Market View
Beyond MQLs: Reframing success in B2B marketing
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Produced by:
Emily Evans
Head of Direct Marketing at Moneypenny
About Emily Evans
Emily Evans is the Head of Direct Marketing at Moneypenny, where she oversees a broad spectrum of marketing activities. Her role encompasses strategy development, tactical execution, and performance measurement across multiple channels including email, social media, and direct mail.
How has the shift towards account-based marketing and B2B marketing influenced the way marketing is measured today, and what are these changes?
There has definitely been a notable shift in B2B marketing, where the focus has moved from the quantity of leads to the quality and engagement across the customer journey. Historically, the number of leads was the primary driver, but now we recognise that this can be a vanity metric if it doesn't translate into meaningful results. While we still measure lead quantity, it's part of a much wider conversation that includes multi-touch attribution, engagement rates, and lifetime value. The ROI timeline has also expanded from a 12-month view to considering the entire client lifecycle, including cross-selling opportunities and account management.
This shift is particularly relevant for our business, as we cater to a wide range of clients, from sole traders to multinational corporations. Our call answering (inbound and outbound) and digital chat-based services are tailored to usage, with packages starting at £49 a month for our entry-level offering and scaling up to comprehensive bespoke solutions for large teams. Adapting our marketing strategies to effectively target and engage this diverse client base is an ongoing challenge and opportunity.
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There has definitely been a notable shift in B2B marketing, where the focus has moved from the quantity of leads to the quality and engagement across the customer journey.
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By caring as much about lead qualification as sales does, we've been able to align our departments and inform our marketing strategy based on these shared objectives.
What are currently the top 3 main KPIs that marketing is measured on in your organisation?
Our top KPI remains the number of inbound, qualified leads. It's not just about someone downloading an ebook; it's about individuals who have made an inbound action and are in the market for our services. The second equally important KPI is the qualification rate – how many of those leads become opportunities. And finally, we measure the associated client numbers and revenue. We also consider the lifetime value ROI, ensuring that our KPIs cover the entire customer journey rather than just the initial lead generation.
These KPIs are consistent across our product lines, although the complexity of services varies based on client needs. From a marketing perspective, our strategy is uniform across all segments. However, sales tactics differ based on the business size and the specific products they're interested in, ensuring that our sales personnel have the requisite expertise for the products and client segments they handle.
What challenges have you encountered in aligning your marketing function with sales, and do you have shared goals and metrics for success?
In many businesses, alignment between marketing and sales can be challenging, especially when marketing’s goal is purely to generate the maximum number of leads and this doesn’t necessarily align with sales’ objectives of converting as many as possible. At Moneypenny, we circumvent these challenges by focusing on lead quality over quantity and establishing shared goals. These include qualification rates, conversion rates, and associated revenue. By caring as much about lead qualification as sales do, we're able to align our departments and inform our marketing strategy based on these shared objectives.
This alignment is particularly crucial in our specialised sectors, such as legal, finance, healthcare, and property, where marketing supports business development significantly through events. Our events strategy blurs the lines between business development and inbound, as the two are intrinsically linked. Marketing ensures everything is impeccably organised and presented, while sales focus on converting the inbound leads we generate at these events. It's a prime example of how interconnected our strategies are.
The collaboration between marketing and sales is a complex interaction. Our approach starts with a marketing plan based on data segmentation, but sales feedback, often anecdotal, plays a crucial role, especially when data alone doesn't tell the full story. I'd estimate that sales insights inform about 30 to 40% of our strategy, with the remainder driven by data.
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I believe that AI technology will play a significant role in translating frontline sales conversations into actionable insights for marketing.
In your opinion, what are the key trends and challenges that will shape the future of sales and marketing collaboration?
I believe that AI technology will play a significant role in translating frontline sales conversations into actionable insights for marketing. Tools like Copilot from 365 can record calls, transcribe key pain points, and analyse tone and fluctuations in the conversation. This will provide marketers with valuable, quantifiable insights that they might not otherwise have access to, as they don't typically speak with prospects every day like sales does. Having this objective data will help bridge the gap between sales and marketing, reducing reliance on subjective anecdotes and enabling more data-driven collaboration.
However, it's important to note that while AI and technology will undoubtedly play a larger role, the human element remains at the core of our business. Our approach is to combine the best tech with the best people, ensuring that every interaction feels personal and relevant, whether it's through digital means or direct communication. As we move forward, we will continue to ensure we strike the right balance between leveraging AI-driven insights and maintaining the human touch that sets us apart.
We also face the unique challenge of offering a product that, while having a consumer-style appeal suitable for small businesses, also necessitates a traditional B2B sales approach for larger operations. Managing these two distinct sides of the business requires careful integration, but the underlying challenges our services address are essentially the same across scales.
About Moneypenny
Moneypenny is a leading provider of outsourced communication solutions, specialising in telephone answering, live chat, and digital receptionist services for businesses worldwide. Founded in 2000, the company offers 24/7 support tailored to meet the unique needs of each client, utilising highly trained receptionists and cutting-edge technology. Moneypenny has established itself as a pioneer in the virtual receptionist industry, setting the standard for excellence in customer communication.
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.
