Every company intends to attract as many quality clients as possible, which is inevitable for any business to thrive and succeed. So, the sales and marketing team must find ways of boosting sales, using multiple ways of customer acquisition.
Pipeline generation is among the surest ways of ascertaining that you keep a steady flow of income throughout. We’ll try to unpack the nitty gritty details about pipeline generation and how you can boost your sales using this option.
What Is Pipeline Generation
Lead and pipeline generation work hand in hand, but one is an upgrade of the other. On the one hand, lead generation focuses on acquiring new prospects regardless of their buying possibility. On the other hand, pipeline generation is sorely geared towards finding the prospective clients most likely to close a deal.
Therefore, the main difference between the two is more about quality. So, we can define pipeline generation as the act of chasing quality leads. When choosing a pipeline generation strategy, the importance of specializing in particular methods known to curate results can’t be over-emphasized.
Combining multiple strategies makes achieving company goals across all departments responsible for boosting sales easier. So, what are the vital moves to make when aiming to boost sales in pipeline generation? Let’s find out!
Aligning sales and marketing teams
For a long time now, the sales and marketing teams have had a longstanding beef mainly because of the company’s approach to rewarding them. Sales are usually pinned to results, which means how much a sales representative receives is directly proportional to what they achieve in real-time.
On the other hand, marketing teams enjoy a smoother cruise because their productivity has always been based on the number of leads they bring in, even though they may not be productive.
As a result of this bias in compensation, sales members have always felt undervalued and pressured to produce real-time progress. At the same time, their counterparts received glory even for marketing qualified leads that never yielded results.
Aligning both teams in relevant aspects and ensuring they receive merits for the real-time revenue directly linked to their efforts is a major way of killing the beef. It will foster better collaboration between team members on both sides and ensure that each person works smarter to gain quality results.
Email Tracking
Tracking emails has always been thought of as a tacky way of doing business, but it is the fastest way of knowing what progress you are making with each lead. It’s pointless to send multiple follow-up emails, not knowing the status of the last one you sent.
The possibility of spamming the receiver with unwanted emails is high when you do not know if they read the previous ones. Email tracking outrightly helps you track the reading progress of every email in your pipeline. Consequently, you get to know what steps are worth making to help increase readability or close the deal if the recipient is already interacting with your emails.
Redefining Marketing Qualified Leads
The marketing team is lucky to be responsible for defining what marketing-qualified leads (MQL) are. Unlike most other departments, including the sales team, the marketing team has the power to choose what parameters determine whether they have hit their targets or not.
Most marketing teams define MQLs as any lead they generate, whether or not the lead will materialize into something substantial. Unfortunately, not every lead produces results, especially since some are dead ends.
More companies should work on redefining MQLs to make the compensation process fair and precise. Aside from leveling the ground, this move makes it easier for the business to know how much progress they’ve made since they will deal with positive real-time results.
Monitor The Sales Pipeline
The sales pipeline moves a lead through the required steps until they close a deal. With this in mind, it becomes critical to keep tabs on every step of this process to ascertain that the team is working by the book to achieve success.
You benefit significantly from monitoring the sales pipeline because of the assurance that you will nab any mistake before it makes any dent in the progress. And in case of any stagnation, you can effortlessly find ways of helping the pipeline keep moving.
Work Harder Even During Peak Season
One of the most painstaking mistakes companies make is to give the vigor a rest when business is booming. The marketing team doesn’t work as hard to bring in new leads, and their sales counterparts don’t make it their life mission to follow up on quality leads.
A better action would be to push even harder since this will give the company some padding for tough times. Even better, when business is slow, you won’t have to go through much pressure trying to hit your monthly, quarterly, or yearly targets.
Don’t Ignore Client Referrals
There’s something about pushing for leads. Every sales and marketing personnel understands the pride of finding leads that mean something. However, another critical way that companies reach or supersede their targets is through client referrals.
These individuals get to hear about your work and receive recommendations about products or services from entities they have tested and proven reliable. Sometimes client referrals can seem like a dead end, especially when the person keeps asking unending questions.
Providing the new prospective client with enough information can benefit your company in the long run. Even if you don’t close a deal immediately, you may benefit from another referral to someone who needs the particular services you offer.
Wrap Up
Boosting your company sales is critical, regardless of the season. What’s more important is the integration of multiple strategies. This is a seamless way of ensuring you gain milestones and achieve progress without struggling on one end. Aside from the procedures mentioned, you can also integrate frequent content posting, partnerships with other companies, and a data-driven strategy.