Market View
Beyond MQLs: Reframing success in B2B marketing
Sponsored by:
Produced by:
Graeme McKee
Vice President of Marketing at Systal Technology Solutions
About Graeme McKee
Graeme McKee is the Vice President of Marketing at Systal Technology Solutions, a global IT services company. With extensive experience in B2B marketing, Graeme oversees all aspects of global marketing operations, including brand management, growth initiatives, and marketing strategies that drive sales activation. His expertise spans the full spectrum of B2B marketing functions, with a focus on aligning marketing efforts with sales objectives and leveraging technology to enhance marketing effectiveness.
How does Account-Based Marketing (ABM) align with traditional good marketing practices?
The perceived shift towards ABM isn't entirely new. Good marketers and sales teams have been employing strategies akin to ABM for years; it just wasn't labelled as such. It's about the fundamentals associated with ABM—the client-centric approach, aligning marketing with sales, and tailoring campaigns, whether it's on a one-to-one or one-to-many basis.
My view is that strategic ABM has become a hot topic because of its evolution with technology. The advancements in technology and the ability to measure effectiveness have driven this perceived shift. The ease of measurement now plays a big role. The metrics, ROI attribution, multi-touchpoint attribution—all these elements have become smarter in terms of the ability to track ABM metrics that reflect account engagement and progression through the sales funnel. It's easier to adopt ABM strategies when you can measure their impact and tailor your approaches more precisely.
"Good marketers and sales teams have been employing strategies akin to ABM for years; it just wasn't labelled as such."
"For me, it goes beyond mere marketing or sales—it's about the entire organisation aligning around a common set of goals."
What are the key challenges in achieving sales and marketing alignment, and how do you overcome them?
For me, it goes beyond mere marketing or sales—it's about the entire organisation aligning around a common set of goals. Without this alignment at the organisational level, efforts between sales and marketing won't be as effective. This alignment involves understanding our shared objectives. Are we clear on our market research? Do we fully grasp our customer's pain points? What are our unique selling propositions? How do we measure success, and what does success look like for us?
Specifically, regarding the alignment between sales and marketing, it's important to acknowledge that sales is inherently short-term and driven by immediate results—things like sales quotas and revenue targets are paramount. On the other hand, a robust marketing function must consider the longer-term perspective, such as brand development and broader strategic goals. This can be tough for marketers in those periods when sales and the wider business get consumed with more results-driven and focused short-term gains.
For instance, a salesperson focused on quarterly commissions might not prioritise long-term branding goals if they're behind on their targets. This creates a bit of natural friction, which is why having shared goals and a unified direction is so crucial. Conflict between marketing and sales is common, and often it stems from communication issues but also from misaligned expectations on both sides. For example, sales might not be satisfied with the quality of leads, and marketing might feel that sales aren't following up adequately.
This is why predefining MQL criteria is so important between sales and marketing, especially in more complex or longer cycles where the sale isn’t typically as linear or transactional. In every B2B organisation’s sales funnel, there's a point where marketing hands off to sales, which is a critical transition. What I've noticed is with changes in buyer behaviour and how the market self-educates and accesses information, sales increasingly come into the picture a bit later than before. Take ‘dark social’ and the concept of B2B buyers using untrackable sources and word-of-mouth channels to research and even make buying decisions: e.g. social media communities or internal comms like Slack, WhatsApp messages and word of mouth. The reality is in B2B there are multiple touchpoints, and they can’t all be tangibly measured and weighted.
To effectively address these challenges, it's essential to set clear, mutually understood expectations. Often, issues arise from differing perspectives on what constitutes a qualified lead and how it should be handled. So, it's vital for those heading sales and marketing to have a unified vision aligned with the company's overall goals. While it's not necessary for sales and marketing to function as a single team, they must work in close coordination to achieve true alignment.
How can technologies like generative AI and machine learning help address future alignment challenges in marketing and sales?
Significantly, if used correctly. Within marketing circles, Gen AI is probably currently most used for content creation, copywriting and for helping marketers inspire creative thinking. This will evolve in other areas such as testing and experimentation, optimising SEO strategy, personalising campaigns, analysing marketing data and so on. In the context of MQLs and sales and marketing alignment, Gen AI might even help generate and score leads. So it will help, though I think that as Gen AI tech adoption grows, so too will rising expectations on B2B marketing teams in terms of the expected speed, quality and relevance of outputs.
Without sounding too pessimistic, the reality is technology has constantly evolved but the core issues of sales and marketing alignment, communication and clarity still remain, and probably always will. The good thing is, technology advancements will naturally improve how we leverage data-driven decision-making and integrate technology more effectively with marketing and sales functions. But other factors, both micro and macro, which we may not yet be aware of, will also play a role depending on the company and industry. For example, I think as generative AI adoption increases, conversely, the market will strive for greater authenticity, at both a brand and individual level.
One aspect I find particularly intriguing is buyer behaviour: how the market consumes content and transitions beyond mere marketing-qualified leads (MQLs). A current challenge is deciding if and when to make educational content more freely available, which reduces friction, or to capture contact details as sales teams prefer for nurturing leads.
I'm working to help our sales team understand that buyer behaviour is evolving towards greater self-education. This shift means that sales should focus more on engaging later in the buying process, concentrating on closing deals when the market is ready, rather than nurturing leads as they might have with someone who downloaded an ebook or signed up for a webinar years ago.
"As Gen AI tech adoption evolves, so too will rising expectations on B2B marketing teams"
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About Systal Technology Solutions
Systal Technology Solutions is a global managed network, cloud and security transformation specialist. Systal manages complex and tailored technology services for enterprise businesses across 3,500+ sites in 93 countries. These services help their customers achieve strategic technology transformation and maximise the business value, security, and innovative potential of their IT infrastructure.
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.
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