Many factors play a role in the success of businesses (or failure). Of all of these, your sales and marketing pipeline is unquestionably the most critical. The bulk of your revenue comes from here.

All the steps your sales representative takes to convert a lead into a customer are included in your marketing and sales pipelines. However, the sales funnel is distinct from the pipeline because the pipeline represents the entire sales funnel for each customer. At each stage of the sales process, it shows where things are and what is being done.

• Comparison of Sales pipeline vs. sales funnel
• Why is pipeline marketing so important?
• What are the signs of a healthy sales pipeline?

Comparison of Sales pipeline vs. sales funnel

By using a sales funnel, you can keep track of the customer’s journey. It shows how they progress from awareness to purchase.

There are a number of ways that the funnel has helped you determine the next steps in improving your content marketing and follow-ups. Identifying the stage of the sales funnel at which a potential customer is at will help you provide the information and encouragement they need to move forward and eventually purchase your product or service.”

Sales pipelines on the other hand are diagrams that show what an individual salesperson has done. At work, you can watch the sales cycle unfold in real-time. When it comes to conversion, they don’t give a hoot about the process. It’s all about attracting new clients and completing sales.

The leads have a lot of overlap. With the right actions, the majority of leads should be able to progress through the sales funnel and pipeline.

Many leads are never converted into customers. It’s important to check your sales process for any signs of this, and make any necessary adjustments if you discover anything suspicious.

Why is pipeline marketing so important?

While lead generation has always been an important part of your sales pipeline, CRM and data have made it much easier to predict the success of your sales pipeline, removing the guesswork. You can close a lot of business if you have a lot of leads.

This is not the case, despite what we’ve been told. In order to avoid lead leakage, it is necessary to pay attention to several pipeline stages. It’s time to stop prioritizing quantity over quality, because quality always comes first.

Pipeline marketing is the link between sales and marketing. All of the various marketing channels and campaigns are considered. In order to make decisions and set goals, one must use facts and figures.

You’ve probably heard of terms like “inbound marketing,” “content marketing,” “lead nurturing,” and “growth hacking.” Every factor has an impact on the sales funnel of one lead. In addition, they are employed at various points in the sales cycle.

What are the signs of a healthy sales pipeline?

A healthy pipeline can be identified by four key metrics:

1. Average time for closing deals
2. Number of deals in the pipelines
3. Average percentage of closed deals
4. Average size of deals

Compare these metrics to your current production capacity, the metrics of your competitors, and your goals. Determine if there are any stages where motion is halted. Examine this against select sales funnels to determine if there are common obstacles to moving clients through the sales funnel and pipeline. Do they lack data, reports, guidelines, and other information useful for making decisions? Are you failing to follow up at specific funnel stages?

Your marketing and sales efforts can benefit from the data in your sales pipeline. Create an auditable sales pipeline report in order to keep your team informed of the current status of pipeline management.