How a Middle-Market Investment Bank Built a Pipeline Beyond Its Founder's Network

The business development team can now see where every prospect stands, how visitors first found the firm, what they've engaged with on the site, and what the next step should be. For example, a subscriber to the quarterly industry update might next receive a case study or article about that same industry.

2022–2023: Getting the Content and Channels Right

The firm already published deal announcements and new hire news from time to time. Marketri built a content strategy and plan around them to attract new prospects and show the firm as an expert in helping middle-market owners get the most value from their companies. To get the most from the budget, the strategy included:

• A top priority on business owners who are close to selling their company and starting to look for an investment banker
• Additional content for owners who are a few years away from a sale, to fill the pipeline early and attract corporate advisory clients
• A more engaging pitch book and a larger library of testimonials and case studies that build credibility
• An email program that mixes scheduled and timely emails, some focused on specific industries and some broader

Marketri also strengthened the firm's social media presence with more frequent, planned posts that showcase the expertise of a wide group of its bankers, and scripted short leadership videos for the firm's client newsletter. With a steady flow of content behind it, LinkedIn became an important source of new leads.

Early Results: A Broader Pipeline

Marketri's work helped the firm build awareness among a wider range of prospects and bring in new leads well beyond the founder's connections.

"Marketri has become our trusted source for market research and outreach recommendations. We have better brand awareness, a stronger online presence, and the infrastructure to do proactive marketing, and we're building a stronger pipeline." (Chief of Staff)

By 2023, the results included:

• Organic search (unpaid visits from search engines) became the leading source of leads after the website relaunch, and organic search visitors grew 20% over six months.
• The firm began ranking for searches that don't include its name, which brought in prospects who didn't already know the firm. The number of search terms where it ranked in the top 10 nearly quadrupled, from 9 to 35, including page-one results for phrases like "what makes a good private equity investment" and "selling your company to private equity."
• A series of bylined articles in a business magazine generated leads from several family offices (private investment firms that manage one family's wealth), an increasingly important group of buyers that is hard to find.
• The firm's LinkedIn following grew 31% in one year.

Today the firm goes to market by sector, and its marketing brings in new prospects in each of its key industries rather than relying on one broad message.

Five years in, the firm has a substantially larger team of bankers, and a growing share of its business now comes from outside the founder's network. Its 2025 results, measured against the firm's annual goals and against the same months in 2024, show the program still growing.

LinkedIn impressions also tripled. Visits from ChatGPT grew roughly tenfold. They are still about 1% of website traffic, but they show that prospects have started using AI tools to research advisors.

2026: What's Next

That last trend shapes the firm's 2026 plan, which adds work to make the firm easier for AI tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity to find, understand, and recommend.