Between tightening budgets, harder-to-convince C-suites, and slower buying processes, pipeline generation is becoming even more challenging.

Fortunately, taking a relationship-building approach to driving a steady flow of leads can help multiply your sales opportunities.

Just make sure:

• Your sales and marketing teams are aligned on the target audience’s pain points and the pipeline generation playbook you’ll use.
• You’re using the right tools to find folks to reach out to, including previous customers that you could be maintaining relationships with.

What is pipeline generation?

Pipeline generation is the process of creating a sustained flow of qualified opportunities for your sales team. It moves beyond the initial capture of a name and email address to encompass every stage of the buyer's journey. This process involves systematically identifying, engaging, and nurturing potential customers who have a genuine need for and interest in your product or service.

The core objective of a successful pipeline generation strategy is to build a predictable and healthy sales pipeline. This provides a clear, visual representation of where prospects are in the sales process at any given time.

A robust pipeline allows for more accurate sales forecasting, better resource allocation for your sales team, and ultimately, a steady stream of revenue.

It is a proactive approach that ensures your sales team always has a full queue of high-quality opportunities to pursue, rather than scrambling for leads.

Differences between pipeline generation and lead generation

• Lead generation is a top-of-funnel activity focused on capturing the contact information of potential leads.
  
  • Think of it as the first step: its main goal is to generate a high quantity of new contacts by gathering names and email addresses through marketing efforts like content downloads, webinars, or website forms.
• Pipeline generation is a broader, more strategic process concerned with turning that initial interest into actual, qualified sales opportunities. It focuses on the quality and progression of leads through the entire sales funnel.
  
  • Pipeline generation asks, "How do we nurture these contacts, build a relationship, and guide them toward a purchase decision?"

In short, lead generation provides the raw materials (the leads), while pipeline generation builds the entire factory (the system) to convert those raw materials into finished products (closed deals and revenue).

Why is pipeline generation important in sales?

Pipeline generation offers sales and revenue predictability while improving the sales team’s performance.

Aim to create a quality-focused lead generation strategy to drive the following benefits:

• Beat pipeline anxiety. Effective pipeline generation reduces the pressure that comes with consistently finding high-quality leads by filling your funnel with prospects who are the most likely to buy from you. In turn, this increases sales reps’ productivity because they can prioritize closing deals with warmer, higher-quality leads.‍
• Accelerate revenue growth. With ready-to-buy accounts in your pipeline, you can focus on nurturing leads and closing deals to grow your bottom line steadily. ‍

• Better sales forecasting. With sales-qualified leads in your pipeline, you can better predict when each account is likely to convert, helping you to forecast sales each quarter accurately.‍

• Improve sales and marketing alignment. An automated lead generation workflow reduces the work on sales reps’ plates, freeing up time for them to coordinate with the marketing team on the target personas, their pain points, and the ever-changing buyer’s journey, as well as goals, strategies, and more. 

• Increased sales cycle efficiency: A strong pipeline strategy ensures reps are not wasting valuable time on unqualified leads. By focusing efforts on prospects who have been properly nurtured and vetted, you shorten the time it takes to move an opportunity from initial contact to a closed deal, optimizing your team's resources.
• Sustainable business scalability: A predictable pipeline creates a repeatable model for generating revenue. As your company grows, this established process makes it easier to onboard new sales reps and scale your operations without compromising performance or predictability. It provides a blueprint for consistent growth.
• Improved customer experience: Effective pipeline generation isn't just about your sales team; it's about the buyer's journey. It ensures you are engaging prospects with the right information at the right time. This timely and relevant communication creates a smoother, more positive purchasing experience for your future customers.

6 common pipeline generation challenges in B2B sales

Building a lead generation process that brings in potential customers on autopilot is easier said than done. But the better you understand the roadblocks you’re facing, the easier it will be to navigate them. 

The three most common challenges B2B teams face when it comes to pipeline generation include ever-changing buyer behaviors, siloed sales and marketing departments, and lack of automation. The good news is that by tackling them effectively, you can easily build an automated pipeline that maximizes conversion rates. 

1. Poor understanding of the changing buying behavior

B2B buyers are increasingly becoming more risk-averse as they focus more on a purchase’s potential ROI. Buying committees are also growing, slowing down purchase decision-making further.

On the other hand, a solid understanding of how buyers are making their purchase decisions today helps you:

• Optimize your sales process
• And, close deals faster

Dig into the latest research on how people make their buying decisions so you can adapt your sales strategy accordingly.  

2. Poor sales and marketing alignment

A lack of marketing and sales alignment leads to poor quality pipeline generation.

This happens when inbound marketing campaigns fail to reach target buyers that are aligned with your ideal customer profile (ICP). In turn, this increases the sales team’s workload as they have to dedicate more time to lead qualification.

On the contrary, effective collaboration between sales and marketing teams helps you optimize all your sales and marketing efforts to drive qualified leads. 

For example, when both teams work together to determine an ICP, develop campaigns, and execute strategies, guiding leads to a purchasing decision is smoother and more consistent. 

Strong sales and marketing alignment is also a must-have if you’re using an account-based marketing strategy to generate leads.

3. Lack of pipeline generation tools

Without the right toolkit, pipeline generation efforts tend to be slow as everything is handled manually. There’s also more room for human error as your reps struggle to work through massive piles of data. 

Naturally, this negatively affects sales reps’ productivity and can cause burnout, impacting your conversion rates as well.

Thankfully, there are a variety of different tools you can use to generate pipeline based on your budget, goals, and target audience. 

To start building a high-converting, automated sales pipeline, you need:

• Intent data tools like ZoomInfo and Dealfront to find out who is in the market and looking for the solution that you offer
• Lead tracking software, like LinkedIn Sales Navigator, to automatically find and add targeted accounts to your CRM 
• And, outreach tools like Salesloft and Outreach to automate lead nurturing and follow-up messages

4. Inaccurate and incomplete CRM data

When your customer relationship management (CRM) is filled with inaccurate or incomplete data, even the best pipeline generation strategies will struggle. This happens when contact information is outdated, company details are missing, or engagement history isn't tracked properly.

In turn, this increases the sales team's workload as they waste valuable time verifying information and chasing leads that are dead ends. It also makes personalizing outreach nearly impossible, which can damage your brand's reputation.

On the other hand, maintaining clean and enriched data is the foundation of a healthy pipeline. When your team trusts the information in your CRM system, they can focus their efforts on the right accounts and personalize their communication effectively, leading to higher engagement and conversion rates.

5. Inconsistent lead nurturing

Generating a new lead doesn't always mean they are ready to buy today. A major challenge arises when there is no formal process for nurturing these long-term prospects, causing potentially valuable leads to go cold.

Without a consistent nurturing strategy, promising leads who are still in the research phase are often forgotten. This results in a "leaky funnel," where you lose future revenue simply because of a lack of timely, relevant follow-up.

Conversely, a well-defined lead nurturing process keeps your brand top-of-mind. By providing continuous value through targeted content and check-ins, you build a relationship over time. When those prospects are finally ready to make a purchasing decision, your company is positioned as the clear and trusted choice.

6. Difficulty measuring pipeline performance

Many B2B teams struggle to measure the effectiveness of their pipeline generation efforts beyond simple lead volume. They lack clear visibility into key metrics like pipeline velocity, stage-by-stage conversion rates, and the ultimate ROI of their campaigns.

This lack of measurement makes it impossible to know which activities are actually generating revenue and which are wasting resources. It also creates challenges in accurately forecasting future sales and identifying bottlenecks in the sales process.

By establishing and tracking clear KPIs for your pipeline, you can make data-driven decisions to optimize your entire process. This allows you to double down on what works, fix what doesn't, and accurately demonstrate the value and impact of your pipeline generation strategy on the bottom line.

7 essential steps to create an effective pipeline generation strategy

1. Define your ideal customer profile (ICP) and personas

Before you can build a pipeline, you need to know exactly who you're building it for. If you're marketing to everyone, you're not resonating with anyone.

The first step is to get crystal clear on the companies that benefit most from your solution (your ICP) and the specific people within those companies you need to talk to (your buyer personas).

The goal here is to understand their real pain points so all your messaging and outreach hits the right audience.

2. Set clear pipeline goals and metrics

A great strategy needs a destination. Without clear goals, you're just generating activity, not predictable revenue. Move beyond a simple revenue target and define what success looks like at every stage of the funnel.

Determine how many qualified leads, meetings, and opportunities you need to hit your number. This gives you a roadmap and allows you to see, at a glance, if you’re on track or if a specific stage needs more attention.

3. Select a mix of targeted channels

In a world of endless marketing channels, the key is to focus your efforts where they'll have the most impact. Don’t try to be everywhere at once. Instead, identify the few channels where your ideal customers are most active.

Whether it's through creating helpful content that ranks on Google, running targeted ABM campaigns, or engaging prospects through customer-led growth, the goal is to create a strategic mix that delivers quality, not just quantity.

4. Develop and map content to the buyer's journey

Your content marketing strategy should do more than just attract eyeballs. It should guide prospects through their buying process.

Think about the questions your buyers have at each stage—from initial awareness of a problem to comparing solutions. Your job is to create content that answers those questions.

By mapping valuable content (like blog posts, case studies, podcasts, and webinars) to each stage, you build trust and position yourself as the go-to expert.

5. Implement a lead nurturing and scoring process

Let's be realistic: not every lead is ready to buy the moment they enter your CRM. The biggest mistake is forgetting about the prospects who are interested but not ready for a sales call.

A lead nurturing process keeps the conversation going with helpful, relevant content over time. Paired with lead scoring, which tracks engagement to identify buying signals, you can automate the process of knowing exactly when a lead is warm enough for sales to reach out.

6. Equip your team with the right technology stack

A solid strategy is essential, but the right tech stack is what makes it scalable and efficient. Manually tracking leads and engagement is a recipe for burnout and human error.

To build a modern pipeline, you need tools that streamline workflows and handle the heavy lifting. This means a CRM to act as your source of truth, marketing automation to nurture leads, and sales intelligence tools to identify in-market buyers and keep customer data fresh.

7. Measure, analyze, and optimize regularly

Make it a habit to regularly dive into your data. Look at your conversion rates between stages to spot bottlenecks.

• Are leads getting stuck somewhere?
• Are your channels delivering high-quality opportunities?

Use these insights to constantly tweak and improve your approach, ensuring your pipeline becomes more efficient and predictable over time.

3 high-converting pipeline generation strategies to try

High-quality pipeline generation depends on an in-depth understanding of the target buyer and how they’re buying. From there, your job is to make it easy for interested folks to convince their team to invest in your software. 

Give these three proven strategies a try to start developing an effective pipeline generation strategy that works for you and your team.

1. Leverage sales multithreading

Sales multithreading involves building relationships with multiple folks within a single target account instead of engaging with only one contact per account at a time.

Since this approach lets you build trust with different folks in a target account’s buying committee, you can:

• Continue nurturing the lead even as your original point of contact leaves the company.
• Quickly close deals as you convince multiple stakeholders to make a purchase decision in your favor.

Data from part 3 of our Hidden Gems series also confirms multithreading:

• Improves win rate by 5 times
• Increases deal sizes by 57%

Bonus points for multithreading old customers (or Gems as we call them here) into open deals as that can:

• Increase your win rate by an additional 63%
• Grow deal size by an additional 66%

To get started, gather contact details for all contacts in a target account’s buying group. Then connect with and nurture them on social media.

You can also run LinkedIn ads to invite decision-makers to join sales calls as we do as part of our sales multithreading playbook.

The approach has helped us to get:

• 31% higher win rates
• 25% bigger deal sizes
• 67% more prospects involved in the deal
• 17% shorter sales cycles 

2. Target ready-to-buy leads 

Our internal data shows new executives spend 70% of their budget within the first 100 days at a new job — making them warm leads worth targeting.

Begin with tracking new executive positions that get filled at your target accounts.

You can do this manually or automate the process. However, manually tracking leads is time-consuming and increases the risk of human error. It’s also dependent on a sales rep’s willingness to action those leads.

By using a tool like UserGems for account tracking, you can reduce manual work and automatically get real-time alerts when new executives join target accounts.

You can also use intent data software to confirm if the new executive is in the market for the solution you offer.

Next, run ABM campaigns to win these warm leads. To do so, select a handful of accounts you want to target. Then, combine cross-team efforts to capture the specific accounts’ interests.

Workramp took this same approach to building a healthy sales pipeline. They used UserGem’s account tracking to automatically get a list of new in-role prospects at their target accounts.

The result? They increased their BDR-generated pipeline by 15% by simply using new in-role outreach.

The Director of Revenue Operations at Workramp, Mike Pawell says:

“Just being able to have a clean report that comes at the beginning of the month from UserGems, clearly people that are brand new in role, we know it’s coming from our top tier accounts and matches these titles makes it a lot easier for us.” 

3. Bring in alumni customers

51% of risk-averse B2B buyers consider their past experience with using a tool to make a purchase decision.

This means including old Gems in new deals helps you better convince leads to buy from you.

In fact, data from part 1 of our Hidden Gems series confirms that including alumni customers in new deals leads to:

• 114% higher win rates 
• 54% bigger deal sizes
• And, 12% shorter sales cycles

As with account tracking, you can manually track customer job changes to grow your pipeline with this strategy. Or, you can automate the process with UserGems alerts that notify relevant salespeople every time a Gem changes their job.

Smartling leveraged this strategy to auto-generate qualified leads with UserGems. As a result, they’ve been able to:

• Reduce their SDRs manual tasks by 97%
• Generate $1.8M in direct pipeline from tracking champions

Grace Feeney, the Global Manager of Sales Development at Smartling explains, “For our SDRs, it’s already such an easier win. The success rate is much higher.

“We had a huge deal close within one month from a UserGems lead. We had another huge deal with a massive logo — from a UserGems meeting that happened in April and it closed in May. Our deal cycles are normally 3 months. We’ve had another huge deal close within 6 weeks.” 

Accelerate your pipeline generation efforts with UserGems

Building and managing a high-performing pipeline is tough work. Even with a solid strategy, your teams spend countless hours trying to figure out which accounts to prioritize, only to struggle with generic outreach that falls flat. What if you could focus only on the buyers ready to listen?

UserGems is the AI platform designed to solve this challenge. We help sales and marketing teams double their pipeline impact with the same team by removing the guesswork. Our AI agent, Gem-E, connects with your CRM data and actively scans the market for buying signals to tell you exactly who to target, when to reach out, and why they're a good fit right now.

The result is more than just a list of leads. Gem-E drafts highly personalized and impactful outreach, giving your team a powerful head start and leading to significantly higher conversion rates.

This isn't just theory. UserGems has already generated $4 billion in pipeline and over $950 million in revenue for hundreds of companies. Leading B2B teams at Mimecast, UserTesting, and SAP LeanIX see more than 15X ROI in closed-won revenue.

Book a demo today to learn how we can help you drive high-quality leads every month.