How to Improve your B2B Profitability using a Marketing Funnel Management System - By: Pete Nisbet

By using a marketing funnel management system it is possible to improve the profitability of your B2B business. Most businesses are likely to be running CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software, and are also likely to be using it to only a fraction of its capability because CRM in itself is only part of the answer to managing the marketing and sales aspects of a business.

Too many businesses separate sales and marketing to the extent that they feel obliged to compete, and unfortunately, while healthy inter-departmental competition can be of benefit for many companies, it can also have a detrimental effect without some form of control. That control can frequently be provided by automated lead scoring systems with pre-set rules.

However, even better would be to combine marketing and sales efforts into a result that compares leads entering the funnel against customers leaving it. In other words, the combined efforts of marketing and sales functions are integrated to a single objective.

How can that be put into effect? Any system or extension of marketing and sales functions must be part of your existing CRM system, and an automated marketing funnel management system would have to be integrated with your current CRM software. Were that not the case then you would have different and possibly conflicting systems operating concurrently - and that rarely results in success.

Given that a marketing funnel management system could be integrated with your CRM software, what should its objectives be in order for it to be successful in improving the profitability of your B2B business? First, the software will focus on B2B, so that it should be designed to help a company that does business with other businesses. This offers the advantage that the lead is seeking a genuine solution to a problem. Businesses should not be surfing the net for fun.

If they get to your website then they can be classified as genuine leads, and not passers-by clicking for the sake of it. Lead scoring software can immediately score such clicks positively, and you can offer inducements such as white papers or free trial products in the knowledge that they will be accepted only by interested businesses and not by individuals seeking freebies!

Those entering your marketing funnel can then be nurtured and scored as they pass through it. All of this is carried out automatically, with scoring initiated with specific action events, such as offering contact details, downloading a white paper or even just visiting the site. Professional lead scoring can be integrated with your CRM system that holds the lead's details in a database, and maintains the statistics and position of each lead within the marketing funnel.

A lead nurturing system can be employed to analyze the needs of the lead from response to certain triggers, and be offered free publications that relate to the leads of the specific need. A white paper or free report can be provided, and later in the funnel a lead, perhaps now qualified as a prospect, could be offered a low-cost product that relates to their specific interest.

Eventually, the marketing funnel management system will identify qualified customers that have purchased specific products related to their business. You can mark that point as the bottom of the funnel or you could (preferably) mark it as one more stage on the way downwards. It is one more qualifying step, after which even more effort is made with what is now a customer.

That effort can be in the form of back-sales, where you could promote products that relate to that they have just purchased, or you could offer extensions of the original product - Mark II for example. This kind of back-up marketing might not be relevant to your type of business, and for you the process is complete other than the ongoing customer relationship procedures that are followed to ensure that your customer returns to you for their next requirement.

There are many marketing funnel management system available online, and which you choose should be dependent on your specific needs and whether or not it can integrate with your CRM software. It is possible to improve your B2B profitability by making the correct decision, but it is also very simple to make a serious error of choice that could have grave implications for the future profitability of your business.

The upshot is that you should never purchase a marketing funnel management system without having a free no-commitment trial over a period long enough for you to give it a proper test. A company that offers that is one that is confident their product works as it should, and that you will purchase it after your trial. However, the system you purchase should be developed specifically to suit your business, since there is no 'one fits all' solution to marketing funnel management.

About the Author

For more details on how to integrated modern marketing techniques with your CRM software visit http://www.manticoretechnology.com where you will also find some useful information on Marketing Funnel Management systems that help you maximize the conversion of your leads to customers.

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