Building a winning B2B content marketing funnel: A digital avatar

News In Focus  - Yash Rajan  -  21st June 2021
Building a winning B2B content marketing funnel: A digital avatar VLMS Global

Customer journey is very important for the survival of every business. Following the customer through the entire customer journey is a crucial factor for the success of companies. Content marketing funnel can be considered as a procedure of converting prospective audiences into actual customers using a stepwise content strategy. Inline with this, the B2B content marketing funnel can be considered as the system of generating leads for businesses, by the businesses. 

What is B2B Content Marketing Funnel?

A content marketing funnel acts as a gateway for interacting with prospects and leads. As per the experts of VLMS Global, B2B content marketing funnel generates twice as much leads as compared to outbound marketing. Also, it is diametrically opposite to the B2C content marketing funnel. 


The organizations can leverage the content marketing strategy for attracting more leads without having to spend more. With the VLMS Global experts’ guidance, the companies can create a B2B content marketing funnel that enables a high ROI. 


For achieving long-term goals, business associations must create an effective content strategy that drives them towards the business offerings. This will ultimately lead the prospects to trust the brand and to become actual customers. 

Different stages of B2B content marketing funnel  

The competition to attract the audience towards the businesses is becoming more fierce everyday. For effectively inclining the customers towards the business offerings, the clients can use the B2B content marketing funnel. This helps in streamlining all the actions. These actions help in interacting with customers in different manners across different stages of the funnel. The only difference is that, in B2B content marketing funnel, there is a need to generate more content.  


The content marketing strategy helps in connecting with customers at individual and personal level. The conveying of messages becomes much easier with the use of B2B content marketing funnel. The B2B content marketing funnel mainly comprises of the following steps:


  1. Awareness

  2. Interest

  3. Decision

  4. Action

Awareness is the first stage wherein the customers (organizations) are made aware of about the other organizations’ brands and their product offerings. The primary stage of B2B content marketing funnel, is focused on mindfulness, i.e.,generating an image of a brand that will be known to clients. If no one knows about the brand, this step will help in making it happen. 


The next stage revolves around interest - the business becomes interested by learning about the brand’s benefits. The primary objective of this progression is to get the lead to leave their data in return for some significant info. Along these lines, the organizations can make a closer bond with the prospective businesses by sending messages consequently that will lead to a strong B2B relationship. This helps in paving the way for the next step.


In the next stage, the enterprise becomes inclined towards the brand and its products. This step helps in showcasing the clients about all the products and services. The main focus is on - what the company can provide differently than the competition. 


The final stage is action in which the businesses have made the final decision to become the customer of other organizations and purchase the products. This process looks easy but requires expertise. Strategies are crafted by using B2B content marketing funnel. The selling businesses  drive their customers to settle on a decision. In this stage, it is basic to do everything that the seller can do different things than the other businesses.


In simple words, during the first stage, the prospective businesses are looking for information. Then in the next step, these buyers examine the products and reviews that match their specifications. 


The next step of decision takes the biggest chunk of hours. In this, the buyers share the research details with stakeholders. If they reach a conclusion on the same product, they ask for a product demonstration. If it is liked by the buyers, the buyers request a contract proposal to the selling party. The last step of action is sealed through the completion of sales transactions between both the businesses \. 

Advantages associated with the B2B content marketing funnel

  1. Requires less investment

  2. Increment in brand awareness

  3. Build authority in your domain

  4. Increases organic B2B search traffic



How to measure the success of a B2B content marketing funnel?


Simply making the content and strategy wont help if the content is not shared at the right time and right place. For this a reliable distribution strategy is needed so that the content is distributed in an efficient manner. Along with, a proper system is required for measuring the reach of the content. Following are the different ways that can be appointed to measure the reach at different levels of the B2B content marketing funnel:


  1. Awareness

    • Pageviews

    • Time on site

    • Video views

    • Social media followers

    • Social media impressions and engagement

    • Blog Subscribers

  2. Consideration

    • Form fills

    • Leads generated

    • Qualified leads

  3. Decision

    • Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs)

    • Purchases or sales