The Big Pipeline Rethink

One of the highlights of 2024 was chatting with Colin Hung from Swaay Health. Colin interviewed our Chief Strategy Officer, Mark Erwich, and me to discuss how healthcare technology marketers are changing the approach to pipeline development. Swaay Health featured this rethink of the healthtech pipeline in an article you can read here.

Here is the full interview. Colin is a great interviewer, and he got the best out of Mark and me in explaining the problem, the modern approach to pipeline development, and the best practices that are being adopted.

The Pipeline Problem in a Nutshell

The basic problem that all B2B Healthcare Marketers face is that what used to work in building pipelines doesn’t work as well as it had done.

There are several reasons for this, which I summarise in this clip.

Firstly, the healthcare technology buying lifecycle is extending. According to HIMSS, the average sales cycle is 13 months. In many cases, it’s much longer. And buying groups are getting bigger. The average buying group numbers five stakeholders, which can be twice as large with larger deals.

The second challenge is the buyer is firmly in control. As many B2B marketing sources show, buyers spend as much as 70% of the sales cycle researching, talking to peers and analysts, and avoiding talking to vendors until they are good and ready.

The biggest challenge is that 85% of B2B buyers report that they select the first vendor they call. Why? Because they have already made their mind up by the time they reach out to vendors. This problem is even worse when you consider that most buyers have also defined their requirements and start the process with a short list in mind.

This helps to explain why traditional lead-generation tactics and outbound prospecting are not effective anymore. While CEOs are supportive of the value of marketing, they are not convinced that marketing delivers an acceptable ROI.

It is time to rethink the marketing model.

The Modern Approach to Pipeline Growth

There is a shift in the healthcare technology industry from building a pipeline based on the volume of leads to a focus on the quality of the pipeline. This is leading many marketers to adopt account-based marketing or at least account-based thinking.

Mark Erwich sums it up beautifully in this clip.

One of the key changes is investing time to measure and understand buying signals. This includes third and first-party intent data, website engagement, email responses, and social media interaction. It also requires a change in how marketing is measured. The Marketing Qualified lead (MQL) is being replaced by the Marketing Qualified Account (MQA) where the key measure is not how many interactions a single contact has made but how different stakeholders from a single account buying group have interacted with you.

What This Approach Looks Like in Practice

In this clip, I explain how this looks to one of our clients. We started with a target account list built from over 1500 potential accounts. We worked with the clients to narrow this down to 200 best-fit accounts.

As we monitored signals, including engagement with target advertising, we identified about 50 accounts that appeared to be in-market. We then doubled down on these engaged accounts and focused lead generation with these high-priority accounts.

One key thing that surprises the people we work with is that ABM is not an all-or-nothing model. We advocate a balance between ABM  and brand building, where ABM accounts for 25-30% of the budget. Brand-building is even more important than ever, as it’s critical to get onto a buyer’s shortlist at the outset of their buyer journey.

Next Level Best Practice

Mark explains some of the more advanced practices marketers adopt in this final clip. This includes:

• Leveraging your customer network
• The importance of peer-to-peer influence in healthcare
• Changing the SDR’s role to focus on research vs volume of leads
• Using content syndication later in the journey
• The importance of event strategy alignment with the buyer’s research phase

Actionable Tips

In 2025, there are several things you can do to accelerate your journey to a better approach to building a pipeline:

1. Start small with ABM thinking: Embracing ABM is a big hurdle but we recommend that you embrace an account-first model in how you generate demand.
2. Focus on the pre-lead research phase: What buying signals can help you identify accounts that may be market for what you do?
3. Create quality thought leadership: This has never been more important. Buyers must know you and see you as a leader early on in their research.

If you liked this post and want to learn more…

1. Check out more posts like this in the Healthtech MarketingLearning Center. It is chock-full of articles, use cases, how-to’s, and ideas. Check out our resource center dedicated to the Buyer Journey.
2. Follow me or connect with me on LinkedIn. I publish videos and articles on ABM and healthtech marketing.
3. See what other healthcare technology marketers are doing. Check out the State of ABM in Healthcare Technology.
4. Buy Total Customer Growth: Our book on how to win and grow customers for life with ABM and ABX.
5. Work with me directly. Let’s book a growth session and we can explore ways you can improve your marketing using the latest techniques in account-based marketing.