If it feels like the “B2B marketing funnel” concept has been around forever, you’re not far off.

In 1898, advertising pioneer Elias St. Elmo Lewis created the AIDA model, laying the foundation for the funnel we marketers use every day. While the idea of selling something to someone is as old as humanity, the modern funnel framework helps standardize — and improve — a buyer’s experience.

What does it take to build a funnel? And how do you know it’s working? Let’s join other marketing experts and find out.

Table of Contents

• What is the B2B marketing funnel?
• B2B Marketing Funnel Stats
• B2B Marketing Funnel Stages
• How to Create a B2B Marketing Funnel
• B2B Marketing Funnel Example

What is the B2B marketing funnel?

The B2B marketing funnel is a framework that charts the journey a business-to-business buyer takes to purchase a product or service. It gives marketers a structure on how they understand their audiences’ needs and then position content and experiences to meet those needs.

Typically, selling to businesses usually takes much more time, requires more complexity, and involves more buyers and sellers than consumers require. You might see more of a funnel take shape with larger consumer purchases, like cars or housing. But, people aren’t often meeting in committees for weeks to buy paper towels or ground beef.

In a B2B selling process, you’re managing more user needs and touch points. That’s where the marketing funnel framework helps standardize a company’s approach.

It defines specific stages and the activities that nurture potential buyers at each stage. Over time, data and feedback help you optimize your funnel to deliver more compelling buying experiences — and help close more deals.

B2B Marketing Funnel Stats

• The B2B buying committee grew to an average of 11 members in 2024 — with some as large as 20 buyers or more. (The Drum)
• Over 43% of marketers noted that focusing on the customer and their experience with your brand became more important this past year. (HubSpot)
• 34% of marketers say that Millennials (age 28-43) are the most difficult audience to reach with marketing content. Right behind them is Gen Z. (HubSpot)
• Top marketing trends teams are currently exploring (HubSpot)

• Using social media DMs (direct messages) for customer service.
• Creating content that reflects your brand’s values (e.g., social responsibility)
• User-generated content.
• Brand content bylined by or featuring industry experts (e.g., blogs, videos, media with first-hand expertise from your brand).

• 90% of marketers report their experiences are at least somewhat personalized, with moderate or serious increases in sales coming from personalization. (HubSpot)
• Email marketing remains the highest-performing channel for 42% of B2B marketers, just behind in-person events and webinars. (Content Marketing Institute)
• Email marketing reigns supreme, with 34% of marketers using it in their strategies. (HubSpot)
• Website/blog/SEO (search engine optimization) is returning the biggest ROI for more marketers. (HubSpot)
• 67% of B2B marketing teams say they make top-of-funnel content the most often. (Databox)
• 65% of B2B buyers say short-form content like blog posts and infographics is the most engaging. (DemandGen Report)
• 56% of marketers say their biggest hurdles in measuring content success are the difficulty attributing ROI to content efforts and accurately tracking customer journeys. (Content Marketing Institute)

B2B Marketing Funnel Stages

The stage names may be different, but the intent is the same: to lay out a path for a prospect to go from unknown to sold. Let’s see what’s happening each step of the way.

I’ve asked several marketers to weigh in here and share marketers’ most common pitfalls in funnel design and deployment.

Top of the Funnel (Awareness Stage)

You may see this stage called “top-of-funnel,” “TOFU,” or “awareness,” but it’s all the same thing. This stage marks the beginning of your prospect’s journey with your company’s marketing.

The goal of TOFU is to help the lead realize they have a problem and start looking into solving that problem.

For instance, managing content teams usually means managing a bunch of hyperlinks and floating deadlines. Perhaps you’ve used a spreadsheet or a super-long Google Doc to do that. Marketing content should show that this pain exists and explain why you can fix it for these stressed-out content teams.

Remember: In a B2B marketing funnel, you have several buyers working in concert within a company. You need a few different appeals to reach buyers, living the pain, managing the pain, and deciding on spending money to solve the pain.

Middle of the Funnel (Consideration Stage)

At the middle of the funnel (MOFU), leads are evaluating different vendors, comparing solutions, and seeking educational content. They want to know their options and figure out the best one for their business.

The goal of MOFU is to stand out from the competition as the best option for your buyer. That doesn’t mean just saying you’re “the best.” Rather, it’s about showing that you’re able, willing, and qualified to solve their problem.

Eugene Mischenko, President of the E-Commerce & Digital Marketing Association, feels that MOFU content often misses that problem-solving mark.

“One common mistake is failing to provide targeted, value-driven content that aligns with the prospect’s needs and decision-making criteria,” said Mischenko.

Mischenko notes that marketers either bombard prospects with overly promotional content or neglect them altogether, assuming the initial lead magnet or sales pitch is enough to push them down the funnel.

“This can create a disconnect and leave prospects without the information they need to make an informed decision,” Mischenko says.

It’s that balance between too much and too little that Mischenko cautions marketers to assess deeply.

“The key to addressing the challenges of the middle funnel is understanding that this stage requires education, trust-building, and alignment with the prospect’s needs,” he said. “Providing tailored, insightful content and maintaining consistent, non-intrusive communication are essential to moving prospects toward a confident purchasing decision.”

Sai Sathish, a B2B marketing leader at ConsaInsights, shares a similar sentiment.

“The key is understanding that B2B buyers need evidence-based reassurance and personalized support during evaluation. Success comes from mapping content and interactions to specific buyer concerns, maintaining consistent engagement without overwhelming prospects, and providing clear value demonstrations aligned with their business objectives.”

Sathish notes that making it an educational process leads to better outcomes: “By focusing on educational content that addresses specific pain points and offering tools that help prospects build internal business cases, marketers can transform the evaluation stage from a bottleneck into a powerful conversion driver.”

Bottom of the Funnel (Decision Stage)

At the bottom of the funnel (BOFU), leads are narrowing their options and are looking for proof they’re making the right choice. Your marketing content should provide them with satisfaction in their selection and help them make any final decisions internally.

Noel Griffith, CMO of SupplyGem, says that marketers can get ahead of themselves at this stage and to stay vigilant on prospects’ needs.

“Many marketers assume that once a lead reaches this point, the heavy lifting is done, and they focus solely on closing the sale. The mistake lies in neglecting to address lingering objections or failing to provide the final reassurance prospects need to commit,” said Griffith.

Griffith says the decision stage isn‘t just about pushing for the close — it’s about providing clarity and trust. “By addressing objections head-on and offering personalized support, you can turn hesitations into commitments and drive stronger results at the end of the funnel,” Griffith says.

Offering clarity helps you convert leads and equip sales to close the deal and turn prospects into customers.

Purchase and Retention

Sales usually handles closing deals and handling negotiations, contracts, and procurement. But, marketers can support this process and provide content to nurture the relationship once the deal is done through:

• Onboarding materials to start the relationship on the right foot.
• Quarterly best practices webinars to help customers optimize their usage.
• Case studies on premium features to enable sales to upsell customers.

While customers might not go through the marketing funnel again, you can transform them into brand advocates who help champion your product to others.

How to Create a B2B Marketing Funnel

Ready to get your marketing funnel up and running? Let’s walk through the steps you need to get started.

Step 1: Learn about your buyer and their journey.

If you don’t know who wants to buy your product or service, how are you going to market to them? A well-constructed marketing funnel can attract all kinds of people, but if you’re grabbing the wrong crowd, you’re wasting time and money.

Start by defining your buyer persona. It’s different from a B2C persona, where you’re researching demographic data like age and income level or interests. But, understanding your buyer at the company level becomes key to making it work:

• What industry are they in? And how much revenue are they generating?
• What are their pain points? What’s hurting their business?
• What challenges can you solve directly?
• Who makes the final decision? And who informs that decision?

Chat with sales and customer support team members, too. Find out what common objections and questions pop up during the sales cycle. That information verifies your persona development.

Step 2: Create your funnel.

With a buying audience in hand, you then need to outline the process that buyer undergoes during their buying journey. The key stages in this process become the map to form your funnel.

Most often, you’ll find this journey breaks down into TOFU, MOFU, and BOFU. From there, define how you’ll know when a lead moves into each funnel segment. For example, a lead that downloads a research report and visits your pricing page is likely ready to move to BOFU and a sales conversation. These “marketing-qualified leads” (MQLs) are a big part of measuring funnel success.

Step 3: Make the right content.

The average B2B buyer engages with 3-7 pieces of marketing content before even talking to the sales team. You need to get these buyers the right information at the right time to make an impact.

What does that look like in the marketing funnel? Typically, content breaks down like:

• TOFU — Blog posts, LinkedIn thought leadership, videos focused on awareness (who we are and what we do).
• MOFU — Webinars, case studies, whitepapers, comparison guides, and emails.
• BOFU — Pricing pages, testimonials, and interactive elements like ROI calculators.

Timing matters. If your buyer is just starting their journey, they probably won’t sit through an hour-long webinar on part of your solution. Be thoughtful about when you deliver these items; don’t overwhelm them, but don’t ghost them, either.

Pro tip: We call that process “defining your content cadence.” Check out our post on the content cadence to set up yours.

Step 4: Craft your distribution strategy.

You can have the best blog post ever. But, if it’s not front and center for your buyer, it’s useless. You need a strategy to distribute your content appropriately.

Part of this process is defining your marketing channels. Our recent research shows that short-form video channels like Reels and YouTube Shorts, influencer marketing, and SEO remain the top targeted channels. B2B marketers are also focused on their websites, blog channels, and email newsletters.

Also, assess your split between organic and paid opportunities. SEO drives organic search traffic, but with AI changing how Google and other search engines distribute content, it’s worth thinking about paid advertising — especially for TOFU content. Google Ads and LinkedIn Ads are two great spots for B2B marketers to start.

Step 5: Set up lead tracking and automation.

Will these strategies work? How will you know? Before you fire off your first content piece, prepare to monitor your funnel.

A customer relationship management (CRM) tool can help you track leads in your funnel and see where they might get stuck. Any tool should give you key metrics like traffic, lead conversion rates, and cost per acquisition (CPA).

Consider how you can use automation to help you do this more effectively. For example, you can schedule a sequence of emails to send to a prospect when they give you an email address. Don’t bombard them (I’ve seen sequences reach into the dozens of emails), but give them enough useful information to decide on moving to the next step.

Pro tip: HubSpot’s free lead management and tracking software helps you organize, prioritize, and engage prospects from one place.

Step 6: Align marketing and sales.

Hopefully, you had helpful conversations with sales on what pain points and objections buyers raise. But, alignment doesn’t end there — in fact, it’s only begun.

Marketing should deliver high-quality leads, and sales should close deals. Aligning each department’s goals, strategies, and tactics can lead to 24% faster growth rates and 27% faster profit growth while strengthening your teams. How do you align?

• Collaborate on defining MQLs and sales-qualified leads (SQLs), so everyone agrees when a lead is warm and ready.
• Share data using CRM dashboards where everyone can see lead interactions.
• Check in every 2-4 weeks to refine your processes. Meet often earlier and scale back as your funnel takes hold.

Communicate on where the lead flow is getting stuck and think through options. For example, sales might get colder leads than expected. Marketing can create more MOFU content to share success stories and get prospects more engaged for sales.

Step 7: Optimize your funnel.

You’ll take the best first guess when you build your funnel. But, times change, buyers change, and assumptions will be wrong. You’ll need to iterate over time, using data and feedback to refine your stages, content, and distribution methods.

• Optimize conversion rates by split-testing your landing pages, emails, and calls to action.
• Identify drop-off points where your leads disengage and leave your funnel.
• Survey your lost leads to see why they didn’t buy and what you could do better.

For instance, say your webinar series isn’t leading to enough product demo requests. Maybe your webinar isn’t compelling enough. Or, perhaps there’s not enough follow-up happening with attendees. Approach this process like a scientist: hypothesize, test, and iterate.

Pro tip: HubSpot can help you track this information and make informed decisions on optimizing. See our latest video on a common challenge: driving leads with blogs.

B2B Marketing Funnel Example

How about an example? In this case, we’ll use my content consulting business and the funnel I run to reach business buyers.

Primarily, I focus on content creation, professional writing services, and content team consulting, using a background in B2B tech. How do I reach people who need my services?

Audience

I work in B2B, so my target audience includes companies needing high-quality content. That’s not only writing long-form content but also supporting agencies offering content as a service.

Based on that, I researched different industries and verticals for market opportunities. Then, I establish which services they want and how I reach them:

Let’s say we have a prospect: a B2B SaaS company looking to scale content production in-house. Note that a B2B SaaS company likely has a few decision-makers involved:

• The person most responsible for content, like a Director of Marketing.
• Their boss, like a VP of Marketing or a CMO.
• And, potentially, their boss, the CEO.

How do they proceed through my marketing funnel?

Awareness Stage

I need to make all those decision-makers aware of my services and pique their interest. At the awareness stage, or TOFU, I’ll do that with content like:

• An optimized blog post about content as a service.
• A LinkedIn post highlighting my blog’s main points and expanding with extra research.
• An episode of my short-form video series on the common mistakes people make when farming out content production.

I’m tracking website traffic and social media engagement to see who gets involved and how deeply they engage.

Consideration Stage

As prospects notice me, they want to know more. They also want to see if I know my stuff.

For our sample B2B SaaS prospect, content at this stage could be:

• A case study reflecting how outsourced content saved another tech company money and time while getting better results.
• A subscription to my biweekly email newsletter, where I share blog posts and content tips and tricks.
• A live Q&A where I walk through common content pitfalls.

Sometimes, I see content overlap between the TOFU and MOFU stages. Prospects don’t always have clear awareness of their challenges, and it takes additional content, prodding, and time to help them see.

I’m also tracking metrics like email opens and clicks and meetings booked to see what’s clicking with people.

Decision Stage

Once I’ve grabbed their interest and shown them what I can do, I need to win them over. That can happen in several ways:

• A free consultation session to review and improve a lackluster content piece.
• A calculator to develop a custom pricing package.
• Testimonials from other B2B SaaS buyers sharing how I help their business grow.

I’ll often start with one small project, like a set of blog posts, before expanding into larger services. Services on retainer also usually work well for my business.

Naturally, I’m (very carefully) watching conversion rates and proposal acceptances. I also like to see where pricing ends up, so I can adjust prices accordingly.

From there, it’s about closing deals and keeping clients happy with high-quality work. That sets me up for nurturing clients and expanding my services in time.

Mastering the B2B Marketing Funnel

I believe the funnel is here to stay, even as tactics and channels change. While you may run into different names or segmentation, the purpose stays the same. Your customer is walking their path. It’s your job to show up and guide them. Use the B2B marketing funnel model to serve as your guide to making that happen.