Lead Generation can no longer be about numbers. It’s all about building relationships. But have your strategies caught up?

There is a deep-rooted issue with B2B marketing right now. And it can be called the lead generation problem. The leads that are handed off to sales are dipping in quality each year, and the bottom of the funnel remains unaffected.

To this effect, there is a lot of blame going on. Salespeople are quick to blame the problem on marketing for their delivery of leads.

Of course, outbound and inbound lead generation is in the hands of a company’s marketing department. Sales are there to close, and they can’t close an account that isn’t interested in the company offers.

This premature handing off of leads is the cause of many problems- major of which is the damage to a brand’s reputation and the waste of prospects’ and organizations’ time.

Buyers are becoming cautious. The unfulfilled promises by companies, lackluster solutions, and time-consuming communications have made the buying committee jaded.

And what about the saturation of the market? The SaaS buyer is overwhelmed with the options available to them, and still, the marketing industry continues on with its old tricks and plays.

These playbooks are failing and falling rapidly. We are in an age where lead generation is increasingly about the buyer.

It’s time to re-evaluate lead generation and the handoff to sales.

Part 1: What’s happening in marketing?

Marketing as an industry was based on reaching the ideal buyer. The ICP is crucial- that’s why the industry niched down and tried reaching its relevant prospect who would appreciate the communication and would “resonate” with it.

Marketing became a message to the buyer, and that message was, “We understand you; this is who we are, and this is what we can do for you.” This attitude worked for a while and then came the unmet promises.

Marketing messages promised efficiency to the buyer, but it was met with bloat. You don’t have to go far to see this bloat. Google your product’s solution or ask an AI what solutions are available in your domain- you will find thousands of results in the same category. All promising the same as you but in a different tone and language.

Can the buyer navigate all thousands of these messages? No, and thus, they became self-directed. They knew what they wanted, so why not do all the work themselves? It was easier and hassle-free.

To this response, marketing became more forceful. All organic interactions called MQLs were sent to sales, and then salespeople started contacting or calling them or both. This leads to failure.

But the good thing about low-quality MQLs is volume delivery. Out of 1000 leads, at least two were good. And that was acceptable for a while and justified the ROI.

And then organic reaches began to drop. So did MQLs. Outreach became the only way, and the buyers’ inbox was filled with marketing spam. And with AI making it easier to generate content, buyers have become more cautious and guarded.

The problem is deep-rooted.

Before we speak of the handoff to sales, we have to understand that the problem is a deep-rooted one.

Before generating leads and before lead scoring, the marketing team must define their ICP. Luckily, SaaS products are well-suited for this.

SaaS founders, product teams, and marketing teams know their ideal buyer. The common mistake here is bombarding prospects without understanding the overall context.

Marketing is about understanding the culture of the buyer. And this is a crucial step missed by many. Just because a product is amazing, it won’t translate to an understanding by the buyer. Think of all the messages you receive. How many do you give the time of your day?

Probably very few. But that one message that delights you or speaks to you is the one that receives your attention.

These messages are the ones that know the culture and the context you are in. When someone says lead gen is a problem, you think, “Hey, that’s right!”. That is, a marketer understands an existing problem.

The more of these conversations you have with your potential buyer, the more they will grow to trust you. However, it requires heavy research into the domain.

First and foremost, marketing must be looked at as a messenger. Not just a bottom-line driver of immediate growth.

As McKinsey says, “Marketing is a long-term investment of growth.”

and that is true. Marketing is a brand’s way of communicating values, diving deep into desires, and promising to make the desires come true.

Organizations, especially B2B, need to understand the value of brand-customer relationships because it is the basis of all lead-generation activities.

1. Friction
2. Touchpoints
3. Social Proofs
4. and everything crucial to marketing metrics is based on this relationship.

To build high-quality lead pipelines, the brand must: –

1. Using the right channel, founders must share their industry-specific perspectives and what they have learned.
2. The social-channel methodology should not be self-promotional but should include the problem you solve and why.
3. Your email outreach and newsletters will speak for your product, the problem you are solving, and how.
4. You can break these rules to see what works for you.

But that last step requires steeping into uncertainty, and today’s marketing teams are ill-prepared for it. There is too much reliance on data and very little on relationship-building and perspective-making.

Part 2: Sales’ role

Sales’ role is changing. Now that AI agents can set up meetings, and answer queries, score leads —everything that can be automated will be automated.

The low-level stuff of sales jobs will go to AI. That means more time to do things that build relationships with the prospects.

This includes researching and providing the real-time paint points of the buyer to the marketing team. Which is crucial in coming to an understanding of what constitutes a lead.

Yes, the definition of lead is vital to the handover. If there is no agreed-upon definition and qualification criteria, it will cause a disconnect between the leads that are qualified.

Sales must take responsibility for this.

Part 3: The Handoff

Last year (2024) saw many sales teams reporting a lack of high-quality leads. The issue seemed endemic to the B2B SaaS industry. Inbound leads were not up to the mark.

This must have caused tensions to increase between marketing and sales teams. Even if the sales teams do everything right, there’s no point if the transfer itself is defective. Marketing teams have gotten into the habit of delivering quantity over quality.

The saturation of the market is one reason that has been going around recently. There aren’t as many leads as there once were.

We’ve all seen the stat from Ehrenberg-Bass Institute— at any given time, the people in-market is as much as 5% and less.

But here’s the problem. CEOs, CFOs, and CSOs want numbers to reflect quickly- marketing must prove its ROI or face scrutiny.

And the cycle of trying to attract the buying pool of the 5% begins. Every competitor will be after them, reducing the chance of being discovered. With self-buying, especially, the chances have become slimmer.

Understanding self-buy

The buyer is self-directed. They know what they want and why they want it. They aren’t as much looking for a solution as they are confirming their choice.

These 5% that are so valuable to the B2B SaaS industry have already made up their mind before their buying journey has started. They’re just comparing other options with their initial and desired choice.

If you can sway the account in your favor, that is good. But looking at the numbers, only a few have been able to do so.

The solution is the 95%

Lead scoring is vital for the quality of leads received, and so is nurturing. But often, lead scoring is confused with the buyer’s behavior with the vendor.

For example, if a buyer downloaded a whitepaper and signed up for your webinar, that’s 20/20 points for interest.

If the buyer sits for your webinar, that’s a lead ready to buy.

Your sales team, primed and excited, calls them and gets shot down.

The buyer had already decided on the vendor. They just wanted to see if you offered anything else.

Because if they did like what you had to offer, there’s a good chance they might have asked to talk to a sales rep— that behavior is actually the one deserving a good score.

So, what? Do you stop inbound and outbound? No. Quite the opposite, you market to an audience of 95%.

95%, and the 5%

Lead scoring and nurturing should be divided into two segments: –

1. The watchers – 95%
2. And the takers- 5%.

CEOs must understand what the CMOs have known for years— marketing affects the bottom line first incrementally and then exponentially.

Both segments require different strategies. What marketing teams have to do here is to create separate rules and scoring systems for two distinct groups.

The watchers

1. For the watchers, the crux of the strategy should be relationship-building and understanding their needs. This is simple. By analyzing their behavior, you will be able to personalize the content.
2. Then, assigning scores to certain behaviors. The real creativity would be to understand what the data is saying. e.g., Can any behavior of theirs help you detect the timeline of their purchase?

These leads— are not quite MQL but rather a Qualified-for-Nurturing segment. With this list, you can start building authentic and meaningful relationships.

Buyers usually have a list of first preferences. With this strategy, be a part of that list.

The only thing a business needs to thrive at this point is patience.

The Takers

For the takers, the strategy calls for something more attention-grabbing. This requires a lot of trust in the product you are selling and an understanding of the buyers’ core problem.

The accounts you’re selling to will have a lot of bias. The committee set for decision-making has bias embedded in them. Each individual has their role and risks to mitigate.

There are two possible options:

1. All of them agree on a first-choice vendor
2. But everyone also has their first-choice vendor.

Both of these possibilities can be simultaneously true. The question: is your solution one of them?

To understand that and implement an effective ABM strategy— your solution will have to understand the explicit intent of the account and where it’s tending towards.

The question here is: What solution are they looking for, and the reason for doing so?

Here for the lead scores— you can implement a BANT-like questionnaire that answers questions like:-

1. Why is the prospect switching?
2. What are they looking for in possible solutions?
3. What are their business priorities?
4. What are the risks they are facing?

Of course, you must design these questions into their experience so that the answers come organically.

The next step would be to assign scores.

But what should the scoring system look like? As discussed, it can’t be one-dimensional— that is where marketing teams are losing prospects.

It should be behavioral but also be contextual.

1. Is the account proactive in its search?
2. What has been the response from the communication?
3. What conversations are the sales teams having with the stakeholders from the accounts?
4. Have they spoken to a stakeholder?
5. And so on.

This presents a very dynamic view of the buyer and helps you save time and cost.

The good thing about the takers is that they are time-waste averse.

You need to do that, too.

Collating the leads.

Once you have the scores down- it’s time for the handoff with meticulous detail.

Marketing teams are experts in drawing insights from data, and before the handover, they must lean into this, providing a detailed report of each lead scoring segment, why that score has been assigned, and what it means.

This level of transparency will help sales teams understand where the buyer stands and what level of communication they are prepared for.

In the marketing landscape, MOFU is an opportunity to build meaningful relationships, increasing lead conversion. How can you make the most of this phase?

With the ongoing digitization, the buyer’s journey continues to shift and evolve. When you are at the MOFU phase, your potential customers have gone past the initial awareness stage. They are now at a point where they are seriously considering purchasing your offerings. In this middle stage between TOFU and BOFU, potential prospects know your brand and have shown interest in your product or service. But they are looking at various options to make the best purchase. It is also the phase where they perform a comparative analysis with the competitors. For this reason, MOFU is known as the consideration phase of the sales funnel.  

At this point, supplying some information that will help them make an informed decision. Your marketing strategy targeting the mid-funnel must balance a solid foundation with flexible strategies.

Utilizing the potential of middle-of-the-funnel

The key ingredient of acing MOFU marketing comprises delivering content that conveys the right solution to your prospects. You need to provide them with detailed information about your offerings, or some added value to engage them. Amplify your mid-funnel content by making it more helpful and informative, without being too sales-y. Your target audience must feel like your offerings are providing some value. And it’s not some aggressive sales pitch. When you launch relevant and value-rich content, prospects are likely to respond positively to them.

While providing useful data, focus on building relationships with potential customers. You can achieve this through personalized emails or social media messages. Using these initiatives, you want your prospects to become excited or motivated to read the messages or posts. Building strong relationships with your prospects cultivates trust in your brand, making them more likely to purchase your offerings.

Mid-funnel buyers involve more thorough research from the prospects’ end before they go ahead and leap into that final decision to buy. Utilize this crucial point to stand out from the other brands, so the prospects choose you over the competitors. The mid-funnel content should revolve around delivering solutions that address the audience’s pain points. You should be able to help the MOFU buyers find the right solution through your content.

MOFU Marketing Tactics

Prospects entering the middle-of-the-funnel may not be familiar with your products or services. So, your main objective here is to enhance customer-brand relationships. By implementing this approach, your team can establish its authority in the market. The mid-funnel phase is also the perfect time for you to start nurturing leads who may not be ready for a sales discussion yet. Implementing a robust content marketing strategy can be a great tool to showcase the value of your brand. To accomplish this, your marketing strategy should be research-based and involve educational content, thought leadership, and case studies.

An effective MOFU content marketing helps you close the gap between the initial curiosity the audience feels when they engage with a brand’s content and the final sale. The leads you have at this stage are in the consideration phase of the customer journey. Your marketing team needs to produce educational content that engages the audience to your brand, increasing the lead conversion.

Key Elements of Successful Mid-Funnel Content

An effective mid-funnel content must be educational and highly persuasive while being target-specific. When you create materials with all these components, there is a better chance that your customers will resonate with your brand, causing them to convert into leads. Let’s look at each of these elements more closely.

Educational and brand-specific

Considering the prospects in your MOFU, they already have a solid understanding of your brand and its offerings. But what they need to dive into is how your company is different from the competitors and why they should go for your product/service. That is why, when creating content, make sure it is more sophisticated and informative, discussing your USPs.

Highly-Targeted Content

At its core, middle-of-the-funnel is your chance to add prospects in your sales cycle who are already interested in your offerings. Utilize this aspect of the sales process as an opportunity to drive more organic traffic to your site through engaging content. However, there is a stark difference between actionable insights and consumers casually seeking a solution. To garner customers likely to convert into paying accounts, you will want to create targeted content, supplying them with specific information that adds value and addresses a problem faced. 

Engaging Content

In the MOFU phase, your content needs to hook prospects for the long haul, inviting them to explore more about your company and its products or services. When developing your content plan for the mid-funnel phase, ensure that you provide enough data that gives them confidence in your brand to solve their problems. Showcase your unique capabilities and publish various forms of content demonstrating your expertise. A gentle push is all you need at this stage to convert into leads.

Types of content for effective MOFU marketing

Middle-of-the-funnel marketing requires certain forms of content to create an impact. These are some examples to educate your audience with the resources they need.

Case Studies

Through case studies, you can offer insightful explanations of how your offerings will make a difference and what new it is providing that other brands are now. You can highlight success stories or discuss applications of your products or services. This will let potential customers understand how you helped their existing clients achieve business goals. When creating case studies, demonstrate data such that your customers feel connected. They will want to see how the success of other brands can relate to them.

White Papers

The core mission of launching whitepapers is to draw light on a specific pain point and promote an approach you used to overcome the hurdle. As a brand that wants to stand out, you must publish white papers on your website and share them in your email campaigns. You must ensure they contain valuable, concrete facts, and statistical data that give your offerings a steady skeleton. If engrained with the right ingredients, white papers allow your prospects to grasp first-hand the benefits of your solutions.

Email Campaigns

Target-specific email campaigns provide an easy and effective route to reach many prospects. For instance, if you can garner more email open rates, it implies that your email marketing campaigns are making an impression to lead to actions. You can also look into email newsletters to compile value-added information to provide details about your brand. These campaigns can be curated to provide insights to move leads further into the funnel. The standout feature of emailers is they allow you to send multiple messages in one go.

Blog Posts

Whether you are a new brand or have established your brand voice strongly in the market, blogs are a useful catalyst to amp up your sales funnel. You can curate articles as per your audience, trying out different lengths and formats while you do so. Each blog is customizable plus easy to consume. The best part of blogs is updating informational content that your prospects will consume. If your blogs have unique insights, they also give you a cutting edge. Enrich your blogs by adding more SEO keywords and relevant links to increase search rates.

News Articles

Publishing curated news pieces could open another doorway of communication with your target audience. While launching this content form, obtain a content license from a trusted source that helps you share timely and reliable updates. In this way, you can enhance brand credibility among your prospects.

Summing up,

The middle-of-the-funnel is one step ahead in the sales funnel. Your prospects have surpassed the getting-acquainted-with-your-brand phase and are seriously considering choosing your brand. This phase is all about them researching and comparing across competitors to decipher which brand makes the best fit for them. The way for your brand to shine in this stage is to provide content that enlightens them on how your brand’s offerings will solve their pain point. You can retain more leads past the MOFU phase by launching value-rich content that highlights your services and offerings. It is a great stage in the funnel to increase lead conversion by planning and delivering content that matters.

Weaknesses in your sales pipeline are detrimental. Can the right sales pipeline metrics help elevate the buyer’s journey?

Numbers and data, when isolated from each other, are meaningless. They exist within specific contexts.

We turn them into a quantifiable metric by tracking, analyzing, and comparing them to churn out meaning. This is how metrics help us gauge the effectiveness of a method.

Across the marketing and sales landscape, metrics help us assess and measure performance or production. It quantifies your marketing efforts to measure their effectiveness in boosting conversion rates and lead sales velocity.

Sales pipeline metrics operate in the same manner.

Sales pipeline: The basic understanding.

Sales pipeline is a visual representation of how your prospects move through the different stages in the funnel, i.e., from initial contact to closing a deal. Simply put, it helps analyze the overall buyer journey – what’s causing the drop-offs or why it’s taking so long to close a deal.

Sales pipelines are unique for every business and industry. What it generally looks like depends on the buyer’s journey, depending on their interests, preferences, priorities, and research.

Each buyer moves distinctly to accommodate the pipeline according to their journey, i.e., personalizing and making it effective. More than being sturdy, the pipeline is elastic and adapts to the prospective movements.

It generally includes three processes: lead generation, lead nurturing, and deal closing.

And, these are broader stages covered within the sales pipeline:

Prospecting ⇒ Lead qualification ⇒ Initial contact ⇒ Official proposal ⇒ Negotiation ⇒ Closing the deal

The most crucial objective here is that the pipeline should be able to handle the volume of leads without compromising the engagement quality or performance. If your brand is witnessing low conversion rates, certain challenges within your pipeline should be addressed.

Some of the common challenges your sales and marketing team may encounter include:

• Lack of historical data on closed deals
• Off-market target audience guiding leads off-base
• Absence of measurable targets
• Lack of visibility or knowledge regarding the status of the sales pipeline
• No use of effective CRM tools to track leads
• Not following up on cold leads
• Inadequate conversion status updates
• Neglected workable and high-quality leads

These are the potential weak spots of your sales pipeline.

So, how do we overcome them?

The Importance of Sales Pipeline Metrics in Driving Success

Certain metrics let us assess how to alleviate these concerns and improve the different stages across the sales journey.

Pipeline metrics are crucial.

Each team member should familiarize themselves with tracking them regularly. Even if the sales pipeline metrics vary for businesses, some general ones should still be tracked by your team.

Understanding what drives your prospects to close a deal in a win or what makes them drop off midway through these metrics also offers significant opportunities for improvement.

This is why choosing the relevant metrics takes precedence.

How can you choose the right sales pipeline metrics that align with your business goals?

1. Align metrics with the business goal you wish to achieve.

Don’t just track numbers; ensure that these numbers boost you closer to your business goals. This data, when siloed, doesn’t mean anything. But within the right context, they mark your progress towards your objectives.

For example, if your goal is to elevate the organization’s market share, then total revenue wouldn’t offer you the nuanced picture. Here, tracking the share of wallet and sales per territory makes more sense.

The crucial factor here is taking a granular approach. If you are dominating the market, how do you ensure that it remains ten years down the line?

2. Leverage a balanced approach.

Identifying bottlenecks is as vital as predicting the success of your sales strategies. To get a more molecular insight into where the lacks and gaps are most prevalent, you can’t just focus on certain metrics while dismissing the rest.

It’s true that the approach must revamp in today’s modern sales landscape. But traditionally relevant metrics take as much precedence as implementing new ones.

This means taking a balanced approach to choosing the right metrics.

Your strategic framework should entail a mix of lagging and leading indicators – one that demonstrates the past performance (closed deals) and ones that forecast (qualified leads).

A balance between them can help your marketing and sales teams to revisit, review, strategize, and analyze accurately.

3. Assess periodically and update your metrics.

One of the most strategic means of selecting the right sales pipeline metrics is assessing what’s working and what isn’t, and updating the list.

It’s crucial to start from somewhere. Each data point can give you the slightest idea into what your sales strategy needs to rework on.

What worked before might not work today. Don’t let the stale metrics prove your efforts ineffective. So, review them periodically to ascertain that they align with the current business challenges and requirements.

4. Get a comprehensive understanding of the entire customer journey.

Numbers wouldn’t always tell you where the rupture is. Most often, sales hit the wall while making a sale or post it.

This is because most only focus on pre-sale metrics and interactions. This damages the customer experience and leads to missed opportunities.

To avoid this, it’s necessary to track the customer experience, too. Metrics, such as sales cycle length, can offer you a 360-degree insight into what’s truly going wrong.

The bottom line?

The sales pipeline metrics you end up choosing must be actionable. If they aren’t, it poses a significant obstacle for you.

These metrics should illustrate a specific behavior – what is happening, what has changed, and what can be done about this.

The right sales metrics don’t merely offer postmortem pipeline analysis. They allow you to proactively make informed decisions and offer clarity into nuggets that often go unnoticed.

Don’t measure everything. Focus on those that align with your goals.

Fundamental sales pipeline metrics to amplify your efforts

Opportunities

The total number of opportunities matters because it portrays the results of your lead generation efforts. Your lead generation efforts should target prospects fitting the ICP, i.e., the ideal customer profile.

What factors qualify prospects as opportunities? There are some criteria that most businesses focus on.

• Demographics – age, gender, income, family structure, education, occupation, etc.
• Firmographics – company size, ownership, market share, location, sales cycle stage, financial performance, etc.
• Psychographics – value proposition, goals, interests, lifestyle choices, etc.

A prospect does not have to follow each criterion, as they vary according to the organization.

To track this, teams must prioritize lead quality because it aptly demonstrates which leads are the most valuable and can easily convert into opportunities.

By analyzing which accounts you count as an opportunity, your team can optimize its marketing efforts and improve lead-nurturing processes to keep them engaged as they move through the pipeline.

How can we assess lead quality?

To simplify this, your sales team can use the BANT or MEDICC lead qualification framework.

The opportunities should be tracked and assessed weekly, monthly, or bimonthly, depending on the preferences of your company. However, it can also be done regularly in case of rapid market fluctuations, multiplying lead volumes, or during push season due to an event.

New Leads

The number of new leads entering your pipeline offers an overview of the success of your marketing campaigns. Additionally, it helps outline your brand’s market reach and offers quantifiable data to back your efforts.

It is necessary to highlight these new leads to establish whether your lead generation strategies are efficient.

Once in a while, we should question whether we are chasing hollow leads with no future potential and wasting our resources.

The end solution follows a comprehensive tracking system and establishes a timeframe depending on the pace and volume of generated leads. Document the number of leads, segment them, analyze the trends, and then compare the different lead-gen efforts to help optimize your strategies.

Overall, lead quality reflects your sales and marketing efforts – how effective they are. But it could largely differ from business size to industry to marketing strategies.

Hence, there’s nothing as simple as “good” or “bad” leads.

By documenting the acquired leads regularly against how many of them actually convert, the results will automatically indicate the performance of your strategies.

MQL to SQL Conversion Rates

This conversion rate calculates the number of marketing-qualified leads who convert into sales-qualified leads. They show interest, sign up, provide their contact info, and subscribe for a demo period to further inspect the solutions offered to them.

These metrics highlight the performance of your lead qualification strategies.

An effective lead-nurturing process will eventually illustrate high engagement results, which may translate to high conversion rates. This indicates a healthy alignment between the sales and marketing teams.

How often do we assess MQL to SQL conversion rates?

Calculate MQL to SQL conversion rates monthly. With this, you will allow the lead qualification processes to work at their own pace, enabling you to make adjustments and understand if they are returning the desired outcomes.

The acceptable range for this conversion rate depends on the industry, business objectives, and past performance – your MQL-SQL conversion rate benchmarks.

Lead Velocity Rate

Velocity measures whether an object is accelerating or decelerating. This applies to a sales pipeline. The lead velocity rate compares the leads generated in the current business period to the previous one.

The velocity rate calculates qualified leads, helping you analyze whether your lead-generation efforts are fruitful and effective. It aids in strategic resource allocation and sales processes, amplifying your efforts.

This metric is crucial to understanding your business revenue growth.

If the number of generated leads for the latest sales cycle remains similar or lower than the previous sales cycle, you know you’re doing something wrong. Thus, it should be assessed monthly or quarterly, depending on your company’s needs.

There is no acceptable velocity rate.

It depends on the industry and your business. Remember, you are your biggest competition.

In every sales cycle, the target should be to generate more leads through improved strategies compared to the previous one.

Average Deal Size

Average deal size is another significant factor that measures the health of your sales pipeline. It represents the monetary value ascribed to a sale.

Tracking the average deal size your business is partaking in helps with sales and demand forecasting.

In the long term, regularly tracking average deal sizes can assist in optimizing and streamlining strategies for marketing and sales initiatives. It is important to reach your brand targets and meet broader market conditions.

Sales Cycle Duration

Analyzing the monetary value of a sale is as significant as calculating the duration of the deal. This metric focuses on the details. It offers an insight into how a deal got stuck and why, with ways to improve it.

Sales cycle duration is the average time a deal spends at every specific stage of the sales cycle. Tracking minute errors resulting in potential delays is easier by calculating the sales cycle duration.

Additionally, this provides crucial insight into the sales cycle length, i.e., the time it takes from the initial contact to the lead being closed. This is also one of the sales pipeline metrics to track.

After all, this also affects the time a deal takes to close.

There are three metrics that we are addressing – average sales cycle duration, sales cycle length, and time taken to close.

These three metrics also help sales forecasting, so your brand can establish practical targets.

A long sales duration can cause a huddle in your pipeline, resulting in relatively high lost deals or drop-offs.

Both these metrics depend on diverse factors, such as the complexity of the product or service. The sales cycles across the B2B landscape are generally longer due to the several decision-makers in the buying committee. And this might delay the purchase as each of them holds their interests and pain points.

You should curate your marketing techniques based on your target market to overcome such hiccups.

• Establish priority and build trust regarding the prospects.
• Conduct customer research and feedback programs.
• Provide social proof through value propositions that align with the prospect’s preferences and pain points.
• Time-sensitive offers that urge prospects to take action.
• Streamline and integrate your lead nurturing and sales enablement strategies to retarget interested leads and stay on their tail.

These sales pipeline KPIs are mutually dependent on each other to some extent. But their goal remains the same, i.e., measuring how efficiently your sales and marketing efforts convert leads into paying customers.

Number of Deals Won

This pipeline metric tracks the number of successful deals. This is relative to the total number of opportunities during a specific period.

Conversion rates are crucial to drive business growth.

The higher the conversion rates, the faster your business can attain its goals. This is why conversion rates are one of the most crucial sales metrics.

If the conversion rates are low or don’t align with industry benchmarks, you can outline fresher roadmaps by identifying the areas of improvement.

What factors contribute to a successful deal? What have you done differently to win a deal than the one dropped off?

These are the questions you ask your sales and marketing team while analyzing the conversion rates and other trends in your data.

Most often, the opportunities may be high, but the win rates are low, signifying a major lack in the closing stages of the pipeline.

Age of a Deal

This is one of the effective and simple metrics you can use when a deal is taking an unnecessarily long time to move through the pipeline, or the prospect themselves are taking too long to make a decision.

With an increasingly long decision-making period, it is less likely that a prospect converts.

You need to assess why the lead didn’t convert and where they got stuck.

How do you avoid this? – Identify the bottlenecks, remove them, and boost the sales velocity.

To move this forward, your company should equip the sales representatives with the right resources and sales enablement or acceleration tools to drive the purchasing process.

By accelerating the sales processes, the age of the deal will automatically reduce, offering space for more successful closes.

Sales Rep Activity

This metric offers insight into the sales team members’ sales performance. Measuring this helps foster team productivity and takes team accountability.

It outlines how your sales team performs through outreach emails sent, the number of calls made, and the meetings booked by each sales representative. Track the sales and categorize them based on factors such as rep, team, region, product/service(s), etc. using efficient CRM tools.

Through the results, your team can assess whether the sales rep is compensated for their contributions. And once analyzed, underperformers can be equipped with more resources and support from their superiors.

How do you improve the number of top performers, boost sales rep activity, and amplify sales?

The lack of correct skills and knowledge is a huge obstacle. To improve this, offering regular training and coaching sessions to newbies is a way to go.

The training should include actively engaging with prospects and staying updated with industry trends. Actively assessing and improving individual sales per rep will help boost the sales team’s productivity.

Total Pipeline Value

This sales pipeline metric measures the total value of deals in your pipeline. The total pipeline value depends on the value of the sales opportunity, the pipeline stage, and the time taken to close it.

By tracking the value of the current opportunity, it is possible to measure the total forecasted business revenue. Hence, it is a valuable metric for sales forecasting.

If you compare your total pipeline value with your win rates, it can help you forecast how much sales revenue could be generated at the end of the sales cycle. If combined with the sales cycle length, it can help analyze the total revenue potential.

To calculate TPV, each opportunity is provided with a specific monetary value, helping to estimate the total sales amount.

Customer Churn Rate

Also known as the customer turnover rate, it’s the number of customers you’re losing or drop-off from the purchasing journey.

This can be quite a requisite KPI for businesses, as it indicates customers are losing interest in your product or service.

However, this might not be the actual case.

Drop-off rates are as important as win rates. It becomes difficult to identify the improvement areas without highlighting the weak points.

Customer churn rate is a necessary metric in subscription business models.

It calculates the customer percentage that doesn’t renew and cancels their subscription services within a month or a year. Hence, this pipeline metric is significant for companies that rely on a recurring pricing model like SaaS or subscription services.

Implement CRM tools to determine how to boost the workings of your subscription models. And highlight the number of paying customers currently compared to the beginning.

⇒ Customer churn rate formula = (the number of customers lost/total customers at the beginning of the period) *100

For the broader picture, the customer churn rate helps highlight the forecasted revenue, improve customer loyalty, prioritize customer success, and enhance marketing strategies.

Average Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)

Customer acquisition cost signifies the company’s expenditure on acquiring new customers. It includes marketing and sales expenses, salaries, overheads, commissions, bonuses, etc.

However, CAC in marketing implies something different.

The main expenses entail the content, training, software, and other overhead costs. The goal is to prioritize investments that generate regular returns with minimum maintenance costs, such as curating content-specific blog posts.

It helps you assess the profitability, i.e., the amount you spend on a customer compared to the profit you make from selling your services to the customer.

This metric helps with resource allocation, making your customer acquisition process efficient and simpler. Simply put, there is no significant need to focus too long on this process. Sometimes, an expensive customer might not mean that they are equally profitable.

Your sales and marketing teams should incorporate smart and streamlined strategies. An uncommonly high CAC might mean inefficiencies that require vigilance to enable long-term stability.

Remember to research your target audience. Host automated testing regularly to maximize your ROI using the existing customer acquisition efforts.

How can you calculate the customer acquisition cost?

First, add all the sales and marketing expenses. Then, divide this total by the number of new customers.

⇒ CAC = (sales expenses + marketing expenses)/total number of new customers

Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)

After spending an ample amount on your cost acquisition efforts, how do you assess whether it is profitable?

Through customer lifetime value.

This metric calculates the value the customer brings to your business, including the amount they spend on your services, their time as customers, and their purchase frequencies.

By taking individual CLV into account, you can analyze the value of your entire customer base. It will offer insight into how much effort you should spend on customer acquisition.

To enhance CLV, focus on customer retention.

Implement new customer service strategies promptly, addressing their concerns to build a strong professional relationship. When the customers are satisfied and happy, they are likely to remain loyal and purchase your services.

The most significant strategy for driving customer lifetime value is improving customer service, personalized recommendations, discount offers, user-friendly websites, etc.

So, finding a solution based on the metrics can help you improve your sales and marketing strategies. One of which would be to reduce the stages in the sales funnel that are unnecessarily time-consuming.

Now that we have listed the most significant and common sales pipeline KPIs, why is it important to track the right pipeline metrics?

Because even the slightest mistakes can render their efforts ineffective, hampering the ROI, and congesting the pipeline.

Fundamental mistakes teams make while tracking sales pipeline metrics

We’ve established that the right sales pipeline metrics go beyond conversion rates and total revenue. The actual challenge lies in aligning the metrics with business needs and the growth stage.

A majority of teams overlook the nuances, leading to a conundrum. This creates obvious mistakes that fester, especially due to a significant knowledge gap.

What are some of the fundamental ones?

• Isolated focus on vanity metrics: Even today, businesses continue to prioritize numbers that look good in theory but don’t represent the actual performance. This could create a false sense of progress, while deeper performance issues remain overlooked. And even mislead or confuse the stakeholders.

• Misaligned or irrelevant metrics: Most teams don’t take the time to understand the broader objectives and how they align with sales performance. This can easily derail your focus, not making any significant contributions to your business’s current priorities. And SDRs might end up pushing low-margin deals, delaying crucial shifts.

• Overlooking the context: It’s context that takes precedence over raw numbers. Metrics should be segmented by channel type, customer profiles, etc., to spotlight performance gaps. An inaccurate picture can lead to strategies that only work for a specific segment. Marketing and sales must fine-tune their approach accordingly.

Each of the above mistakes can have a compounding effect while tracking your sales pipeline metrics. They distort the overall assessment that impacts how the resources are allocated and how strategies are executed.

But there’s an antidote: intentional, agile, and goal-aligned metrics that align with the evolving sales and growth model.

A healthy sales pipeline is like a cocktail glass.

Jeff Hoffman, an entrepreneur and sales executive, argues that a sales pipeline is a cocktail glass rather than a funnel, stating that the latter is inaccurate. Most prospect drop-offs happen near the top in the first stage when the lead comes across a demo, trial, or sign-up.

After passing through this milestone, the opportunity pool should remain approximately the same, and the probability that the opportunity is won is highly likely. This is the make-up of a healthy sales pipeline.

To some extent, we may think about how the shape of the sales pipeline aligns with reality.

The stages and shape of this movement vary according to the buyers, industry, and sales processes.

Why is sales pipeline analysis crucial? To optimize your sales performance, client experience, and drive business growth.

Maintaining a simple and efficient sales pipeline is healthy for your business and sales revenue. But how do we know what “healthy” looks like?

FAQs

1. How can you effectively assess your sales pipeline?

A. Assessing your sales pipeline isn’t about counting closed deals or appointments booked. It’s about deal velocity and step-by-step conversion rate, among others.

To effectively assess its health, your teams must dive into comprehensive reports to spotlight bottlenecks and performance gaps. And segregate the metrics’ analysis by deal type or client profiles, or lead source, etc., to identify hidden ruptures.

2. What are sales pipeline metrics?

A. Sales pipeline metrics are qualitative and quantitative values that track the number and quality of created opportunities. These are crucial to demonstrate the health of your sales pipeline – whether your sales strategies are bearing the desired outcomes.

The common metrics are pipeline value, customer acquisition cost, customer churn rate, deal age, number of deals won, etc. A mix of both lagging and leading metrics provides a curious insight into what’s happening and the revenue potential.

3. How can you track sales pipeline metrics?

A. Generally, sales pipeline metrics can be tracked through your CRM systems through detailed reports and comprehensive dashboards. Your focus should be directed towards updating the deal progression, individual sales rep performance, sales cycle length, etc, ones that actually align with your core business goals.

Regularly tracking these metrics can help you tweak your sales strategies to elevate their effectiveness. And improve revenue forecasting.

4. What benchmarks or industry standards should I compare my sales funnel metrics with?

Industry benchmarks such as a 25-30% win rate and a 3x pipeline coverage ratio can add an advantageous starting point for you. And one of the most relevant benchmarks to compare with is your organization’s historical data.

While focusing on the competitor can help you outline a strategic edge, prioritizing your internal metrics can highlight what needs tweaking, whether it’s cross-departmental alignment or an update in infrastructure.

5. What are the most common pitfalls businesses face in tracking sales funnel metrics?

One of the most common pitfalls is depending on inaccurate data that doesn’t offer any useful insights. They can be misleading for your teams as well as stakeholders. Additionally, most businesses make the mistake of tracking the wrong metrics, overlooking segmentation, or merely focusing on lagging metrics.

With an undefined sales strategy, reaching the critical mile may seem like an endless struggle. These 5 steps map out the route to closing more deals.

The success of your brand relies on a solid sales foundation. Without knowing the critical markers, it is hard to measure sales performance. The lack of a clearly defined sales strategy may be why 45% of surveyed sellers believe their biggest challenge is incomplete data. When your sales team follows a system, it allows them to take the right actions at the right time. The 5-step sales process is a structure to improve the efficiency of your closed deals. It is a guideline to ensure that you are on track and open to tweaking your sales approach.

While the sales approach requires tailoring as per your product or services, the five-step sales process lays a strong foundation to get the pipeline moving. Your sales team can utilize this linear approach to move through each step efficiently. These sales steps allow you to seamlessly monitor the performance and identify gaps that require improvement.  

Mastering this framework makes it easier to tweak or modify your sales process strategy in alignment with your goals and the client’s needs.

Step 1: Prospecting

Prospecting involves developing a list of prospects likely to convert into paying accounts. This step has everything to do with researching potential leads and knowing them as much as possible. Understanding the target niche is the stepping stone to drive a sales strategy that yields the results. Focus on your ICP instead of randomly targeting a pool of audience and going nowhere in the journey.

Step 2. Connecting with the customers

Ace the first impression with your target audience. While interacting with the prospects, work toward not making the conversation sales-y. The goal of this step is to transform from a generic call to schedule a first appointment that could potentially close a deal. So, setting the tone right is of utmost importance here.  Building a strong relationship with your client can go a long way.

Step 3: Identifying the pain points

Spend enough time figuring out the challenges of your target audience. You can begin by asking relevant questions to draw out the problem and understand how your offering could address the pain points. As you do your research, also find out their preferred solutions and whether they have budget constraints. Communicate your understanding of their problem and how your solution can help. When doing so, emphasize the winning points while at the same time not sounding too sales-centric.

Step 4: Sealing the Deal

Closing a deal involves a series of discussions and reasonings. As you move towards the final step, make sure you walk through the right questions. Talk about the details of your sales flow chart and be open to handling questions and client objections. Have a clear plan in place as to what you will do if the client objects or if they are not ready to commit yet. Such preparation will pave the way for overcoming roadblocks swiftly.

Step 5: Keeping up with the Follow-up

The journey doesn’t stop at signing a deal. Once you have closed a sale, make sure to follow up with the client. You need to make sure that the client receives the product/service as discussed and the whole experience simulates customer satisfaction. This small initiative can work in your favor, promoting brand loyalty. A happy client is likely to be loyal to your brand. At this stage, do not hesitate to ask for referrals to generate new leads.

Wrapping up

Sales are centered around fulfilling milestones. Every aspect of the sales cycle revolves around garnering the right clients, identifying their pain points, strengthening bonds with them, and offering an ideal solution. These 5 steps can be a real game-changer for your business, aligning with your vision and adding structure to an otherwise complex sales process. You gain clarity and can deliver the best solution to address the customer’s pain points.

Aligning your sales and marketing teams is a crucial propellor for generating high-quality leads. But how do you attain this?

Syncing sales and marketing is an ideal scenario that maintains your growth trajectory. The alignment also delivers a cohesive experience for the target customer base while generating high revenue returns. Although most businesses are aware of this, achieving the unison is easier said than done. Studies indicate that only 8% of brands have successfully aligned their sales and marketing divisions.

Content Marketing Institute found that in cases of misalignment between sales and marketing domains, around 70% of content generated by marketers goes unused because it lacks relevance to the buyer persona. Whereas, HubSpot believes that sales teams struggle to convert around 79% of leads due to a shortcoming to nurture leads. Getting sales and marketing on the same page involves establishing shared goals, strategies, systems, and processes to work unified as a brand. As a result, you can attain better outcomes from marketing activities, such as more closed deals, a higher ROI, and enhanced customer satisfaction.

What happens when Sales & Marketing are misaligned

It is a known fact that sales and marketing diligently work towards the same goal of driving growth and adding to the client network. However, they work in separate silos with different data sets, dealing with metrics, analytics, and so on. When they work as independent streams., it creates a monolithic environment having less capacity to leverage each other’s core competencies. Let’s look at some of the common problems that arise when both sides are working in synergy:

Siloed customer data

The absence of data unification can cause each team to be misinformed about their leads and customers and what they are seeking. For instance, if a sales team is unaware of the marketing strategy being implemented, it may be clueless about client interactions. Alternatively, the marketing team may not receive insights from the sales calls and end up launching campaigns for the wrong audience. This confusion can be avoided by fostering a strong alignment among these two domains.

Under-utilized sales content

Marketing teams strive to create relevant content designed for the target audience, specific to the platforms they frequent. However, if the sales reps do not provide input, all these efforts become futile. When marketers create various forms of content, be it infographics, industry reports, white papers, or some other materials, they need to communicate to the sales team the use of these resources. An alliance among these two sections can help address the sales rep’s needs and deliver result-oriented effective content.

Lead quality

Identifying the target audience is a catalyst to enhance your overall lead quality. Your sales team may focus on adding information-qualified leads, only to be disappointed when the prospects don’t convert into paying accounts. If sales and marketing together identify the lead categories and agree on lead scoring, they can operate more effectively. In this way, the sales team remains updated on the buyer’s journey and the data exchanged during the interactions. It also enables them to prioritize the prospects likely to convert into paying accounts.

The Benefits of Aligning Sales & Marketing

Simply put, misalignment of sales and marketing can hinder customer experience to a large extent. On the contrary, aligning these teams creates a synergistic cross-functional team that can drive your sales pipeline. The partnership between these two teams creates shared objectives and synchronized processes. The marketing branch can help sales generate, qualify, and nurture leads in the sales pipeline. Whereas, sales can promote marketing to bridge any gaps in the funnel. This alignment draws more high-quality leads while shortening the sales cycle. Let’s dive into why it is beneficial to align sales and marketing.

Effective Databank

The current B2B sales and marketing have geared towards a more fragmented solution generating large volumes of data but few insights. Aligning sales and marketing under a common plan results in an integrated tech stack that creates a high-quality data set for both teams.

Highly Motivated Teams

Sales and marketing alignment makes both teams work towards a common goal rather than competing with each other. The outcome is— better performance efficiency and higher revenue growth. Foster better cross-functional collaboration that also contributes to revenue growth. Moreover, aligned teams may be more inclined to stay, contributing to less employee churn.

Improved Resource Utilization

Sales are not involved in content creation. When there is better alignment between these teams, it allows you to deliver more customer-oriented and data-driven messages with input from sales.

Quick and Sustained Growth

Sales and marketing alignment brings them together to collaborate towards a common end goal— higher sales and growth. When everyone heads in the same direction, the friction between the two teams is greatly reduced and the resource utilization goes up. Additionally, the data can become more systematic and lead to streamlined organizational efficiency.

How to establish sales and marketing alignment

These best practices can be your go-to for bringing sales and marketing on the same page.

Set goals

If you may face misalignment, begin by defining objectives and allow both teams to recognize that they are working towards shared goals. This can be anything, from a company’s initiative to a new campaign to adding more clients, both teams must agree on business goals. A stepping stone to uniting sales and marketing is to bring their perspectives on the same page.

Decide a strategy

The next step is for both teams to avoid building independent go-to-market programs. Sales and marketing leaders need to meet regularly to map the buyer’s journey and discuss lead generation, conversion rates, inbound sales tactics, and more. Initiatives such as leadership offsite or regular standing bring clarity and ensure that these divisions work towards the shared goals you discussed previously.

Agree on processes

While executing business objectives, the sales and marketing managers will inevitably interact. If you have a model for promoting cross-functional collaboration, it makes it easy to instill clear communication and eliminate confusion surrounding responsibilities and expectations. Establish the sales and marketing elements upfront to streamline collaborative engagements and amp up the sales funnel.

Create better communications

Poor communication can trigger misalignment of sales and marketing. The best thing to do in such cases is to encourage centralized communication, which ensures that important conversations never go amiss. And transparency in the chain of communication is maintained. You can achieve centralized communication through tools or email campaigns.

Focus on sales enablement

A robust sales enablement framework improves the alignment between these teams. This forms a natural conduit between marketing and sales. For example, there is a sales enablement team to ensure that assets are not presented to sellers without training and guidance on effective application. Investing in a sales enablement team allows you to create reliable information between organizations.

Lead by example

When top leaders in your brand work hard to create the alignments, it works like a ripple effect across the team. Scheduling meetings between the leads of both teams to communicate the explore growth opportunities, offer feedback, and celebrate cross-functional wins can go a long way.

Streamline internal processes

You may be surprised to determine the influence of implementing organizational changes when aligning sales and marketing domains. In this step, introduce niche roles focusing on a specific aspect of the business, like strategy and development, demand generation, and nurturing prospects, for instance. You can also get content marketers on board to develop compelling messages aligned with each stage of the buyer’s journey. This stage is about building a solid framework for each phase of the customer journey, leading to a stronger collaboration between sales and marketing and driving business growth.

For every business that wants to survive the competition and thrive, aligning sales and marketing is no longer a choice. It is necessary to generate B2B leads and grow your brand. Evaluate the current state of these two teams in terms of alignment. The best practices listed here will guide you to build a cohesive relationship between these domains, enabling your teams to achieve the targets and create your mark in the industry.

The key to garnering high-quality leads is an accurate database. How do you maintain it well to accomplish the desired sales growth?

Customer data is all about collecting the right information about potential business prospects for application in sales and marketing operations. This includes data like the company’s name, contact information, industry, etc. Such details allow brands like yours to connect with potential prospects. When you can foster strong relationships with your target audience, it becomes easier to generate high-quality leads.

With B2B databases, you can quickly access target leads and procure necessary information about them. Since more and more relevant leads must be generated for sustained business growth, accurate databases offer a speedy and effective way to enhance your outreach strategy. If you opt for a dataset that is inaccurate or out of date, it can create complications. Searching through vast database options could be daunting, so we have compiled a list of the best tools for you to choose from.

Seven Best B2B Databases

In the digital age, customer databases are valuable tools that help brands drive B2B sales and accomplish their business goals. We have prepared a list of the best tools to help you find the right solution.

Saleshandy Lead Finder

It’s a comprehensive email outreach platform that helps you identify prospects and add them to your cold email sequences. With Saleshandy Lead Finder, acquiring contact information, such as email addresses and phone numbers, is simplified to a great extent. You can search leads with their rich database spanning different companies worldwide. It must be noted that this information is updated regularly to provide proactive and verified email addresses. Although they have a large resource, it makes it easier to narrow down targeted leads with advanced search filters. You can utilize this feature to find leads by their names, designation, department, role, etc.

Apollo

It is a cloud-based sales automation software that simplifies lead generation, contact database management, and email outreach. With over 2 million contributing data sources, this platform allows you to collect email addresses through a 7-step email verification process to ensure correct data delivery. Apollo refines your search with relevant filters, such as company name, size, industry, job role, location, etc. When you search data with these, it helps you reach the right prospects and acquire their contact information. Apollo enables targeting the right decision-makers to communicate based on filters, such as industry, designation, company headcount, etc.

Cognism

It is a sales intelligence tool that uses a combination of artificial intelligence (AI) and human verification to provide you with accurate data. When you use Cognism, you can easily access advanced filters such as emails, technographics, and mobile numbers to filter the data and create a targeted lead list. This helps you attract ideal leads without wasting resources on prospects less likely to convert into paying accounts. Cognism is operational in Chrome as an extension and a mobile app. It is very particular about maintaining data compliance and keeps a ‘do not call list’ to avoid disturbing customers who have opted out of unsolicited phone calls. Through such innovative integrations, Cognism ranks among the top CRM and sales engagement platforms helping you build the sales pipeline and generate new leads.

Lusha

Lusha works perfectly for B2B companies of all sizes to supply precise data. It is a go-to-market platform promoting effective sales and marketing. This database offers you an easy-to-use prospecting tool that simplifies lead identification. You can access the latest and high-quality insights and data that promote communication with the right audience at the right time. The highlighting feature of this platform is its smooth operation while setting up, without involving any lengthy onboarding processes. Another distinguishing factor is that Lusha is accredited under ISO 27701- the highest international privacy standard in the world. What’s more— it allows you to be compliant with all GDPR and CCPA privacy regulations.

Lead 411

If you want to focus on targeted communication, this is your go-to database platform. It is powered by intent data, allowing you to find out the contact details of your prospects. Lead 411 supports easy integration with popular ESPs and CRMs, resulting in efficient and automated workflows. Its highlighting feature is unlimited email views in the basic plan while restricting the export to 200 per month. Additionally, it provides you with information on buyer intent.

Clearbit 

It offers data integrated with artificial intelligence, thus ensuring that you have accurate contact information. Clearbit adds to your records and helps you understand your prospects’ buying intent. This valuable information accelerates the lead generation process. With Clearbit, you can easily create, capture, and convert prospects into paying accounts by addressing their demands. You can access a range of business intelligence APIs and integrations that accelerate sales and marketing campaigns.

SalesIntel 

This business intelligence platform provides you with the data you seek. The key difference is—SalesIntel uses patented AI technology and human verification to source accurate contacts. What makes it stand out is the vast database of more than 100M contacts available with emails and mobile phone numbers. It also offers amazing features such as intent data to gain insights into who is researching your solution. SalesIntel also helps you visualize company technographics to understand their tech stack. Another highlighting feature is the company firmographics that promotes the identification of target accounts based on factors such as company size, location, industry, and more.

Final thoughts

Various factors play a role in an efficient database, such as data accuracy, customer intent, data availability, and integration capabilities. Before you make an informed decision, you need to weigh the pros and cons of each platform. The database you select must align with your business goals. The best-fitted tool must allow you to effectively communicate with potential customers, engage with them, and drive the sales funnel.