Three Lead Gen and Pipeline Trends To Look Out For in 2019

Next week, ON24 will run its latest Insight50 session – where we provide you with 50 minutes of expert insight and answer the questions that are important to you.

As it’s the start of the year, January’s session will focus on lead generation and pipeline success and feature experts from SiriusDecisions, Oracle and Genesys, so register for the session here.

2018 was a busy year for marketers and the ON24 team. Privacy regulations such as GDPR have changed the way we have to market – for the better – and the number of technology solutions on the market has continued to soar.

That being said, businesses still have to keep their eyes firmly on generating revenue, which means optimising their lead generation efforts and strengthening their pipeline. So what do we think will be important in the months to come? Here are a few trends we’ve seen emerge.

Lead generation focuses on quality over quantity

Marketers have continued to list lead generation and traffic as one of their top priorities, with 63% citing it as such in a recent HubSpot study.

But buyers are increasingly switching off from automated spam and endless emails asking for a “15-minute call”.

On top of that, privacy regulations means that only engaged prospects that have given consent for marketing should be the ones receiving communications. The good news for marketers is that these are the prospects that will be more likely to convert.

Account-based approaches become more important as buying decisions become more complex

Research from CEB has shown that the average number of people involved in buying decision has grown from an average of 5.4 people to 6.8 in just the space of two years.

Increasingly, this means that generating opportunities requires more than just one contact. Instead, marketing will have to generate multiple leads and engagement from a single account in order to support consensus-driven buying.

Predictive insights and artificial intelligence take a role across the entire pipeline

It’s always been best practice for marketing and sales to work closely together, but new technologies will place an increased emphasis on such an approach.

Signals captured from marketing automation will proactively inform sales reps into what messages might resonate with their active opportunities. Cognitive technology will provide marketers with the ability to send new communications to prospects while they are researching solutions, while buyers have the most relevant information surfaced automatically.

What will you be doing for lead generation and pipeline success in 2019?

Come and ask our experts your questions and share your views at the next Insight50 webinar on January 30. We would love to hear your views.