What is a Pipeline Acceleration Campaign?
A pipeline acceleration campaign is a campaign used to increase sales velocity. This type of campaign combines marketing with sales to move a deal more quickly through the pipeline. A successful pipeline acceleration program will lead to decreased sales cycles (deals closed in a few days) and increased engagement (more activity with your contacts).
Pipeline accelerations are similar to lead nurture campaigns, but they’re not the same thing. Lead nurture campaigns to focus on maintaining engagement with a marketing qualified lead until they are ready to make a purchase—becoming a sales qualified lead. Pipeline acceleration campaigns target pre-qualified leads to close deals quickly. These campaigns can include any of the following strategies:
- Fill the top of the funnel with pre-qualified target accounts
- Intervene mid-pipeline to keep existing opportunities moving towards a sale
- Target late-stage deals to push them across the finish line to a sale
Why Should You Use a Pipeline Acceleration Campaign?
Pipeline acceleration increases your sales velocity, meaning you can close more deals in a shorter amount of time. There are a few reasons why your business might use a pipeline acceleration campaign:
Build The Sales Pipeline
By filling the top of the funnel with high-quality leads, your sales team can work more opportunities to build out the rest of the pipeline. If you’re a new business, reaching into a new market, or launching a new product or service, you might use this tactic to get the ball rolling.
Keep Clients Engaged
During a long sales cycle, clients may need to stay focused so they don’t drop off and disappear. Pipeline accelerations campaigns can continue to supply content and activity points for clients to engage with so they don’t get distracted or bored and move on.
Last Mile Sales
Clients who are close to a closed deal but haven’t made a purchase sometimes just need one final push. A pipeline acceleration campaign focused on “last mile” deals can give them the boost they need to finish the deal.
How to Start a Pipeline Acceleration Campaign
Whether you’re targeting the top or bottom of your funnel, you’ll need to take a look at the pipeline and your ideal buyer profiles and decide what specific accounts you’ll target. Unlike a lead nurture campaign that often uses a general form on your website to enroll new contacts, pipeline acceleration goes after specific accounts, some already in your pipeline, likely to close a deal. Who, at each stage of your funnel, best fits your ideal buyer profile or lines up with your current clients? Pick a handful of accounts to specifically go after for this campaign.
Next, identify what’s holding them back, especially for accounts further in the sales process who are stuck. What questions do clients have at this stage, what holds them back, and what information or interactions help them become unstuck? You can talk to current clients or sales representatives to determine this, and then develop content or set up meetings around solving these problems to get deals moving forward again.
Measure your pipeline acceleration campaign. The goal is to increase sales velocity, to make sure you’re looking for shorter sales cycles and increased client engagement. Depending on the complexity of your campaign, you may want to measure the effectiveness of each individual content offering and touchpoint to determine what works the best and what needs some improvement.
