How to build more pipeline in 2024

Key takeaway

• For entrepreneurs: Diversify your pipeline-building strategies by combining high-touch events, account-based marketing, creative outbound tactics, and strategic pricing to accelerate growth.
• For investors: Companies that can effectively orchestrate multi-channel, account-based approaches and optimize pricing for land-and-expand strategies are likely to see stronger pipeline growth and revenue potential.

Summary

The article "How to build more pipeline in 2024" by Growth Unhinged presents insights from over 350 go-to-market leaders on effective strategies for generating sales pipeline. Four main themes emerge: leveraging both large and intimate events, orchestrating account-based plays across teams, getting creative with outbound tactics, and revisiting pricing and packaging for land-and-expand opportunities. The piece provides concrete examples and case studies from companies like Carta, G2, Miro, and Superhuman, showcasing how these strategies have led to significant pipeline growth and conversion rates.

Insights

• Events, both virtual and in-person, continue to be highly effective for pipeline generation, with some companies seeing up to 28x return on investment.
• Account-based strategies involving collaboration across product, marketing, sales, and customer success teams are becoming increasingly important.
• Creative outbound tactics, such as personalized SDR pages and company-wide prospecting days, can significantly boost pipeline.
• Revisiting pricing and packaging strategies, including introducing paid pilots and flexible entry points, can accelerate new logo acquisition and set up future expansion revenue.
• Small, intimate events like dinners and happy hours can lead to high conversion rates from attendees to sales opportunities.
• Aligning go-to-market efforts with customer journeys and strategic initiatives within target accounts enhances the effectiveness of outreach.
• Leveraging relationship data and employee networks can uncover valuable prospecting opportunities.

Implications

• Companies may need to allocate more resources to event planning and execution, both virtual and in-person.
• Sales and marketing teams should focus on developing highly personalized, account-based strategies rather than broad, untargeted campaigns.
• Businesses should invest in tools and training to enable creative outbound tactics and personalized prospecting approaches.
• Pricing strategies may need to be more flexible and tailored to facilitate easier entry and subsequent expansion within accounts.
• Cross-functional collaboration will become increasingly crucial for effective pipeline generation and conversion.