When you think of a traditional marketing funnel, you probably think of awareness, consideration and decision. A funnel that is much wider at the top and much narrower at the bottom, with the final step being your customers. In a B2B SaaS business you must think of your funnel differently.
In this article we talk about how you take your traditional marketing funnel and transition it into a machine that lets you gather insight and better understand your buyer journey.
Traditional funnels vs B2B SaaS funnels
In a traditional funnel you are trying to get people to be aware of your solution, consider buying it and then do so. It is a funnel that gets narrower the further you go.
In a B2B SaaS funnel you have a new dynamic. You have all the data you can get from people using the product: where they are in the funnel, what they are clicking on, which emails they are opening, what parts of the product they are interacting with, and feedback through the product interface. All this data is a sort of reverse funnel that flows back to you.
With most modern SaaS businesses there is a huge opportunity to use that data to constantly optimise not just the funnel itself, but the product and how customers are extracting value from what you do. You can then use that data to keep improving your revenue engine and your product.
SaaS funnel stages
Just like a traditional marketing funnel, a SaaS funnel includes awareness, consideration and decision. However, there is one more stage to focus on for SaaS: adoption. That post-sales stage lets you track onboarding and how customers use your product to make the most of it. In practice we break the funnel into: attract, impress, educate, engage, convert, onboard, turn into evangelist, and upsell.
Attract: driving traffic through demand-capture channels, on top of any demand generation. Impress: when someone lands on your site the message must resonate with their pain points, which tests how well you know your ICP, personas and positioning. Educate: use marketing automation and workflows to give personalised experiences and explain your unique value.
Engage: personalised demos and preparation to convert. Convert: prospect becomes a customer, typically a signed contract or LOI. Onboard: implementation and training, which is a good test of how well your demos and education worked. Turn into evangelist: keep supporting customers so they rave about the product and refer others. Upsell: once they use the product enough, find the right add-ons that lift their ROI and yours.
Always improving
The idea of always improving based on insight takes on a different dynamic in a SaaS business, where data flows back to you constantly if you are willing to listen. In everything you do, monitor and experiment based on what the funnel is telling you.
With every email you send, every feature you enable and every piece of content you publish, make sure there is a small test behind it, so you are constantly learning and getting as much information out of the funnel as possible.
Frequently asked questions
What is a B2B SaaS marketing funnel?
It is the traditional awareness/consideration/decision funnel extended with adoption and retention, and enriched by live product usage data that flows back into marketing and product decisions.
How is a SaaS funnel different from a traditional funnel?
A SaaS funnel does not end at purchase. Onboarding, adoption, evangelism and upsell are part of the same engine, and product usage data feeds back into every earlier stage.
What are the main stages of a SaaS funnel?
Attract, impress, educate, engage, convert, onboard, turn into evangelist, and upsell.