Conquer Pipeline Generation with AI Workflows

GTM teams comprising demand generation, growth, working alongside product, and ops are constantly under pressure to generate new pipeline. Always more. Never enough.

I'm sure the familiar 3-5X is a weight you feel at the outset of each quarter or half. Depending on your business model, sales cycle, close rates, and mix of customer types, including ASP, the pipeline multiple will vary. Regardless, it's never enough. You may also have some pipeline to work with that spilled over from prior quarters and while that's a luxury, the older the pipe, the lower quality and conversion velocity.

Plans and budgets

At the start of the year, you've likely created the annual plan with respective budgets, and if you're farther along, then you'll have some historic data insights to lean on and give you a decent understanding of what's working.

If you're just starting out or perhaps launching a new product, that data will not be yet available and so you need to have a strong opinion on expected metrics at the outset. Measurement early and often is the name of the game. Real-time data insights are gold.

There's never enough bandwidth or budget

When the business is moving fast, you tend to max-out the budget and bandwidth. This can be dangerous as it leaves little time for any new unplanned initiatives such as a new partner or a specific CEO project or an event that needs fast execution. You always need that extra ~20% wiggle room in the plan to allow for the unforeseen.

Objective: Write down strategies that you expect to create efficient pipeline 

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First, Know Your Model - PLG, SLG or Hybrid for Pipeline Generation

It sounds pretty obvious but I'm eternally surprised at how this debate takes a lot of time, even inside the organization. In young, early stage companies, the desire is to get users into the product ASAP, for feedback and improvements. However it entirely depends on the actual product, what it solves and how easy it is to get started.

Marketing and growth teams must consider the model and therefore the best approach to reaching and engaging buyers. 

With a clearly defined model, you then define the GTM strategy and how to acquire customers. This is foundational to get right, with all business functions in strong agreement. So to summarize, pick the model, then the plan, approach and investments required to meet targets.

The Product-Led Growth (PLG) strategy is characterized by:

1. Self-Serve Product Usage‍

PLG emphasizes the importance of allowing users to experience the product independently. It usually starts with a free trial or freemium, enabling users to explore the product's features and benefits without the need for a sales person. 

2. Leverage User Data and Product Analytics‍

A critical component is the use of data-driven insights to understand behavior and preferences. By analyzing, you identify patterns and trends that inform development and GTM strategies. 

Overall, PLG requires a deep understanding of the target audience and a commitment to delivering  value through the product itself. By focusing on the product as the primary growth engine, companies can build a loyal base and hopefully sustain over time.

‍Objective: Settle on the model. Then adopt the right tools for early data-driven insights.

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Sales-Led Growth (SLG) is a strategy that emphasizes a direct and proactive sales approach to drive revenue and expand market penetration. Characterized by a hands-on sales approach, with teams actively engaging with prospects to understand their needs and tailor solutions accordingly.Key characteristics:

‍1.  Personalized outreach: where sales reaches out to prospects with customized messages and offers that resonate with specific challenges. This often involves building strong relationships, fostering trust, and ensuring a deep understanding of the customer's environment.

Strategies typically involve:

‍2. Detailed customer profiling and segmentation: Sales teams use various tools and techniques to track interactions and manage relationships effectively. SLG requires close collaboration between sales and marketing to ensure that messaging is consistent and aligned with the overall brand strategy.

‍Objective: Intimately know your ICP and personas and tailor for higher engagement

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Key Strategies for Pipeline Acceleration

^‍As a GTM team, you're executing various campaigns to drive engagement and convert to pipeline. Before executing the plan, get full team alignment on the approach. You will also ask fundamental questions, which vary based on the model we just discussed:

• ‍Q1. What programs are working and converting currently?
• Q2. Do we have access to all the data we need to make fully informed decisions?
• Q3. Are there any programs that need more resources to hit deadlines? Which resources?
• Q4. How are we doing compared to our closest competition? 

For a modern GTM, using tools such as HubSpot, Salesforce, Amplitude, Google Analytics is a given and if the team is pushing hard, they're already adopting AI tech.So taking these 4 questions, posed at any point during the quarter, let's investigate where AI can drive pipeline.We need to answer:

1. What is the data telling us? Do we know what's working to convert?
2. Where can we invest to speed-up our execution, without compromise for quality.

Know before you grow your pipeline

‍Ever stare at your dashboards and reports. A lot, right?

Ever go to a meeting with a broad cross-functional group and have to explain a whole bunch of charts. People glaze-over, right? Ever download to a sheet and then merge with another sheet and try to make sense of what's happening, manually?

All true. However, if you have AI do the lift and compute key questions, you save hours and a lot of frustration.

MarkovML Data Insights

lets you do exactly that. It's literally the ability to chat with your data.In fact it's so easy, you'll immediately fall in love and look at it as your data insights "side-car".You simply upload a CSV file, from your operational system. This could be from

• HubSpot
• Salesforce
• NetSuite
• Google Analytics
• SEMrush / Ahrefs

or your tool of choice for specific jobs.Of course it depends on the Qs you need answers to. For PLG, the CSV may be from Amplitude for product usage patterns. In 3 simple steps and a matter of seconds:

Step 1: Upload the file or connect directly to a database (Snowflake or Postgres etc.)

Step 2: Type your question in English text 

Step 3: Get instant answers. Download as a table and view in your fave chart mode.

Share the results with the whole team and fast-track decisions. 

Now you know what's working by interacting with your data. 

To answer the next Q, "where do you need more resources to speed up campaigns?"

Teams start to get creative now and when there's a pre-built workflow in the form of an AI App, value is realized in a matter of minutes. Also remember you can run lots of AI workflows in parallel.Let's take two examples of AI workflows that will speed up tasks and therefore campaigns and conversions.Let's say you need more content faster. Your blogs get a lot of attention. Now you need the right ones with the right keywords. Use a prebuilt AI App that will scrape landing pages or perhaps you have existing promotional Unbounce pages. 

‍AI App: Plan Content for Blogs

-> Simply paste the URL in input text
-> Select the columns you want the operation to run on
-> Click run!
In minutes you'll have a downloadable file with suggested blog topics.

You've just saved hours wading through multiple pages and a guessing game. You've fast-tracked a campaign to go live sooner.

To answer our 4th question

‍"how are we doing next to our closest competitor"?

‍You may have already conducted some win-loss analysis and noticed that one competitor is eating into your market share.In this case you want to keep a close watch on the company sentiment in their media news and 3rd party articles. 

‍AI App: Monitor Company Sentiment in Media

‍Rather than spend hours wading through multiple sites with articles, let AI do the lift. Easy as 1-2-3.

1. Paste the URL of the company in the text input field. (This works really well for large, public orgs as it will also track any financial news).
2. The AI App will find any news and map to a sentiment - positive, neutral or negative.
3. Download, share and review.

What's helpful here is that it collects all possible news and puts it into one file that's easier to read and click on, if you need more details.

To summarize, use your Data Insights to know what's working and decide where you have bottlenecks. Educate the entire GTM team on all AI Apps that are easy to run and speed up important steps in any campaign.Gains?

‍You stay focused. Better plan execution and budget management. Get all teams aligned and comfortable deploying easy-to-use AI Apps. 

Continuous Improvement and Adapting 

A. Monitor and Evaluate

‍To ensure the effectiveness of any marketing campaign that generates pipeline, it's crucial to establish robust feedback loops. These loops involve collecting data on campaign performance through various metrics such as engagement rates, conversion rates, and return on investment (ROI). 

By analyzing this data, marketers will know what's working and what needs improvement. Regularly scheduled reviews and reports also play a key role in maintaining the momentum of successful campaigns and identifying areas for improvement. MarkovML's Data Insights gives you continuous insights as you progress through the quarter.

‍B. Scale Successful Strategies

‍Once high-performing campaigns are identified, the next step is to scale these strategies to maximize their impact. This involves analyzing the elements that contributed to their success, such as target audience, messaging, and channels used. By understanding these factors, marketers can replicate and expand these initiatives across different markets or demographics. 

Doubling down on successful initiatives might include increasing the budget for these campaigns, expanding their reach through additional channels, or enhancing the creative elements to further engage the audience. Always  maintain a balance between scaling successful strategies and continuing to innovate and test new ideas to ensure sustained growth. Don't forget to leave some wiggle room in the budget.‍

Next Steps to Accelerate Your Pipeline

‍Get intimate with your data. Know before you grow. It will point you in the right direction. Next, fast-track anything that's somewhat tedious or repetitive. Let AI do the lifting in parallel with the high value work.We encourage you to get started with easy to use AI Apps, pre-built for GTM teams to generate pipeline. Start for free today.

Questions - reach out.