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Pipelines and Lifecycles and Stages, oh my!

Learn how Orchestra uses three HubSpot pipelines—Marketing, Leads, and Deals—to move relationships from first contact to closed business.

Understanding the Three Pipelines in HubSpot

At Orchestra, HubSpot uses three main pipelines to track how relationships move from initial contact → lead → qualified opportunity → signed client.

Each pipeline represents a distinct part of the journey and ensures smooth handoffs between Marketing, Business Development/Growth, and Client Teams.

The journey from a relatively unknown marketing contact to a client who evangelizes our work (i.e., provides references for us) is known as the contact lifecycle, which may include many different deals with the same client.

Within each pipeline, there are stages that carry a contact, company, or deal along that lifecycle. These stages are described below.

1. Marketing Pipeline

The Marketing Pipeline manages early engagement with Contacts in the CRM. These might be people who are just poking around our websites, follow us on social, and/or subscribe to our content but haven't reached out directly about working with an Orchestra company.

  • Subscriber: Receives marketing communications; no sales activity yet.

  • Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL): An engaged contact who completes an initial marketing-driven activity that makes them ready to be evaluated by the Growth team or a member of an agency team.

👉 This pipeline is about identifying when someone is ready to move from general marketing outreach into the sales process

2. Lead Pipeline

The Lead Pipeline is where Leads are qualified—where we determine whether the prospect has enough budget to work with us, whether we can do what they are asking, etc.

By default, this pipeline includes anyone who fills out a Contact Us form on any of the agency websites. It would also include anyone who reaches out to a new business email alias to request our services or contacts a member of our agency teams for work.

At the end of this pipeline, a lead will either be declined or qualified. When qualified, they'll move into the next pipeline: Deals.

These are the stages of the Lead Pipeline:

  • New: A fresh lead, often from a “Work with Us” form submission, who has not yet been contacted by the team.

  • Attempting: Someone from Orchestra is actively trying to reach the lead.

  • Discussing/Meeting: Active dialogue has started or a meeting is scheduled.

  • Declined: Either Orchestra or the lead decides not to move forward.

  • Qualified: Opportunity confirmed with budget, estimated timeline, and decision-maker; at this stage, a Deal is created.

👉 This pipeline is about separating leads that are a fit from those that aren’t, and preparing qualified opportunities to move into the Deals Pipeline.

3. Deals Pipeline

The Deals Pipeline manages fully qualified opportunities . Contacts or companies who have deals in the deals pipeline are now called Prospects.

  • Writing: Preparing a proposal or RFP response.

  • Submitted: Proposal sent; awaiting feedback.

  • Pitching: Presenting proposal or negotiating scope/budget.

  • Awarded / Verbal Win: Client verbally commits to timeline and budget.

  • Contract Out: Agreement sent to client for signature (Finance approval required before closing).

  • Closed Won: Contract signed; deal is official.

  • Closed Lost: Opportunity not won.

👉 This pipeline is the source of truth for Orchestra’s revenue forecasting and reporting.

Why the Pipelines Matter

  • Consistency: Everyone follows the same process from marketing to close.

  • Visibility: Leaders and teams can see exactly where every opportunity stands.

  • Forecasting: Accurate pipeline stages make financial projections reliable.

✅ Next steps: Read the detailed articles on each pipeline (Marketing, Lead, and Deals) to learn the exact stages, definitions, and best practices for using them.