digital B2B market the Sales Funnel does not work as linear experience anymore. We’ll be taking a dive into the traditional sales funnel and how it works before we discuss further.
As we discussed in the Marketing Funnel, it is crucial to address prospects' pain points such as highlighting an inefficient and expensive process or operation in a digital channel. Once the potential buyer recognizes their pain point, then they can decide whether they leave this funnel or stay in and continue into the sales funnel.
Awareness
In this stage, prospects become aware of your products/service through different channels. Connected to the marketing stage, they might be aware of their problem at this stage. Prospects are looking for the solution for their specific problem, and they’ll want to get more data, resources, and information about the product. Many B2B prospects are not ready to become customers in this funnel. So, it is important to show a high level of information. Especially for Saas companies, approach the prospects with their pain point and give some information on how you can solve this problem for them.
Interest
In this stage, prospects recognize their problem and actively look for more information about your service or product. Especially Saas products, product tours and interactive presentations on the landing page can lead to a Call to Action. Once prospects sign up for an email, a phone call or even a self-serve product demo, the sales team needs to focus on lead nurturing. Lead nurturing is one of the processes that a sales team can develop and reinforce the customer relationship, meaning convert prospects into customers. This stage is crucial to lead prospects to the next stage of the funnel. A pre-sales interactive product demo might be a good sales enablement strategy and provides a better user experience via an interactive self-serve demo.
Desire
After the prospect looks at other competitors, they will decide to purchase or contract you based on their own experience and information. Before this stage sales teams need to consistently check if they need anything else from a self-serve demo or if they want more information about the product to lead prospects into this stage. In this SaaS, sales teams suggest optimal prices and special offers with personalized interactive sales collateral. Also, they need to communicate with customers about their pain points and further demonstrate how product/service can help them. Essentially, it is to validate their notions in order to make a final decision with your team.
Action
Here is where customers will make the final decision on whether to move forward or not. However, it is not the very end of the sales funnel. After post-purchase, the sales team needs to maintain customer satisfaction. This is why it is important to maintain customer relationships for the next sales cycle.
The SaaS Sales funnel and Interactive product demos
The Digital B2B Sales Funnel does not work as a traditional hierarchy model and in most cases it is slightly more complicated. However, B2B sales funnels can be used for determining the buyer's journey. Sales teams try to figure out complex B2B buyers' journeys and there they can reach prospects in each stage with efficient sales collateral. For each stage, the sales team might use interactive product demos for different stages of interaction. It doesn’t have to be only for a sales meeting.
Showing a product demo in the Saas sales doesn't mean showing your product to the prospect, it is showing if your products can meet prospects needs. In each stage, a product tour or demo can evoke interest, desire, even brand awareness.
Also, sales teams have to understand exactly what prospects are looking for. With this understanding, the sales team can develop better future communication for converting the prospects into loyal customers. It is for this reason why sales teams need interactive and personalized demos as a sales enablement tool.
The B2B sales funnel is more likely to find the right way to approach using a persuasive message for each stage and prospects. Also, sales and marketing teams should collaborate and brainstorm how to bring more engagement to the prospect with the right materials such as interactive demos on websites, product tours. Then, the sales team can reach out to the prospects with a more personalized sales enablement tool.
It's about giving every potential customer the personal treatment they crave. It's about making sure you follow up at the right times. This way you can spend more of your time doing the most rewarding thing of all closing sales and helping people.
