Got A Leaky Sales Funnel? Here Are 5 Ways To Fix It

With an average cost per lead of $198, B2B lead generation is expensive. But there’s something more sinister than expensive leads, and it’s bleeding your company’s revenue: 

Expensive leads that leak out of your sales/marketing funnel. 

Savvy buyers, stiff competition, and longer sales cycles have created complex funnels that make it easier for leads to “leak”. The good news? 

There is a range of tools, tactics, and strategies to help you identify, and fix leaks in your sales and marketing funnel.  

While converting 100% of the leads you attract is practically impossible, marketing and sales can work together to fix leaks and generate more B2B sales. 

In this post, I’ll show you how to analyze your current sales funnel and make it stronger.  

Note: Want to create a leak-proof sales funnel that generates high-quality leads? Sign up for free with Leadfeeder's 14-day trial to track the right kind of leads and information for your business.

1. Map out the entire sales cycle 

What does it take to convert a lead? 

Answer this question before you begin searching or even plugging a leaky sales funnel. 

You need a detailed breakdown from both your marketing and sales department mapping out the buyer-to-customer journey. 

This means doing a stage-to-stage analysis of the steps a lead goes through to become a buyer. Below are the points sales and marketing should consider during each stage. 

The Awareness stage - The buyer is aware of the problem or solution they need, and they begin to learn more about it. At this stage, think about: 

• Why they’re searching for a solution 

• What strong pain/opportunity is bleeping on their radar

• What kind of answers they are looking for right now

• How ready they are to buy or move closer to the sale

Interest or consideration stage - The buyer confirms their problem or opportunity. He/she will then start researching and talking to vendors and eventually enter your sales pipeline. At this stage, consider:

• Their search criteria when looking for a vendor (This may vary between different personas.)

• How long it takes you to respond to a lead’s inquiry 

• What messaging resonates best with them based on their needs

Decision stage -  The buyer approaches vendors to complete a purchase or requests a quote or proposal before becoming a customer. At this stage, ask yourself: 

• Have their informational needs changed? There’s a strong chance the information they’re now looking for is less informational and how-to, and more comparison and review based

• What are the biggest barriers to conversion with sales and marketing? (Think about where they slowed down or backtracked during the sales process)

• Which competitors have they interacted with before becoming paying customers? (Your CRM data will hold the answers to this question)

2. Use Google Analytics to identify potential leaks

“Data beats opinions.” 

Here at Leadfeeder, it’s a phrase we practice and preach. If you’re looking to fix a leaky marketing funnel, you’ll need to do the same. 

Start by using Google Analytics to reveal exactly where your leaks are. This is how we’ve found pages with high-interest/drop-offs and plugged leaks to strengthen our sales funnel. 

Combine Google Analytics with Tag Manager to help you identify traffic from different sources, reveal the location of leaks in your funnel, and create a better customer experience. 

For example, after reviewing pages with high:

• Exit numbers

• Bounce rates

• High traffic and low conversions

We found that we were leaking leads - during the consideration/research stage - on our pricing page.

After plugging this leak on our pricing page, we increased conversions by 30 percent and netted an additional $11,000 in monthly recurring revenue (MRR). 

3. Diagnose leaks with behavioral analytics tools

If you’re looking to fix a leaky sales or marketing funnel, behavioral analytics tools are invaluable.

They’ll show you what catches or repels a lead’s attention on the page and how a lead interacts with your site. 

If you’re not sure of which tools you need to reveal the leaks in your marketing funnel, stick to the basics. Use heatmaps, scroll/ mouse tracking, and user feedback tools like surveys. 

To successfully repair a broken sales funnel, use both web and behavioral analytics tools. 

This is because web analytics tools like (Google Analytics) tell you the location of a leak in your funnel. Behavioral analytics tools, however, reveal the cause of the leak. 

When we plugged the leak on our pricing page, for example, behavioral analytics tools like heatmaps and scroll maps showed where leads were clicking and what we should A/B test. 

They wanted to click on our pricing plans, which were unclickable at the time. So we tested out clickable pricing plans. 

This boosted conversions and generated an additional $11,000/month. 

4. Get higher-quality leads with long-tail keywords

“We’re getting a ton of leads, but they aren’t converting, and barely any are becoming sales qualified.”

If that sounds familiar, your funnel is top-heavy: It’s attracting too many leads in the awareness stage, and not enough of those in the consideration stage. 

This is where marketing can help support sales with long-tail SEO. 

Focusing on long-tail keywords with higher purchase intent means that leads entering the sales funnel are at the interest/decision stage and more likely to buy. 

Marketing also wins, because the cumulative effect of ranking for long-tail keywords can skyrocket your organic traffic.  

5. Test the small, but significant details 

For designer Jared Spool, a massive source of leaked leads was a single button. Which, once removed, generated $15 million in just one month. 

For software company Veeam, this was a single word. Through user feedback, Veeam realized that most visitors were asking for a price even though their copy instructed visitors to “request a quote.” 

After replacing the word “quote” with the word that their customers were using, “price”, they increased click-through rates to their pricing page by 161.66 percent. 

How’s that for a quick-fix to plugging a sales funnel leak? 

After: 

As shown by both case studies above and our own experience here at Leadfeeder, you don’t need grandiose changes or redesigns to fix a leaky sales funnel. 

Sometimes the bottleneck is an unassuming technical or small detail. 

Finally, focus on retention to minimize leaks in your funnel

As Pekka has mentioned in his post about churn, focusing on retention is a key strategy for driving growth.  

Leading with retention in mind strengthens every element of your sales and marketing funnel. 

It forces you to focus not only on how successful you are at acquiring new customers, but also your ability to satisfy and keep them. 

This increase in satisfied customers results in more positive reviews, sales-ready referrals, and of course, fewer leaks in your sales funnel. 

Note: Want to create a leak-proof sales funnel that generates high-quality leads? Sign up for free with Leadfeeder's 14-day trial to track the right kind of leads and information for your business.