Spice up Your Financial Services Pipeline: ABX > PSL

Just like apple orchards, the Financial Services sector has 100 year-old institutions. Those of us who have been in FinServ may not have physical storms or seasonal frost to face, but we do have our share of challenges in the form of compliance, FINRA, and many complex infrastructures.

As we head into the fall season and the leaves start falling – many of us with our beloved PSL cups in hand – there’s no better time to strategize, define our tactics, and put them at play for a fruitful 2022 Financial Services pipeline. It’s also worth mentioning that the pandemic threw a wrench in every single industry’s path, and one of the clear outcomes of this disruption was an unprecedented acceleration into digitization and innovation for both operators as well as customers. With these trends and challenges in mind, let’s think ahead and spice up our approach to pipeline generation for FinServ in the coming months.

Planting the seeds

It’s never been more important to ensure a thorough alignment between Marketing and Sales than now. Customers are requiring a more tailored approach and personalized experience than ever before, and understanding where a prospect is at in their buyer’s journey can make all the difference in closing out a deal (and then having a good foundation to upsell down the line). This can only happen if companies invest in building trust and fostering collaboration between teams so that Sales clearly understands the benefits they will reap from a well thought out customer experience – which, as part of the demand generation, will fall under Marketing’s role.

Once the teams are aligned with a defined strategy and having agreed on a process, it’s time to water the seeds & nurture the seedlings. The best way to deploy effective demand and nurturing initiatives is by leveraging the right technology tools at your disposal that will help you acquire the most important details about your prospects so that you can engage them in a way that they will appreciate, and most importantly, at the right time. This is the basis for Account-Based Experience, or ABX, and it takes into account social platforms, email communications, website visits (which should be personalized), and much more. For guidance on how to go about selecting the right tool to run your account-based initiatives, The Definitive Guide to Choosing an Account-Based Marketing Platform is a great resource.

Harvest the apples

When harvest season comes around, Sales teams can focus on the low-hanging fruit that is prime for the picking. These apples have ripened enough to be ready to be selected, and will come off the branch with ease because you will have all the insights at your disposal that let you know that this is the apple to go after first. With this approach, the Sales team will be able to move decisively and effectively through the pipeline, because it will reach the right accounts at the right time, one after another.

The level of data you will have about your prospects will also enable you to set those accounts up with the right harvester for the ultimate chance of success. This process will undoubtedly ramp up your pipeline velocity by taking out all the guesswork and helping you move forward with certainty towards those ripe and ready apples.

Get ready for the next season

As with everything in life, preparation is key for a successful pipeline building process in Financial Services. Accelerate the integration between your Sales and Marketing teams and empower them with tools that enable transparency and visibility across the entire organization. Ensure that your teams are consistently measuring their outcomes and optimizing their approach as they have more data in hand to do so.

As a result, you will end up yielding bigger harvests without having to invest more time or resources. This will undoubtedly improve your bottom line by increasing your return on Marketing investments, all while decreasing your customer acquisition costs.

To all my FinServ Marketing aficionados in this great big orchard… happy apple picking!