Market View
Beyond MQLs: Reframing success in B2B marketing
Sponsored by:
Produced by:
Adam Crossling
Marketing and New Business Director at Zenzero
Market View
Beyond MQLs: Reframing success in B2B marketing
Sponsored by:
Produced by:
Adam Crossling
Marketing and New Business Director at Zenzero
About Adam Crossling
Adam Crossling is the Marketing and New Business Director at Zenzero. With a strong background in marketing within the IT solutions industry, Adam has progressed through various leadership positions at Zenzero, including Head of Sales and Marketing, and Marketing Manager. His expertise lies in developing innovative marketing strategies, driving new business development, and aligning marketing efforts with sales objectives to fuel Zenzero's rapid growth.
How does your organisation measure marketing success, and how has this evolved recently?
We still use traditional metrics like marketing-qualified leads (MQLs), sales-qualified leads (SQLs), and wins. However, we're more focused on the ratios between these stages rather than the absolute numbers. Our goal is to have just enough MQLs to generate sufficient SQLs and, ultimately, the right number of wins.
We've moved away from vanity metrics and are encouraging our team to be consciously aware of the conversion rates between these stages. These metrics are monitored and submitted for Board Review, but we're trying to do more with this data and analyse our performance across the entire marketing funnel.
There's been significant evolution in our approach. We used to cast a wide net and focus primarily on lead volume. Now, we're heavily reliant on targeting particular account types or sectors through account-based marketing. This shift has presented challenges, particularly in articulating our message to specific audiences effectively. We're leveraging AI in our marketing team to be more efficient, but we're also tapping into internal expertise. For example, we might consult our CFO about approaches that would appeal to CFOs in other sectors.
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We've moved away from vanity metrics and are encouraging our team to be consciously aware of the conversion rates between these stages.
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For us, it's decidedly marketing-led. Marketing controls all of the activity and the cadences we have throughout the quarters.
Is your revenue generation primarily driven by sales or marketing, and why?
For us, it's decidedly marketing-led. Marketing controls all of the activity and the cadences we have throughout the quarters. We operate on a quarterly focus that rotates between sectors, driving our email campaigns, events, and all other activities, whether for existing customers or new business.
Having marketing and new business operations under one management structure has created excellent alignment. It's very clear to see where the activity originates, and it's 99% marketing-led.
Given the complexity of B2B buying journeys, how do you quantify marketing's influence across multiple touchpoints?
We work from one central CRM that tracks everything from initial engagement through to repeat email opens and website clicks. We track the origin of each opportunity, whether it came from an event, networking, or other sources. Sales personnel are asked to specify particular campaigns if they're aware of them.
This approach creates a detailed activity timeline for each lead. Additionally, we ask each individual sub-team within marketing to report on their own return on investment. This granular approach ensures everyone is interested in knowing the details, which works well across teams.
How do you ensure effective collaboration between marketing and sales in targeting accounts?
We've transitioned from a flat structure to a funnel-based approach. At the top, we have demand generation raising brand awareness. Leads are then classified into warm or hot stages and passed to a lead generation team for proactive contact. Once a lead progresses to a meeting, it's classified as marketing qualified and handed off to a new business team member.
The idea is that each team feeds the next stage of the funnel, creating a smooth flow. The main challenge lies in determining the handoff points between teams and knowing how far to take a lead before passing it on. Another challenge is recycling opportunities that have gone cold – deciding when to do this and how far up the funnel to send them.
What major shifts do you foresee in B2B marketing, and how are you preparing for them?
I see two significant changes on the horizon. First, the introduction of AI-powered search results, where users get immediate answers without needing to click through to a website. This presents both a challenge and an opportunity for us. We've always relied on SEO rankings, so we now need to focus on getting our content into these AI responses. It's challenging, but it's also an opportunity to establish ourselves as a trusted source of information.
Secondly, I believe B2B companies will need to start communicating more like B2C companies. We're seeing this trend in the finance world, where some brands are adopting a very casual, edgy, almost obnoxious tone. It's not the traditional form of communication you'd expect from that type of organisation. While we're in a relatively traditional sector, I feel we need to be a bit more daring in our communication style. The goal is to build connections with people early in the buying cycle, those who may not even be aware of Zenzero’s services yet but who appreciate our messaging and approach.
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It's about creating a narrative that resonates with both clients and investors.
How does marketing contribute to your organisation beyond generating leads?
What's become increasingly apparent to us is the importance of brand awareness. From an investor's standpoint, it's about positioning the business as mature and capable of delivering value to its audience, whether through educational content or exemplary service delivery.
I often think of it as 'dressing' the business to appeal to interested parties. While this naturally attracts potential clients, in our current position, how we're perceived by potential investors has become equally, if not more, crucial.
This shifts the focus of our marketing efforts. It's not solely about driving revenue generation, as one might typically expect. Instead, it's about cultivating interest in our company for strategic purposes. We're aiming to make people want to engage with us, to be curious about what we're doing and where we're headed.
This approach requires a more nuanced marketing strategy. We're not just selling products or services; we're selling the idea of our company as a valuable entity in the broader business ecosystem. It's about creating a narrative that resonates with both clients and investors, positioning us as a forward-thinking, robust organisation worthy of attention and investment.
About Zenzero
Zenzero is an IT solutions company founded in 2004, specialising in delivering world-class IT infrastructure, services, and support to organisations across various industries and sectors. With a mission to provide sustainable and scalable IT solutions, Zenzero prides itself on making innovative technology accessible and manageable for its clients. The company aims to be the leading IT managed services brand in the UK, focusing on quality infrastructure that underpins successful businesses.
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.
