EBOOK

How Marketing Can

Meaningfully Increase Pipeline
Velocity and Conversion
Executive Summary
According to Gartner1, today’s marketing teams face constant pressure to In this eBook, we explore two common ways that marketing and sales are
generate more and higher quality pipeline than ever. To succeed, it’s a must misaligned:
for them to tightly partner with their sales counterparts. However, this is
1. Marketing lacks visibility into key accounts and sales engagement
challenging in light of:
2. Marketing and sales aren’t pursuing the same potential buyers
1. Limited visibility into marketing qualified leads (MQLs) after handoff to
We also outline what it takes to evolve from the current state where sales and
sales
marketing operate in silos to a future state where marketing works alongside
2. Limited visibility into marketing attribution because it’s lost when a lead
sales to drive pipeline velocity and conversion.
becomes a contact

Lacking visibility into what sales or marketing are doing independently

makes it challenging to work together effectively. Being hampered in this way
prevents marketing from achieving the ultimate goal of delivering the right
message at the right time to the right person. Without a full view of the sales- Who Will Benefit From This eBook?
engaged contacts, marketing has no choice but to keep casting a wide net
to catch the leads that sales needs—often by purchasing lists, which leaves
Marketing leaders who want tighter alignment with
them at risk of non-compliance fines and spamming existing contacts. sales to focus investments and maximize impact
On the other hand, when these go-to-market teams work from the same
by targeting the most promising accounts and
dataset, marketing can stop playing the volume numbers game. Instead, they personas to win more revenue.
can allocate investments to the right accounts and personas, and align with
sales to engage influencers, decision makers or even detractors within key
accounts.

1 Gartner, “5 Strategic Priorities for CMOs” 2021

How Marketing Can Meaningfully Increase Pipeline Velocity and Conversion 1

Misalignment #1: Marketing and sales aren’t pursuing the
same potential buyers
Companies invest significantly in—and rely heavily on—CRM systems as a Complicating matters are strict data privacy rules across the globe, such as
single source of truth about prospects and customers. Yet few realize the full the GDPR in the European Union, CCPA in California, LGPD in Brazil, NDB in
return on their investments because reps hate wasting time populating their Australia, and CASL in Canada. With more regulations likely on the horizon,
CRM manually—so they don’t. In fact, 50% of the contacts that sales engages it’s more challenging to be a responsible corporate citizen while still reaching
are missing from CRM. and engaging essential buying committee members.

When they can’t trust sales to keep data up to date and reliable, even the For instance, when it comes to which contacts can be stored and processed
most skilled marketers are unable to leverage their company’s CRM to run per the GDPR, Article 6-1A says you must establish “Consent.” On the other
impactful campaigns. Lacking access to critical lead, contact, opportunity and hand, when it comes to which contacts can receive commercial electronic
account details, marketing focuses its efforts in the wrong areas. messages per CASL only those who have given “Express Consent”—can be
contacted. This leaves marketing without access to the biggest, best pool of
Here are two signs marketing is out of alignment with sales in this way—and
prospects.
a proven approach to get them in sync and position marketing for a better
future.

Pain point #1: Marketing is limited by a small pool of marketable contacts

because it only markets to those who have signed up for an event or
downloaded content.

While sales doesn’t hesitate to actively interact with prospective buyers,

many marketers assume they can only reach out to contacts that have
given consent. Relying on form fills alone to identify and engage potential
customers is a slippery slope.

How Marketing Can Meaningfully Increase Pipeline Velocity and Conversion 2

Pain Point #2: Since aggregating, centralizing, and making contact data
accessible to all GTM team members is tedious and time-consuming,
Enabling the future state: Expand your compliant,
marketing buys lists.
marketable database.
Yet, reliance on lists often results in money wasted. Rather than nurturing
The key to alignment is providing marketing with bullet-proof
the warm leads that sales has already engaged or those expressing high
purchase intent, marketing spins its wheels generating a heap of irrelevant contacts. Best-in-class organizations aggregate contact details
cold leads. At the same time, they risk sender reputation damage, non- from the extended GTM team’s inboxes, track attributes
compliance with regulations like GDPR, and low engagement and conversion required to satisfy regulations, and retain the information
rates from contacts lacking context or not in the market to buy. Considering for compliance auditing purposes. Rather than making sure
the importance of delivering the right message to the right person at the contacts on their list match those sales is already engaging,
right time, marketing can’t waste time and budget on contacts that lack real marketing can focus on influencing deals to close. The
purchasing influence. results of these efforts pay off big when marketing embarks
on account-based efforts and broader-scale demand gen
campaigns.

Current Contact List (Outdated, incorrect / missing info)

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How Marketing Can Meaningfully Increase Pipeline Velocity and Conversion 3

Misalignment #2: Marketing lacks visibility into key accounts
and engagement
According to Gartner2, the typical buying group for a complex B2B solution Pain Point #2: Marketing’s campaigns target different accounts and
involves 6-10 decision-makers. As buying groups expand and get more personas than sales has prioritized.
complex, marketing is seeking ways to influence the trajectory of the sales B2B organizations with tightly aligned sales and marketing operations
team’s deals and forecast. Yet, marketing is only as effective as the data they achieve 24% faster three-year revenue growth and 27% faster three-year
can access—and in the case of CRM, they are often accessing incomplete profit growth, according to SiriusDecisions. Yet, marketing struggles to align
or inaccurate data about sales’ contacts and interactions with prospective well with their sales counterparts and help generate more pipeline without
buyers. access to trusted account and contact data in their CRM. As a result, they are
Simply put, poor-quality CRM data (or no data at all) along with lack of insights diminished in their efforts to influence buying committees.
into engagement with key personas in key accounts prevents marketing from
effectively executing downstream activities in support of sales. With only 40%
of marketers having systems in place to track customer engagement in a way
that informs their marketing roadmaps, marketing is left in the dark when it
comes to supporting sales efforts.

Here are three signs marketing is out of alignment with sales in this way—and
a proven approach to get them in sync and position marketing for a better
future.

Pain Point #1: Marketing doesn’t understand who sales is engaging.

Marketing can’t understand sales’ past or planned engagements with

accounts if reps aren’t logging this data in their CRM. Never mind identifying
and nurturing top-priority accounts—marketing can’t engage the personas
within those accounts that will ultimately drive higher win rates. No wonder
75% of companies state inadequate outreach driven by poor data lost them
customers.

2 Gartner, “5 Strategic Priorities for CMOs” 2021

How Marketing Can Meaningfully Increase Pipeline Velocity and Conversion 4

Pain Point #3: Marketing can’t measure or prove the value of its
contributions.
Enabling the future state: Provide full insight into
According to Forrester , an aligned revenue engine will enable organizations
3
accounts, contacts, and engagement.
to achieve the following marketing outcomes by 2025: higher campaign ROI,
To ensure marketing and sales work hand in hand, supply
improved conversion rates, dissolved attribution arguments, better marketing
impact and influence, and fewer budget pressures. That’s no surprise since marketing with a larger, compliant pool of contacts—and the
a top-performing revenue engine is driven by a shared understanding of same account- and persona-level insights as your extended
personas, accounts, opportunities, pipeline, and engagement—enabling sales teams via easy-to-use dashboards. Total pipeline visibility
marketing to track and prove their contributions. eliminates the massive division between marketing working top
of funnel and sales working middle funnel. Such intelligence
In organizations struggling with CRM hygiene or inconsistent CRM
helps prioritize marketing tactics while ensuring marketing is
practices from AE to AE, marketing efforts suffer. Limited insight into overall
engagement levels, and wasted time and effort with irrelevant contacts put targeting key accounts expressing the highest purchase intent
pipeline and revenue targets at risk. Attribution gets lost in the process and and the personas who historically drive the highest win rates.
marketing struggles to justify its spend and value. Yet the majority of B2B Priming the marketing-and-sales engine in this way is a win-
marketers (78%) are measured according to the portion of sales pipeline they win-win: Marketing investments will be optimized, campaign
influence.
attributions will improve (i.e., better ROI), and sellers get
added air cover so they can stay laser-focused on late-stage
opportunities with the highest intent.

3 F
 orrester, “B2B Revenue Engine Alignment: A Cultural Transformation That Begins With Customer
Obsession”, Nov 21, 2022

How Marketing Can Meaningfully Increase Pipeline Velocity and Conversion 5

Conclusion: Unlock Revenue Growth
Through Data-Driven Alignment
To effectively engage, nurture, and convert today’s extended decision-
making units, marketing and sales must work in concert. When the goal is to
optimize every interaction between potential buyers and the company, it’s a
must to break down silos so cross-functional teams can truly act as one.

The best GTM teams collaborate by leveraging contact, account, and

engagement data to ensure marketing supports sales with timely, targeted
campaigns designed to increase pipeline velocity and conversion. In this
eBook, we’ve outlined proven, practical ways that any marketing organization
can position themselves for the same success.

Download the companion playbook for even more prescriptive guidance

on how to achieve alignment between your GTM teams.
And to experience how People.ai converts data into actionable insights, pipeline growth, predictable revenue, and
PL AY B O O K

Proven Ways to Align an unprecedented look at the big picture, request a demo.
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