{"id":811,"date":"2020-03-19T11:35:31","date_gmt":"2020-03-19T11:35:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gaconnector.com\/blog\/?p=811"},"modified":"2020-09-23T21:21:46","modified_gmt":"2020-09-23T21:21:46","slug":"what-is-pipeline-marketing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gaconnector.com\/blog\/what-is-pipeline-marketing\/","title":{"rendered":"What is Pipeline Marketing?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Pipeline marketing has become the benchmark approach marketers utilize to generate revenue. It is a major step forward from the <\/span><b>traditional lead generation approach<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, which focuses on capturing information and hoping that the maximum number of leads convert.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In a pipeline marketing campaign, leads are nurtured through timely and personalized messages driven by data to turn the <\/span><b>lead into a customer<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. As such, campaigns incur a higher cost than classic automated marketing initiatives and thus need to be perfect.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This marketing approach places marketing and sales under one roof. With pipeline marketing, revenue is the measure of success. Not leads generated, nor <\/span><b>goal conversions rates<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Just cold hard sales.<\/span><\/p>\n<h1><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Sales Pipeline<\/span><\/h1>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The sales pipeline is divided into three major parts, being:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span>top of funnel<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span>middle of funnel<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span>bottom of funnel.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Here leads are moved through 5 marketing pipeline stages before finally becoming a paying customer.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-812\" src=\"https:\/\/gaconnector.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Pipeline-Marketing.jpg\" alt=\"Pipeline Marketing Funnel\" width=\"1292\" height=\"1085\" srcset=\"https:\/\/gaconnector.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Pipeline-Marketing.jpg 1292w, https:\/\/gaconnector.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Pipeline-Marketing-300x252.jpg 300w, https:\/\/gaconnector.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Pipeline-Marketing-768x645.jpg 768w, https:\/\/gaconnector.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Pipeline-Marketing-1024x860.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/gaconnector.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Pipeline-Marketing-788x662.jpg 788w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1292px) 100vw, 1292px\" \/><\/p>\n<h1><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Top of funnel<\/span><\/h1>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This stage of the sales funnel is identical to the <\/span><b>entirety of traditional lead generation marketing<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Here your focus is on reaching out to as many people as possible and capturing their information. Thus, turning them into leads.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You can do a few things to capture leads, including setting up lead magnets on your website, asking visitors to subscribe after visiting your blog, cold calling and reaching out to social media followers.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Your goal should be to capture as much information as possible, so that you can later tailor your messages based on your lead\u2019s profile. <\/span><b>Following lead generation<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, you will move straight to the middle of the funnel you nurture leads to convert them to customers.<\/span><\/p>\n<h1><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Middle of funnel<\/span><\/h1>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Whether you\u2019re nurturing leads through <\/span><b>content marketing<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> such as email drip campaigns or targeted social media ads, your marketing pipeline strategy should not rely on automation. All messages should be tailored to each lead. During this stage of the funnel, leads become marketing and then sales qualified.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">During the middle of the sales and marketing pipeline, you can nurture leads by offering them more information such as previews of your product, extending invites to a free webinar and sending case studies of past work to inspire confidence.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Whatever method you choose, it\u2019s important to remember that content is still king. The messages you send need to resonate with your potential buyers.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h1><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bottom of funnel<\/span><\/h1>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is where all the <\/span><b>revenue generation<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> happens; where leads hand over their hard earned cash and become customers. Unfortunately, this is where many online businesses fall short, deciding to focus on generating leads instead of generating revenue.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The <\/span><b>bottom of the sales pipeline <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">is not just about making sales, it\u2019s also an opportunity to gain customer loyalty. To do this, you can offer discounts on future purchases or any other appropriate incentive to encourage repeat purchases.<\/span><\/p>\n<h1><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Lead Generation vs Pipeline Marketing<\/span><\/h1>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Pipeline marketing does not forgo lead generation. In fact, it stems from it. Without lead generation, there would be no potential customers for your <\/span><b>sales team<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> to nurture through the funnel. Nevertheless, here is how <\/span><b>lead generation<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and pipeline marketing stack up, in theory.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Exposure vs Sales<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">With lead generation you gain greater exposure at the expense of sales. This works fantastically for many online businesses. With pipeline marketing on the other hand, your focus is on generating sales at the expense of exposure by focusing on the leads you already have.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Quicker vs Slower Sales<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As pipeline marketing focuses on driving revenue rather than just leads, sales naturally come quicker compared to lead generation marketing. The reason being is logical. By generating fewer qualified leads, you are able to make a more concentrated effort to drive sales.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Impactful vs vanity metrics<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Having a large number of leads to reach out to looks great, but it doesn\u2019t necessarily drive revenue. Pipeline marketing is rooted in data. As you drive your prospects through the sales pipeline, you will gain valuable insight into the types of content they respond to and with tools such as Google Analytics and CRMs, you can find out which channels provide the most valuable traffic.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Revenue vs conversions<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As a marketer, you want your marketing efforts to be data driven. As such, you will use tools such as Google Analytics and CRMs likeSalesforce to see where sales are coming from. On a higher level, you can even integrate the two platforms to track ROI. As a result, you will spend your budget as efficiently as possible.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">On the other hand, conversions are another vanity-type metric unless they\u2019re specifically related to sales. For example, if you have a landing page that\u2019s optimised to generate leads then every time someone subscribes to your newsletter could be counted as a conversion. Ultimately, this doesn\u2019t directly affect the bottom line for your business.<\/span><\/p>\n<h1><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Supercharge your Pipeline with Powerful Data<\/span><\/h1>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">To drive sales as efficiently as possible, you need to employ a data-driven approach. Tools such as <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/gaconnector.com\/salesforce-google-analytics\"><b>Google Analytics and CRMs<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> such as Salesforce<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> provide powerful insights about the entire customer journey on your website.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">On a higher level, you can integrate these two tools to see which of your marketing efforts produce the highest ROI. To do this, you can use a tool we built called GA Connector. It seamlessly imports information between Google Analytics and CRMs.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">To access, GA Connector and engage in real data-driven marketing, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/gaconnector.com\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">sign up for a free 30-day trial now<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<h1><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The way forward: Flywheel Marketing<\/span><\/h1>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Marketers are quickly realizing that referrals and word of mouth influence purchases more than any other type of marketing. Whereas pipeline marketing focuses on sales, flywheel marketing focuses on customers.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Typically, customers become an afterthought once a sale is made, based on pipeline marketing theory. With flywheel marketing, businesses aim to generate referral- and repeat purchases from customers. This way, the money spent on acquiring customers doesn\u2019t go to waste.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pipeline marketing has become the benchmark approach marketers utilize to generate revenue. It is a major step forward from the traditional lead generation approach, which focuses on capturing information and hoping that the maximum number of leads convert. In a pipeline marketing campaign, leads are nurtured through timely and personalized messages driven by data to&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[596,602,605,16,594,163,595,598,153,147,601,600,604,603,590,588,599,148,589,597],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gaconnector.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/811"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gaconnector.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gaconnector.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gaconnector.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gaconnector.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=811"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/gaconnector.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/811\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":878,"href":"https:\/\/gaconnector.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/811\/revisions\/878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gaconnector.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gaconnector.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gaconnector.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=811"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gaconnector.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}