Market View
Beyond MQLs: Reframing success in B2B marketing
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Produced by:
Iain Moss
Head of Demand Generation at DigitalGenius
About Iain Moss
Iain Moss is the Head of Demand Generation at DigitalGenius, a company specialising in customer service automation for retail and e-commerce businesses. In his role, Iain focuses on driving revenue through various marketing channels. He is part of the commercial team and plays a pivotal role in enhancing marketing strategies to automate repetitive queries for customer service teams, streamlining their operations and improving efficiency.
Are you noticing a shift towards account-based marketing in B2B settings influencing how marketing is measured today? If so, could you describe these changes?
Absolutely, we're witnessing a significant shift in the B2B landscape, with account-based marketing (ABM) emerging as a key driver of change. In the current climate, marketing faces heightened scrutiny, largely due to tightening budgets. This has compelled us to make our efforts more measurable and accountable.
What we're seeing is a closer alignment between marketing and sales. It's becoming imperative to view all marketing activities through the lens of revenue contribution. The challenge lies in striking a balance between innovative, less quantifiable initiatives and those that directly impact the bottom line. The key is to integrate these efforts strategically, ensuring they align with overarching business objectives.
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Marketing and sales are being brought closer together. It's becoming crucial to view all marketing activities in terms of their contribution to revenue.
Could you share how you collaborate with sales and how the MQL fits into this process?
Given my role's proximity to the sales team, collaboration comes naturally. We have streamlined systems in place to promptly respond to demo requests or webinar attendees, signalling a strong interest in our offerings.
For urgent interactions, like a late-night demo request, our sales team is poised to engage swiftly.
With softer touchpoints like webinars, we're continually refining our approach. It's vital that attendees fully experience our content before any overt sales pitch. Striking the right balance in timing is crucial, especially considering the limited attention spans in today's market.
The MQL holds a distinct place in our sales process. We meticulously track all inbound leads, irrespective of source, to assess their alignment with our Ideal Customer Profile (ICP), which centres on retail sectors with high service ticket volumes.
What are currently the top key performance indicators that marketing is measured on in your organisation today?
While we don't track an extensive array of KPIs, a few are paramount. The primary metric is the number of meetings booked through inbound or other marketing channels. Precisely, my metrics are focused on inbound channels leading directly to meetings booked. That's my primary target: to secure meetings through these inbound channels.
The second KPI is the revenue generated from these channels—a measure of their effectiveness in driving revenue. The third relates to the efficiency of these efforts: the speed and conversion rate through the sales funnel. Additionally, the cost per meeting booked is a significant consideration.
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If I were in the CEO's position, I'd advocate for measuring marketing interactions across the entire funnel.
If you were in your CEO's shoes, what metrics would you put in place to measure Marketing's contribution to new business revenue generation? And what would be your rationale for doing this?
From a CEO's perspective, I would advocate for measuring marketing interactions across the entire funnel. Once a deal is in motion, it's vital to monitor the frequency and impact of prospect engagement with our content. Do disengaged prospects have a higher likelihood of dropping off? Does sustained engagement measurably influence the probability of closing a deal?
This approach shifts the focus from merely driving new leads to more effectively nurturing existing prospects, enhancing their journey towards conversion. Understanding and optimising our marketing efforts at every funnel stage is pivotal.
Could you share how you envision integrating marketing across the funnel, especially from a strategic perspective?
ssIn a tech-led company like ours, where practicality often drives decisions, the mindset differs from sales-led or marketing-led organizations. The flexibility in thinking varies significantly—sales teams are laser-focused on revenue, while marketing teams prioritize reach and engagement.
My marketing philosophy is akin to the adage, 'a rising tide lifts all boats.' With strong teams across sales, tech, and customer success, bolstering them with robust marketing makes articulating our value proposition seamless and enhances all functions.
By embedding marketing from the outset, each customer interaction builds upon the last. If customers grasp the value we provide and see how our innovations improve their lives, they're more likely to remain engaged.
Essentially, effective marketing ensures that every new product feature or service improvement is perceived as a logical extension of what customers already value about our company. This alignment fosters brand loyalty and helps customers feel invested in our company's journey.
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By embedding marketing from the outset, each customer interaction builds upon the last. If customers grasp the value we provide and see how our innovations improve their lives, they're more likely to remain engaged.
How do you see the growing role of generative AI impacting B2B marketing? What are the specific areas you're trialling it in, and what have been the results so far?
We've leveraged AI for blog writing, primarily for SEO purposes. By inputting a keyword and providing prompts or reference blogs, the AI would generate content. Initially, it proved quite effective, but we discontinued its use when the outputs began to sound repetitive and occasionally veered off-topic.
However, AI remained useful for creating more general, glossary-style content. The tool also incorporated SEO features, offering suggestions on keyword density and best practices, which were beneficial. With my editorial oversight, the AI-generated blogs performed quite well.
Beyond content creation, AI excels at idea generation. For instance, if you request eight content topics, even if seven are unusable, one might be truly brilliant.
About DigitalGenius
DigitalGenius is a leading provider of customer service automation solutions tailored specifically for the retail and e-commerce sectors. Leveraging advanced artificial intelligence technology, DigitalGenius helps businesses automate repetitive customer inquiries, enhancing the efficiency of customer service teams and improving overall customer experience. By integrating seamlessly with existing customer service platforms, DigitalGenius not only streamlines operations but also drives significant cost savings, making it a trusted partner for businesses aiming to innovate and optimise their customer service operations.
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.
