Marketing is an integral part of the B2B business. In fact, on average, a B2B firm invests around 8% of its total annual revenue in sales and marketing. However, B2B organizations, even after spending millions on marketing and sales, often fail to reach their revenue targets. Moreover, the B2B sales pipelines are usually seen as a time-consuming process, which forces the team to use cold prospects, further resulting in low conversion rates. This is why a well-conceptualized B2B marketing framework is important to have in place, which helps fuel your pipeline acceleration tactics to improve overall ROI.
Implementing pipeline marketing transforms complex sales activities into a revenue-generation engine and fosters long-term growth. In this guide, we will walk you through the process of structuring B2B marketing plans, the B2B demand generation framework, and sales and marketing alignment for sustainable growth.
What is a Sales Pipeline?
In B2B marketing, the sales pipeline is a channel that provides views of potential deals mapped out through the projected sales process. It involves initial contact with clients to closing a deal. It takes the form of a funnel, with leads entering at the top and closed customers at the bottom. Between these are intermediate stages, such as qualification, calls, and proposals, that each deal must pass through.
Every active deal is placed in one of these stages based on its current position in the sales cycle, allowing you to track and evaluate how efficiently deals move through the process. Organizations adopting the sales pipeline as part of marketing need to consider the formula to calculate sales.
Pipeline velocity = (Opportunities x average deal size x average win rate) ÷ length of average sales cycle (in days)
- Opportunities: Sales salesperson can use 100 qualified leads in the pipeline stages
- Average Deal Size: Estimated at $10,000 or more per deal
- Average Win Rate: Average conversion rate of 10%, considering the range of 6-13%. So, for every 100 prospects, expect approximately 10 successful deals.
- Length of average sales cycle: About 50 days to close a deal.
The final calculation indicates a sales pipeline value of approximately $2,000 per day.
How to Structure a Scalable B2B Marketing Plan?
Creating a B2B growth marketing strategy requires a clear plan of action. The following are some effective structures for effective planning-
Understand Your Target Audience
There are three different methods to follow to understand the target audience:
- Categorization: Group your clients by industry, size, and location to craft tailored sales approaches.
- Detailed Personas: Develop in-depth personas for key decision-makers, understanding their pain points and preferred information sources. Consider what CTO and Sales Manage prioritize.
- Feedback Process: Establish channels for feedback, such as face-to-face interviews or surveys.
Setting up Clear Sales Objectives
Another key element is setting up clear business sales objectives. This allows in garnering lead quality and revenue growth. When venturing into new markets, the objectives should aim to increase market share and expand your client base.
Competitor Analysis
Like you, other businesses may also invest in B2B sales marketing structure. Therefore, assess competitors’ strengths and weaknesses. Identify the sales channels they utilize and the messaging tools they employ.
Which marketing frameworks work for SaaS growth?
A well-designed marketing framework assists in giving a proper direction to your SaaS product business. Some of the effective B2B demand generation framework for SaaS growth are:
- Community-Led Marketing: Engage with communities through consistent effort. The value of this approach reflects your investment.
- Product-Led Growth: Offer free trials or freemium models to attract and retain users.
- Demand-Focused Content: Increase brand awareness, generate measurable customer interest, and create a talent pool ready for future opportunities.
How to build a B2B marketing plan for fast-growing companies?
Generating buzz in the B2B market can be challenging. However, for a fast-growing company, gaining revenue is vital.
- Better Market Research: No matter how big your organization is and what marketing tool you use, market research is important. Make use of right channels and marketing tools for better results.
- Multi-Channel B2B Campaign Management: The market is flooded with proven B2B campaign tools, including email, social media, and LinkedIn, that can offer good results.
- Strategic Channel Selection: According to Studies indicate that B2B decision-makers utilize multiple channels, increasing from 5 to 10 from 2016 to 2021. This growth helped marketers to make use of the right tools to connect with clients.
Image source- McKinsey
Reach Us for an Effective B2B Marketing Framework Solution
If you are considering implementing an effective B2B demand generation framework for marketing purposes, you can consider us for the same. Our end-to-end marketing campaign is designed to align well with your business and the target audience.
Comments are closed