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Strategy

B2B SaaS Sales Funnels: Tips to Optimise Every Stage

Martin Huntbach
Martin Huntbach - Chief Marketing Officer
9 min read

To sell your SaaS, you have two main options: relying on guesswork (and hoping for the best) or building a funnel that attracts and converts customers like a well-oiled machine.

Perhaps you tried to create the latter but it’s not as smooth and profitable as you’d like? Or maybe you just don’t know where to start?

Fret not. We’ll show you exactly what to focus on and how to optimise every stage of your B2B SaaS sales funnel.

Vital considerations for your B2B SaaS sales 

Vital considerations for your B2B SaaS sales

Before looking at each phase of your B2B SaaS sales funnel, here’s an important reminder for you. Without the following elements in place, even the best marketing and sales tactics won’t work!

  • A clear Ideal Customer Profile – Don’t try to sell your product to EVERYONE. Identify your ICP and plan your marketing around them
  • Product-market fit – People buy B2B SaaS to solve a problem. Are you clear on what this is? And are you selling something your ICP actually needs?
  • Strong value proposition – Having a market-fit product is vital, but you must also convey its value in a way that resonates with your ICP, highlights its benefits and ROI, and sets you apart from all competitors 
  • Transparent pricing – In B2B, you’re dealing with multiple decision-makers with limited time, different priorities, and a budget. Realistically, if they can’t see or understand your pricing, they won’t bother getting in touch 
  • Lead generation and qualificationPre-qualifying your prospects (so that you only talk to the right ones) is just as important as generating new leads
  • Sales process and funnel management – You must plan and review your funnel regularly to ensure it runs smoothly. Otherwise, you’ll keep losing leads along the way
  • Customer onboarding and support – If your free trial users and new customers don’t understand how to use your SaaS, they’ll give up. So, help them get the very MOST out of it

Now, let’s see how you can navigate these unique challenges and opportunities throughout your entire B2B SaaS sales funnel.

(Psst! ScoreApp, our quiz-building platform, can help with every single phase)

Top of the B2B SaaS sales funnel – Awareness stage

Top of the funnel (awareness stage)

Focus on boosting your brand awareness and reaching more people with your marketing, but don’t forget to capture their contact details, too.

Create value-driven content

Share stand-out content that sets you apart from all competitors and meets your B2B SaaS customers where they are right now: experiencing a problem.

For example, you could help them understand it, educate them, and entertain them with:

  • Blog posts
  • Whitepapers
  • Social media content
  • Videos

Then, turn those eyeballs into leads through a strategic lead magnet (more on that soon!).

Run webinars

These are an excellent opportunity to reach more people, stand out from less proactive competitors, and showcase your brand and team’s personality.

So, plan engaging webinars (especially around your target customers’ problems), running them live or offering them as pre-recorded lead magnets

Leverage paid ads and SEO

Help more ideal customers discover your SaaS website with a mixture of organic and paid tactics:

  • SEO is a valuable long-term strategy. Use it to target people looking for your type of SaaS: optimise your website pages for the keywords they’re searching. Don’t forget about those who are still googling questions to understand their problem and current situation: answer them through SEO-friendly blog posts
  • PPC ads can speed up the process. For example, use paid search engine ads to boost your most strategic blog posts, or drive traffic to your lead magnet through social media ads

Share valuable lead magnets

Reaching more potential customers with your marketing is a great start. If you don’t capture their details, though? They’ll probably forget about your company and exit your B2B SaaS sales funnel.

So, create an unmissable lead magnet, a free resource that you offer to your audience in exchange for their email address. 

Most companies opt for PDFs like eBooks, checklists, and SaaS comparison guides. However, they’re so generic, static, and overdone that they only convert at 3-10%.

ScoreApp quiz lead magnets, on the other hand, have a whopping 30-50% conversion rate! Why? Because they’re more engaging and valuable, leading to a personalised experience and results. They’ll also collect a tonne of data that you can use to inform the rest of your B2B SaaS sales process.

For example, your quiz lead magnet could be “Is your business ready for SaaS automation?” or “Your Team Productivity Scorecard”.

Create your SaaS lead magnet with ScoreApp today and for FREE

Middle of the B2B SaaS sales funnel – Consideration stage

Middle of the funnel (consideration stage)

Nurture your leads and build trust while positioning your SaaS product as the logical next step.

Personalised email campaigns

Using an email marketing platform (like ActiveCampaign or Mailchimp), automate a sequence that starts nurturing your contacts as soon as they sign up for your lead magnet. 

For the best results, create different sequences or personalise certain elements based on each lead’s needs, preferences, and behaviours. That way, your emails are going to be super relevant and valuable. No wonder personalisation leads to a 20% increase in sales!

For example, your ScoreApp quiz lead magnet will segment your leads depending on their answers, and you can then assign a different email sequence to each group. You could:

  • Welcome them and set the right expectations
  • Share tips to offer them a quick win
  • Talk about their biggest problem
  • Tackle their main misconceptions and objections
  • Send them the most relevant sales-enablement content (like case studies from past customers in their same sector)
  • Highlight how your SaaS will benefit them in practice

Offer free trials 

Don’t skimp on them! Free trials are a great way of letting people experience your amazing SaaS without risks (which is much easier than convincing them to commit to ongoing payments straightaway).

As well as promoting your free trial on your website, offer it to your leads through a personalised message in your ScoreApp email sequence.

Use case studies & testimonials

One of the most effective ways of convincing new prospects? Showing them the benefits and ROI that your B2B SaaS brought to past and current customers. 

So, share real-life stories, examples, and data.

With your ScoreApp quiz email sequences, you can send the most relevant case study for each lead (for example, one that involves their same problem or industry).

Host live demos or webinars

Unlike your top-of-the-funnel events, plan these for leads who are already aware of their problem and familiar with your SaaS brand.

In your nurturing sequences, offer the most relevant webinar or live demo for each lead based on their ScoreApp quiz answers (for example, “Live demo for accountants” or “Live demo for marketers”).

Bottom of the B2B SaaS sales funnel – Decision stage

Bottom of the funnel (decision stage)

It all builds up to this: converting those leads into paying SaaS customers while offering them a valuable experience.

Book personalised product demos

It’d be costly and nowhere near as effective to offer these to everyone, especially at the start of the funnel.

However, once someone has been nurtured properly (for example, through your personalised ScoreApp email sequences), you could invite them to schedule a 1:1 demo of your SaaS. 

To maximise your chances of success, do this with a tailored message that references their situation and quiz answers, teasing how your tool will help them solve their biggest challenge. 

Create competitor comparisons

B2B SaaS customers tend to look into various options before committing to a purchase. So, make this easier for them: send them some objective comparison articles.

For example, include them in your ScoreApp email sequences, sharing the most relevant guide for each prospect based on their quiz answers.

Set up automated follow-ups

Without regular follow-ups, you’d lose momentum and sales. If you try to do everything manually, though, you could incur human error, forget, or keep your leads waiting.

So, allow your marketing and sales team to automate their touchpoints and follow-ups.

For example, if a lead clicks a specific link in your ScoreApp email sequence, you could automatically send them a personalised invitation to book a chat. 

Post-sale – Retention & expansion

Post-sale (retention & expansion)

This post-funnel phase can make a big difference in any sector but it’s particularly important for B2B SaaS products. 

By keeping your new users in your world for as long as possible, you’ll offset your higher lead generation and sales costs, maximising customer lifetime value.

Offer outstanding onboarding & training

Set the right tone, and help your new customers familiarise themselves with your SaaS so they can start to experience its benefits. You could do this with:

  • Free onboarding sessions
  • Training videos
  • A knowledge base

With ScoreApp, you can tailor your onboarding to each user’s situation (such as their type of company, main challenges, and goals), only sending them the most relevant resources so as not to overwhelm them.

Send regular check-ins and follow-ups

How you do this will depend on your type of SaaS and ICP, but the main goal is the same: ensuring your customers feel looked after.

For example, you could check in via email or offer them quarterly reviews. As well as offering support and assessing their satisfaction, these are excellent opportunities to suggest relevant upgrades (like upselling and cross-selling based on their ScoreApp quiz answers).

Providing excellent customer support 

If your customers are struggling with a SaaS feature or feeling stuck, they should ALWAYS be able to get help. Otherwise, you’ll lose them.

So, invest in a responsive and well-trained customer support team.

Send automated feedback requests

Without knowing what your SaaS customers like and dislike about their experience with you, you can’t improve it.

So, get their direct input regularly, and ask them what else they’d benefit from, like new features and resources. This will also show them you value their opinions.

With ScoreApp, it’s a breeze. Create a separate quiz for feedback and send it to your new customers (for example, a month after their purchase).

Optimise your entire B2B SaaS sales funnel with ScoreApp

Optimise your entire B2B SaaS sales funnel with ScoreApp

As you now know, ScoreApp can help at every stage of your SaaS sales cycle. 

From reaching more people to nurturing them in a personalised way and helping you retain them: your quiz funnel will streamline your entire process, wow your customers, and boost your sales… all automatically!

Start by creating your SaaS quiz lead magnet today and for FREE.

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