How to Build a SaaS Sales Funnel? - A Step-by-Step Guide

Akash
Founder
8
min read
June 29, 2022

How about having a virtual salesperson who can educate your user and bring them to the purchase stage? 

Yes, you can taste the profit without worrying about handling customer journey stages. Just plan the strategy and let it take work! 

That's how a SaaS sales funnel works when you do it right. 

But what’s a B2B SaaS Sales funnel? How you can build one from scratch? 

Let’s investigate. 

What is a SaaS Sales Funnel?

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A SaaS sales funnel is a process that takes a user from the very first time they interact with your business to the point where you make a sale. 

Each stage in the sales funnel represents a different stage of the customer's journey. The goal is to have the customer move fluidly through the sales funnel until they reach the purchasing stage. 

Why is Building a Sales Funnel in SaaS Very Important?

Around 80% of people never translate to sales when they hear your brand name for the first time.  

They may either switch to another popular brand offering the same services or drop out of the decision. 

How can you convince your future customers about your expertise and values? 

It's ultimately through the carefully tailored SaaS sales funnel journey. 

User journey on the sales funnel stages determines the user-retention from hearing your brand name for the first time to renewing their subscription. 

But why should you consider a SaaS sales funnel? 

Brings new customers 

A B2B SaaS sales funnel aims to take your target audience and move the members through a series of steps. These steps must eventually lead to where you want them to emerge: as customers!

More sales 

A full-fledged sales funnels let you explore the gaps between your products and the end-user by analyzing their behavior on their journey. 

Your goal is to spot prospect behaviors that can lead to sales and those that can destroy your relationship with them. Fewer mistakes can lead to you getting more deals from the same number of prospects and getting more new leads into your funnel in the first place.

High-profit margins 

A more profound knowledge of your sales funnel will allow you to calculate the methods better and acquire new customers. 

Knowing your customer acquisition cost can give you an idea of how much each method costs and help you make the most of your marketing budget.

How to Build a SaaS Sales Funnel? - A Step-by-Step Guide

Shouting about your product's superiority over the competition might generate short-term results. Still, in the long run, it is vital that you focus on mastering all aspects outside of your core product. 

That's where the role of a B2B SaaS sales funnel comes in. 

Creating a funnel may look like a daunting process. But it is the opposite once you understand the entire behind-the-scenes process. 

Let's create your sales funnel from scratch;

Step 1: Define your audience

While this step may be obvious, many businesses overlook it altogether. After all, when you put so much hard work into a product you like, you tend to think that everyone will love it just as much as you do. 

But the fact of the matter is that they won't. 

It's essential to focus only on your leads, those who are interested in purchasing your goods or services. This will save time and money and should help prevent wasting resources on people who are less likely to convert.

Step 2: How can you gain their attention? 

Once you have pinpointed your audience, you must create content that attracts the attention of your target audience. It can be a lead magnet like a freemium subscription, a case study, an eBook, or something else that adds value to your future customers. 

Step 3: How can you generate traffic to your lead magnet? 

If you have good organic traffic to your website, you can place your lead magnet and collect them as leads. Use an offer to catch your prospect's interest and make them want to give you their details straight away! 

By offering the right kind of value and benefit to visitors, you are making it easier for people to stay in touch with you. Doing so will make them more likely to stick around and take another look at your products or services!

Step 4: How to educate them about your products?

Regularly, but not too often, is the best ingredient to nurture your leads with high-quality content. Getting back to your audience every few days is enough, but you have to ensure that what you're sending them is of value! 

Make sure that it's helpful or entertaining, and use this time to build a relationship with your leads because your company needs their trust so they will convert.

Step 5: How can you convert them? 

Conversion doesn't just happen on its own - it takes a little push to make it happen. 

For example, you may need to create compelling sales pages or content-oriented website information that can get the prospect interested, so they want to convert from only considering your product to making a purchase!

Recommended: Guide to sales engagement process

Tried and Tested Tips to Design a Perfect Sales Funnel 

Every explosive sales funnel follows a strategy. And here are some of the tips that help you nail your sales funnel and maximize your ROI; 

Tailor it for high quality traffic 

The heart of any campaign is to drive high-quality traffic to your landing page/webpage. 

But what defines high-quality traffic? 

  • Interested in your lead magnet or the service that you are offering.
  • Afford to buy your product after nurturing. 

To start with:

  1. Analyze the behavior of your target audience.
  2. Find the place they spend their time.
  3. Once you have sorted your audience list, run your campaigns to grab their attention on those platforms. 

Build an irresistible offer 

Why should your audience give their information to you?

Do you have an irresistible offer with an overflowing value on your page? 

If not, you can't taste the better conversion rates. Create an offer that pushes the users to options. Bring value that they can't find elsewhere. 

For example,

Source

Create a page where your audience says 'no' to miss the offer. 

Social proofs 

Around 88% of consumers believe the reviews are as close as a personal recommendation.

To grab that 88% of people, add 

  • Revies 
  • Testimonials
  • Stats 
  • Publications where you are featured in. 

A simple example of this is dotcom secrets. They strategically weaved every element to convert most of their traffic. 

Source

Pack your landing page with proofs and testimonials to develop trust and convert more. 

Thumb scrolls with the power of your headline 

No matter how carefully you have tailored your landing page. If your headline is dull, people will exit. 

Include attention grabbing headline like this to create a page that makes the users scroll; 

Source

Sense of urgency

Even though you have an overflowing value, a little push always works perfectly. 

Limit the availability of the lead magnet so that people will reserve their spot by knowing its importance. For example, 

Source

When you add the essence of urgency, you can convert more! 

What are the Stages in SaaS Sales Funnel

B2B SaaS sales funnel stages include, 

  • Top of the funnel: TOFU 
  • Middle of the funnel: MOFU 
  • Bottom of the funnel: BOFU

Let's explore each of the sales funnel stages, 

Top of the funnel: The awareness stage 

This is where the game begins. Your prospect is having a problem and exploring the solution for the same. 

In this exploration stage, your content should speak to that problem, and it's when you can position yourself as a subject matter expert to gain their attention.

Now your prospect is in research mode. They are not intended to find an immediate solution but to dig deeper into the problem and self-diagnose it. 

You can grab them by creating;

  • How to guides
  • Lead magnet
  • Explainer videos 
  • Blogs

If they investigate you for more information via chatbots or sales reps, you can consider them qualified leads and bring them to the TOFU stage. 

Middle of the funnel: Consideration stage 

In this stage, your prospect is ready to find the solution but unsure of selecting the best one that fits their needs. 

They will ask questions to solve their problem. Your sales team should answer questions that relate to their pain point. When you see buying intent, schedule a product demo and make sure that your product demo is booked into the client's diary. 

Asking for a demo is like planting seeds – once planted, you and your team need to be patient and nurturing while waiting for your budding customers to decide whether they want to buy it or not.

Bottom of the funnel 

Once you've completed a successful demo, your prospect will come to the decision stage. They are switching from someone who just found out about your product to decide if it will accomplish their current and future goals. 

Because of this, you must ensure that your pricing pages provide all the information necessary to make the ideal choice for your business. 

The comparison tables and comprehensive reviews should help not only in convincing prospects but also in convincing your existing customers (if applicable) to purchase additional or higher-tiered plans.

Metrics to Check-in SaaS Sales Funnel

You can analyze the effectiveness of your SaaS sales by examining some of the mentioned metrics below; 

  • Trial to sales conversion: The number of leads converted from using the free trial to paid plans. 
  • Revenue growth: Revenue growth rate indicates the increase in revenue over time.
  • Customer churn rate: Another critical number to track is the churn rate, which shows the percentage of users who left over a certain period.
  • Customer lifetime value: This metric shows the amount of money a single customer will bring to your table over time. 
  • Customer acquisition: It indicates the amount you have invested in converting a lead to a customer. 

Examples of SaaS Sales Funnel

Here are some examples of SaaS sales funnel that clearly show how a sales funnel works. 

Getresponse 

It is a SaaS company offering multiple marketing solutions needed to put your marketing efforts on autopilot mode. 

Source

With free plan, guides and affiliate programs they attracts their audience. Once the customer optin for the free plan, they activate a 30-day free trial option allowing them to explore and seamlessly use all the features. 

After the free trial, the user either has to upgrade or use a free trial with limited features. By offering all the features and limiting them after their trial, Getresponse is playing a better role in their B2B SaaS sales funnel. 

ConvertKit 

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ConvertKit is a powerful email marketing application that starts by creating educational blog content for people interested in conversions and how to leverage them for increased sales effectiveness. 

On top of providing valuable content, they also give their customer's affiliate links, which means more people will be piloting the program and promoting its overall efficiency.

Their nurturing process is worth noting, as they conduct frequent webinars and guide the prospects about their product. 

Harvest's sales funnel 

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Harvest is time-tracking software for people who have many things to attend to at once. They use Harvest's time-logging, invoicing, and educational content to help get their businesses going. 

Users can also watch webinars, read case studies and training sessions, and send out surveys via the different online communities that Harvest has available for its users.

Harvest helps prospects develop a sense of trust by sharing testimonials and case studies. It makes converting easier with a 30-day free trial. 

Wrapping up 

Now you know how your virtual salesperson(SaaS sales funnel) works. Tailor every element to meet the user's desires and pain points to get the most out of it. 

When you're building your sales funnel, it's critical to measure the success of each phase of your sales funnel. For example, You might have successfully generated much interest at the bottom of your sales funnel, but you can't convert those prospects into an actual sale. 

Or perhaps you've had customers engaged in the demo stage and managed to get some of these people to sign; either way, they're not using your product after purchasing for whatever reason (perhaps poor onboarding).

To decide on your offer, you must nurture your customers with product demos. If your prospect feels comfortable with your product, onboard them with interactive product tutorials to hold them with your product. The best one-stop solution? Storylane! From educating your future customers to onboarding them, we made them simple with a few steps. Wanna see how it helps? Book a demo

"Previously, there was scope for error and we’ve gone from a process that could be time consuming and painful to a process that’s super quick."
—CHRIS LANCASTER, SUPPLY CHAIN PROJECT
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"Previously, there was scope for error and we’ve gone from a process that could be time consuming and painful to a process that’s super quick."
—CHRIS LANCASTER, SUPPLY CHAIN PROJECT

"Previously, there was scope for error and we’ve gone from a process that could be time consuming and painful to a process that’s super quick."

—CHRIS LANCASTER, SUPPLY CHAIN PROJECT

Stay ahead of the sandbox curve with a superior demo environment
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