B2B Buying Journey: The Frustration and the Fix
B2B buying can be frustrating. No transparent pricing, endless back-and-forth on discounts, and an overload of discovery questions. But perhaps the most perplexing reality about the B2B buying journey is how difficult it can be to actually talk to a sales rep when you’re ready.
The Problem with B2B Buying
In our recent B2B buying journey report, we found that only 11% of companies have a calendar scheduler on their website. This delays the process, leaving buyers waiting days just to hear back from a rep to schedule a demo. However, it hurts vendors even more, resulting in a 30-40% conversion rate from form fill to booked meeting.
To put it in perspective: for every 10 qualified prospects filling out your form, only 3 of them actually book a meeting. That’s like working a 40-hour week but only getting 30% of your paycheck or leaving your phone to charge overnight and only getting a 30% charge. In short, a 30-40% conversion rate is not great.
The Solution: Improved Demo Form Conversion Rates
In our recent Demo Form Conversion Rate report, we compiled product data from customers using Chili Piper’s form scheduling solution to provide benchmark conversion rates.
We cover:
- Metrics marketers should track in their inbound funnel
- Average conversion rates by industry and month
- Tips to improve your conversion rates
Let’s dive in.
The New Inbound Funnel: From Website Traffic to Qualified Held Meetings
Historically, the marketing funnel ended at “conversion” – the demo form submission. As soon as a lead submits that demo form, marketing’s job is done. They pass leads off to sales and pat themselves on the back. But with only 30-40% of those form submits actually booking a time with sales, it’s clear the typical funnel is broken.
Qualified Hand-Raiser
A “qualified hand-raiser” is someone who fills out your demo form to talk to sales and is a qualified prospect. Your form fills to qualified hand-raiser conversion rate ratio says a lot about:
- Your ability to drive qualified traffic to the page
- Your ability to pre-qualify before people fill out your form
Qualified Booked Meeting
A Qualified Booked Meeting is when a prospect is qualified and books a meeting with a rep. Most form schedulers qualify right on the form and track this conversion rate automatically. For example, Chili Piper’s parameters for qualification are “more than 10 employees” and “uses Hubspot or Salesforce CRM.”
Qualified Held Meeting
A qualified held meeting is someone who has booked a meeting and showed up. On the Chili Piper marketing team, Qualified Held Meeting is the main metric we track (no MQLs here).
Note: This report does not include conversion data for Qualified Held Meetings. That will be included in a future report, stay tuned.
Data Insights: Benchmark Conversion Rates
For this benchmark report, we analyzed form conversion rates from a sample of Chili Piper’s 45,000 customers.
Data Snapshot:
- 2,948,575 form submits
- 2,042,453 qualified form submits
- 1,307,505 booked meetings
Average Form Conversion Rates
From all that data, we determined the average Qualified Hand-Raiser Conversion Rate and the average Qualified Booked Meeting Conversion Rate.
On average, 86.97% of form submits are from qualified customers, and 65.09% of those qualified prospects actually book time with sales. This is significantly better than the baseline of 30-40%.
Improving Your Conversion Rates
If your conversion rates aren’t up to par, here are some tips to increase your form conversion rates:
If your “Qualified Hand-Raiser Conversion Rate” is low:
- You might be over-qualifying prospects on your form. Review those deemed “unqualified” to ensure you’re not disqualifying good accounts.
- You might be attracting the wrong people to your website. Analyze unqualified form submits to see if targeting or messaging is off.
If your “Qualified Booked Meeting Conversion Rate” is low:
- Ensure your reps’ availability is not too limited. Make sure their free time is not marked as “busy” and use flexible round-robin to show all reps’ availability.
- Improve your speed to lead. 78% of B2B customers purchase from the vendor that responds first, so don’t delay your follow-up.
If your “Qualified Hand-Raiser Conversion Rate” is high, but your “Qualified Booked Meeting Conversion Rate” is low:
- Your qualification criteria might be too broad. Narrow down the criteria to ensure the right people are booking a meeting.
Industry Insights: Demo Conversion Rates
Conversion rates vary across industries. Here are the highlights:
By Industry: Industries like Travel, Hospitality, and Wellness qualify almost 95% of form fills, but only 66.84% book a meeting. This indicates a gap where qualified prospects aren’t converting to meetings.
By Funding Round: Conversion rates improve as companies mature. For instance, Series A companies with conversion rates above 59% are well above average, indicating that a mature GTM motion leads to higher conversion rates.
By Month: Interestingly, demo conversion rates don’t vary much throughout the year. The highest conversion rate (90.06% in January) isn’t much higher than the lowest (83.1% in December).
Final Takeaways
Improving conversion rates is an effective way to make an impact. Unlike other marketing activations, focusing on conversion rates yields immediate results.
At GenTech Marketing, we specialize in formulating digital strategies that maximize your return on ad spend and scale your revenue. Our team of experts has the experience and expertise to help you achieve your business goals. If you’re ready to unlock the full potential of your business, we would love to hear from you.
