Why the Bowtie Sales Funnel is a Game-Changer for Maritime Companies — and How to Apply It

From Funnel Thinking to Lifecycle Thinking

While traditional sales funnels stop at the point of conversion, the bowtie funnel zooms out to include what happens after the sale: long-term loyalty, advocacy, and revenue expansion. For maritime B2B businesses, where customer success is as complex and critical as the initial sale, this shift in perspective is not just useful, it's transformative.

At OnTarget, we partner with scale-ups and mid-market B2B companies in highly specialized industries -like maritime logistics and maritime tech- helping them move from fragmented growth efforts to full-funnel alignment. Here's how the bowtie model plays a critical role.

What Is the Bowtie Funnel?

The bowtie funnel reimagines the buyer journey as two funnels joined at the middle. On the left side: awareness, education, evaluation, and purchase. On the right: onboarding, adoption, expansion, and advocacy.

Instead of treating the sale as the finish line, the bowtie sees it as the halfway point. This lifecycle view allows revenue teams to track, influence, and optimize the entire journey.

Why It Matters in Maritime B2B

The maritime sector often involves long sales cycles, large deal sizes, and complex post-sale onboarding processes. Here's why the bowtie approach fits:

• High Touch Onboarding: Maritime tech solutions often require extensive integration and training.
• Retention = Growth: Because of high acquisition costs, maximizing customer lifetime value is essential.
• Cross-Functional Handoffs: Sales, CS, and product teams must align post-sale — and that's rarely easy.
• And most importantly, software is increasingly at the core of maritime solutions — whether it’s for port operators, vessel managers, or logistics providers. Even hardware- or service-heavy offerings now include embedded dashboards, APIs, or analytics platforms.

This shift toward digital transformation means that a SaaS-based revenue model is no longer optional — it’s expected. Maritime businesses rely on real-time data, automation, and system integration, all of which are delivered through software platforms. Therefore, a SaaS-aligned go-to-market strategy, with focus on onboarding, retention, and recurring value, is essential.

How to Apply the Bowtie Funnel in B2B Maritime

Applying the bowtie funnel isn’t just about tweaking your reporting dashboards. It requires a fundamental shift in mindset from thinking in terms of acquisition only to viewing growth as a continuous customer experience loop. Below, we break down how to apply it step by step, explaining key concepts in plain language and mapping them to real-world B2B scenarios.

1. Reframe Your Funnel Around Revenue Moments

Traditional funnels stop at “Closed-Won”. But in B2B — especially in industries like maritime logistics — the real revenue often begins after the first sale: in renewals, cross-sells, upsells, or long-term freight contracts.

What to do:

• Redefine your funnel’s end-point. Your new goal is net revenue retention (NRR), not just initial ARR.
• Build your CRM and attribution models around milestones like contract renewal, account expansion, or multi-port integration (in maritime contexts).

This is especially critical for SaaS-based solutions, where continued usage is tied to ongoing value creation and revenue predictability.

2. Map Pre-Sale and Post-Sale Stages Explicitly

The bowtie model has two wings:

• The left side is about capturing demand (traditional marketing and sales).
• The right side is about expanding and retaining that demand (customer success, account management, and ongoing marketing).

For example, if you’re targeting freight forwarding companies:

• Left wing stages: Engaged prospect → MQL → Opportunity → Closed-Won
• Right wing stages: Onboarded → Value Realized → Advocate → Expansion

Key Tip: Create lifecycle definitions for each stage, with aligned content and KPIs. E.g., onboarding = they’ve used your port visibility dashboard 3 times in 2 weeks.

3. Create Content That Serves Both Sides

Most B2B content teams focus 90% on the pre-sale journey. The bowtie model demands that you create just as much content for the post-sale stages.

Examples of right-wing content:

• Product tutorials and setup guides (e.g., for logistics APIs)
• Customer success stories showcasing ROI in specific lanes or regions
• Renewal battlecards for account managers
• Expansion playbooks (e.g., “From Port Visibility to Predictive Routing”)

For SaaS offerings, this content is key to driving adoption and platform stickiness.

Pro Tip: Work with your CSMs and support teams to identify common friction points that content can help solve.

4. Align Revenue Teams Around Shared Metrics

The bowtie funnel breaks down silos between sales, marketing, and customer success. It’s about team alignment around recurring value.

What this looks like in practice:

• Marketing tracks activation and retention, not just MQLs.
• Sales understands what a healthy, long-term customer looks like.
• CS owns not only NPS but expansion pipeline.
• Leadership reviews Revenue Efficiency Ratios (e.g. LTV:CAC, NRR%) not just top-funnel volume.

In maritime SaaS platforms, for instance, NRR may come from helping shippers expand usage from one port region to three.

5. Build a Feedback Loop from the Right Wing to the Left

Customer feedback, usage data, and support tickets from existing clients can be a goldmine for content ideas, messaging, and product roadmap insights.

Apply this by:

• Creating a regular Voice of the Customer loop across teams.
• Using expansion wins to fuel ABM campaigns.
• Letting CS inform persona refinement: what does your most successful shipping client have in common?

6. Instrument & Visualize the Full Funnel

You need the data structure to match the model. This means building out a bowtie-aligned reporting view in a more Right-Wing oriented ‘unified customer platform’ like Planhat.

Track metrics like:

• Conversion rates across pre-sale (e.g., Lead → SQL)
• Time to onboard / time to value (post-sale)
• Expansion revenue % over time
• Retention by ICP fit

This is particularly powerful in SaaS-based setups, where everything from login frequency to feature usage can indicate churn risk or expansion potential.

Example: A maritime analytics platform may find that port operators with existing data teams expand 2x faster. That’s valuable ICP insight!

7. Rewire Your Team’s Language

Finally, this is cultural. You need your marketing, sales, and CS teams to speak the same language.

Instead of saying:

• “We closed a deal” → Say: “We’ve acquired a valuable client to showcase our impact.”
• “The funnel ends here” → Say: “The relationship begins here.”
• “Our job is lead gen” → Say: “Our job is to gain interest and convince by customer impact.”

This small change has a massive impact on alignment and mindset.

Final Thoughts: From Growth to Sustainable Revenue

The bowtie funnel reframes growth as a continuous loop — not a straight line. For maritime companies where every account is high-value and deeply integrated, this model creates clarity and accountability across teams.

And because software is now at the heart of so many maritime offerings, a SaaS-based business model — built on recurring revenue, continuous value, and scalable adoption — requires a go-to-market approach that reflects that reality. The bowtie funnel delivers just that.

Curious where your bowtie funnel is leaking revenue? Let’s find out together.

👉 Book a strategy session with OnTarget

OnTarget is a B2B Go-To-Market consultancy based in the Netherlands. We specialize in building growth strategies that bridge marketing, sales, and customer success — especially for industries where complexity and excellence is the norm.