Adapting to the New Buyer Journey
The B2B buyer has fundamentally changed. Traditional outreach methods: high-volume cold calls, mass email sequences, and overreliance on sales-led tactics no longer align with how buyers make decisions.
Today, 73% of the B2B buying journey occurs before a buyer engages with sales. Buyers are self-educating through AI-powered research tools, peer networks, and digital channels. They often enter conversations with vendors already aware of their needs, solution options, and preferred outcomes.
As a result, pipeline creation is no longer solely a sales function – it requires a rebalanced model where marketing, enablement, and sales work in tandem. For lean GTM teams, this means every resource must be used with surgical precision.
Effective October 1, AK Operations is rolling out a Marketing-Enabled Pipeline model across all RevOps engagements. This is a structural upgrade to how we generate demand, qualify buyer intent, and convert leads into revenue especially for clients operating with limited headcount but aggressive growth goals.
The Marketing-Enabled Pipeline Model
The Marketing-Enabled Pipeline (MEP) is a full-funnel demand generation framework built around four pillars:
- Intent Signal Capture
- Multi-Channel Activation
- Sales Readiness & Routing
- Longer-Term Funnel Reporting
The goal is to build pipeline that reflects where your buyers are in their decision process not just where they sit in a database.
Key Components
- Signal-Based Routing
Leads are qualified based on behavior, not assumptions. This includes actions such as demo views, blog interactions, AI-assisted traffic referrals, or product usage signals. Contacts are routed into different motions: automated nurture, outbound dials, or high-priority rep follow-up based on signal strength and funnel stage. - Multi-Channel Activation
High-performing plays now include newsletter sponsorships, influencer collaborations (e.g., via Clay), founder-led content strategies, executive dinners, and targeted paid campaigns. Most of these are low-cost but require strategic coordination between marketing and sales. - Sales Readiness Rule
To ensure reps only engage with high-potential leads, no outbound prospecting occurs until at least three active signals are present on an account. This has led to a 250% increase in meetings booked across AK Operations’ client accounts. - Reps as Converters, Not Prospectors
Sales development resources should be used to convert warm, pre-qualified interest – not spend time on cold discovery. We focus reps on high-readiness contacts, increasing conversion rates by 10–12x compared to traditional prospecting sequences. - Quarterly Metrics Over Monthly Sprints
Longer cycle demand gen efforts, especially content-driven and multi-channel plays, require time to compound. We now align reporting cadence to quarterly benchmarks, while still executing and optimizing weekly.
Why the Traditional Model Fails Modern Buyers
Legacy GTM models optimized for volume: more contacts, more activity, more touches. That worked when buyers needed to speak to sales in order to gather information. But today’s buyer journey is asynchronous, AI-influenced, and peer-driven.
Buyers expect:
- Context-aware messaging based on what they’ve already done or read
- Frictionless education through your website, social presence, and community visibility
- Sales interaction only when they’re already deep into evaluation
Recent studies confirm this trend:
- 73% of the B2B buying process happens independently of sales (HubSpot INBOUND, 2024)
- 40% of buyers report frustration when sales outreach doesn’t align with their stage of research (TrustRadius, 2024)
- AI is now the top research tool for 35% of B2B buyers under 40 (LinkedIn B2B Buyer Study, 2024)
- High-intent accounts convert at 10–12x the rate of cold outreach (AK Operations Client Data, Q2 2025)
In short, pipeline creation has shifted from a top-of-funnel volume game to a bottom-up readiness game. Precision beats volume. Timing over perfection. It’s not always what you’re saying, but when you’re saying it.
What This Means for Your GTM Motion
The Marketing-Enabled Pipeline requires closer collaboration between marketing and sales. For lean teams, this co-ownership is critical. Each side activates different levers, but must work in sequence to move buyers through the funnel.
How Your Team Can Contribute
To maximize the value of this model, we recommend aligning your internal resources to the following:
- Share all Q4 field marketing events, webinars, and launches
- Allocate at least one hour per day to rep dials (either your team or ours)
- Pilot small paid campaigns or sponsored placements in curated communities
- Explore low-cost influencer partnerships (we can recommend talent and tools)
- Identify cities for targeted ABM executive dinners
- Nominate subject matter experts for ghostwritten thought leadership posts
- Update your web content for AI search optimization (natural language content converts 6x higher on AI-referred traffic)
Teams that actively participate in these levers experience better MQL-to-SQL conversion, faster sales cycles, and greater attribution clarity across campaigns.
Why This Model Is Effective for Lean Teams
Unlike high-headcount GTM teams that can afford inefficiencies, lean organizations need every dollar and every rep hour to directly contribute to pipeline. This model is designed specifically for those constraints:
- Reduced prospecting waste through account-level signal filters
- Lower CAC through organic and community-based channels
- Rep bandwidth preserved for high-readiness conversations
- Content repurposed for AI-referred traffic and social amplification
- Clearer attribution across sales, marketing, and enablement
By combining strategy, automation, and behavior-based routing, we create engines that scale without depending on constant manual input.
Implementation & Operational Changes
As this model goes live, clients will see changes across their systems and reporting frameworks, including:
- Retirement of outdated HubSpot properties and workflows
- Refresh of automated sequences aligned to new funnel segmentation
- Rollout of signal-mapped lead scoring and routing protocols
- Introduction of new working sessions on rep enablement, message testing, and campaign alignment
Meeting cadences will alternate between data reporting and collaborative strategy huddles to reflect this integrated model. Metrics will shift from activity-based reporting to outcome-based indicators such as signal volume, product-engaged leads, meeting conversion, and influenced pipeline.
Final Thought: Demand Is No Longer a Department
The pipeline of the future will not be built by sales alone. It requires marketing that moves buyers forward, content that supports buying decisions, and systems that react to intent in real-time.
Lean teams that embrace this shift early will grow faster and with more control. The Marketing-Enabled Pipeline is a system built to align with the way modern buyers make decisions — digitally, independently, and often before you even know they’re looking.
To explore how this model is performing in your own funnel [or to activate underutilized levers] your account manager will follow up with specific next steps.
Let’s move forward with a system built for today’s buyer.