Market View
Beyond MQLs: Reframing success in B2B marketing
Sponsored by:
Produced by:
Tom Rivers
Head of Brand at Speechmatics
Market View
Beyond MQLs: Reframing success in B2B marketing
Sponsored by:
Produced by:
Tom Rivers
Head of Brand at Speechmatics
About Tom Rivers
Tom Rivers is the Head of Brand at Speechmatics, a role he has held since May 2023. With a passion for strategic brand development, Tom leads the brand team in creating a strong presence in the speech recognition and AI industry. His responsibilities span graphic design, website management, social media strategy, and content production. Tom's expertise lies in crafting compelling brand narratives and implementing creative strategies to enhance Speechmatics' position in the competitive AI and technology landscape.
How has Speechmatics evolved its approach to measuring marketing success beyond traditional metrics like MQLs?
We've moved beyond MQLs at Speechmatics because we found that over-optimising for them can distract from our main goals. Our focus now is on effectively positioning ourselves in the minds of our target audience, finding them wherever they are, and making them aware of what we do in a compelling way.
We've shifted towards concentrating on pipeline and marketing-influenced pipeline. This transition involved un-gating most of our content to provide as much valuable information as possible. We believe that when the time is right, prospects will return to us. Our tracking and analytics allow us to see if they've engaged with our content in the past when they eventually identify themselves to our sales team.
In terms of metrics, we're now looking at a more holistic set of indicators. We monitor our audience size across various social media platforms, engagement with our content, and organic and referral traffic to our website. These metrics have been added to our dashboard alongside pipeline and marketing-influenced pipeline. Together, they provide a comprehensive view that allows us to sense-check: Are we producing high-quality content? Is our audience finding it genuinely interesting and valuable?
It's important to note that we view these more as measurements rather than explicit targets. They serve as a litmus test for the value, interest, and engagement our content generates across platforms.
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We've moved beyond MQLs at Speechmatics, primarily because we found that over-optimising towards increasing MQLs can lead to losing sight of what we're really trying to achieve.
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My role is ensuring that every single one of those touchpoints achieves cut-through and ensures that we're memorable. We want people to know exactly what we do, but potentially, and hopefully, we also resonate on a deeper emotional level, creating a connection to the brand.
Given the complexity of B2B buying journeys, how do you quantify marketing's influence across multiple touchpoints?
Quantifying marketing's influence is complex, especially in B2B. We can measure the number of touchpoints - if someone sees something, clicks on it, or visits our website multiple times. As a marketing team, we claim anyone who has seen anything by us as marketing-influenced to some extent.
However, what's impossible to quantify is the impact of those touchpoints. Someone might see a post on LinkedIn and scroll past it, but it could still leave a lasting impression. Or they might see an ad by us and be absolutely bowled over by it.
My role is ensuring that every single one of those touchpoints achieves cut-through and ensures that we're memorable. We want people to know exactly what we do, but also hopefully resonate on a deeper emotional level, creating a connection to the brand.
We do some split testing of ads and copy, picking the best performing ones. But it's still very difficult to quantify how much marketing almost "won the sale" before it began, which I think is the mark of a good brand. That higher-level brand messaging is incredibly powerful but very difficult to quantify.
How important is team collaboration, particularly with sales, in implementing brand-focused marketing strategies?
The team's impact is immense, both in terms of brand building and storytelling. When you consistently invest in raising the bar for quality across all your marketing efforts, it instils a profound sense of confidence in your commercial teams.
For example, when I first joined Speechmatics, most of our commercial team would mention our competitors within the first couple of sentences of their pitch. Since we've shifted our focus beyond MQLs and invested more in building connections, brand identity, and storytelling, there's been a noticeable change. Now, our sales team walks into rooms with the confidence to pitch our vision without feeling the need to immediately compare ourselves to competitors.
To maintain this alignment, we've implemented several strategies. Time spent together is crucial, including sales enablement activities and sharing of best practices. We have company-wide meetings where each team discusses their current projects. We also dedicate substantial time for our entire go-to-market team to convene and discuss current deals, objections they're encountering, how prospects found us, and what's on the horizon. This provides our marketing team with invaluable insights that help us understand what we're doing well, where customers are finding us, and what information they lacked at the outset of the process.
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I think there's a shift happening in B2B marketing that's been common in B2C for a while now. We're moving away from the era of preciousness and owning our own content, where our website and content were like a wall or castle that we were very protective over.
How do you see the future of B2B marketing evolving, particularly in terms of brand strategy and audience engagement?
I think there's a shift happening in B2B marketing that's been common in B2C for a while now. We're moving away from the era of preciousness and owning our own content, where our website and content were like a wall or castle that we were very protective over.
What we're doing more of now is working with influencers. For B2B, it's about reaching out to people who have their own dedicated audience and, to some extent, surrendering control of the message. People often feel sceptical when they're being sold to directly, but they have a lot of faith and trust in experts who aren't necessarily paid experts, but just have strong opinions in the space.
There's also a growing understanding that not everything needs to drive traffic back to your website. If you create high-quality content that people can consume without leaving their preferred platform, they're more likely to engage with it. By meeting people where they are and providing value consistently, you build credibility and awareness without asking them to leave their preferred platform.
This approach requires a certain level of trust and letting go of control, which can be scary for B2B brands. But I believe it's the direction we're heading in. It's about creating an ecosystem where our content naturally draws people in, fostering relationships based on consistent value delivery rather than gated access.
Ultimately, the future of B2B marketing is about building trust over time. We may not always be able to predict exact outcomes, but by consistently investing in brand and storytelling, and then measuring the results, we can build a compelling case for its importance in driving business success.
About Speechmatics
Speechmatics is a pioneering company in the field of speech recognition and artificial intelligence technology. Founded in Cambridge, UK, the company specialises in developing advanced speech-to-text solutions powered by AI. Speechmatics aims to revolutionise human-technology interaction by creating accurate, adaptable, and inclusive voice recognition systems capable of understanding diverse accents and languages, designed for seamless integration across various industries globally.
About 6sense
6sense is on a mission to revolutionise the way B2B organisations create revenue by predicting customers most likely to buy and recommending the best course of action to engage anonymous buying teams. 6sense Revenue AI is the only sales and marketing platform to unlock the ability to create, manage and convert high-quality pipeline to revenue. Customers report 2X increases in average contract value, 4X increases in win rate and 20-40% reduction in time to close deals. Know everything, do anything, with 6sense.