Market View
Beyond MQLs: Reframing success in B2B marketing
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Jamaica Lancee
Head of Marketing at Sensat
About Jamaica Lancee
Jamaica Lancee is the Head of Marketing at Sensat, where she leads all marketing initiatives, with a keen focus on customer acquisition through account-based marketing (ABM). Jamaica balances strategic growth efforts with tactical onboarding processes, playing a crucial role in establishing Sensat's market presence. Her innovative approach to aligning marketing with business objectives is instrumental in driving the company's success in the competitive infrastructure technology sector.
How has your marketing approach evolved with the adoption of account-based marketing (ABM)?
We've made a significant shift. Previously, we focused on marketing qualified leads (MQLs), but now we're targeting growth in both existing and new accounts. It's a much more focused approach. Instead of casting a wide net across the entire infrastructure industry, we're now selective, identifying accounts with the highest likelihood of success within a predictable timeframe.
Our positioning has changed too. It's less about general brand awareness and more about building recognition within specifically targeted accounts. Our proposition is now tailored to address the unique challenges of these target accounts directly.
That said, MQLs and ABM can coexist. We're not completely abandoning inbound marketing, but with our lean team, we're prioritising ABM. We're keeping our inbound process light, focusing intensely on the prospects we truly want to engage with deeply.
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Instead of casting a wide net across the entire infrastructure industry, we're now selective, identifying accounts with the highest likelihood of success within a predictable timeframe.
What are the key metrics you're using to measure marketing performance now?
We're focusing on three main KPIs: increased contacts, engaged contacts, and account engagement. The semantics here are crucial - we're moving away from the term 'leads' as it implies a more detailed understanding of aspects like timing and budget than we typically have at this stage.
These KPIs form the base of what I see as a pyramid, with revenue impact at the top. They're proxies indicating revenue potential, which is vital given that our pipeline isn't the smoothest right now. If we solely focused on revenue attribution, it might paint a rather grim picture of our performance.
We've broken our focus into two parts: the top of the funnel and engaging customers once they're in. Since we only rolled out ABM last November, we can't overhaul everything simultaneously. I'm prioritising areas I believe will bring the most significant wins for the company and generate excitement for further changes.
How are you aligning your marketing function with sales, and what challenges have you encountered?
A significant challenge has been gaining a clear overview of decision-makers at the account level. Since January, we've had a metric for average executive account engagement at about 25%. To effectively track this, we need to know who the key personnel are in each account. This information often comes from sales-led, commercial discussions.
My role involves asking the right questions and ensuring there's a transparent point of reference visible to the entire business. There's also a significant amount of administrative work required to log all engagement activities.
The conversations I'm having now have a different flavour. Instead of just handing over marketing collateral and deliverables, I'm asking sales, "What's your plan? What's your strategy? How can I support that?" It's less about producing outputs for sales to 'run with,' and more about understanding and supporting their strategic plan.
This approach is breaking marketing out of its traditional pigeonhole. My executives now see it as a lead-driven initiative that impacts the entire business, not just a department delivering leads.
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My role involves asking the right questions and ensuring there's a transparent point of reference visible to the entire business.
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In our industry, we often target projects rather than just companies. We might target a project involving multiple stakeholders like Thames Water, Berkeley, and others, rather than focusing solely on the asset owner.
You've mentioned that you see ABM as the future. How are you implementing it?
We're taking a measured approach. The first step was establishing a common understanding of what ABM means for us across the business. There's often a disconnect between how the COO and CRO view ABM and where I should focus my resources, so alignment was crucial.
We knew from the start this would be a long-term initiative, spanning over a year. You have to be comfortable with a gradual pace and showing incremental wins to maintain momentum.
Currently, we have 42 target accounts - 18 current customers where we're exploring growth opportunities, and 24 prospects, primarily in the UK with a few in Australia. It's a niche approach, but it presents unique challenges.
Interestingly, in our industry, we often target projects rather than just companies. For instance, we might target a project involving multiple stakeholders, rather than focusing solely on the asset owner.
Timing is critical in our approach. We need to engage before financial allocations are set, which often means understanding regulatory and project timelines. For initiatives related to Net Zero, for example, there are specific investment windows due to regulatory pressures. We need to build relationships and finalise deals within these constrained timelines.
How do you see generative AI impacting B2B marketing?
Generative AI is more than just a trend; it's a continuous topic of discussion for us. We've looked at the most tedious tasks in marketing that we dislike and considered how AI could help, aiming to focus more on what we do best.
We've primarily used AI for ideation, which we love but find time-consuming. It helps initiate the process, starting from a blank sheet, which we often find challenging. It's also useful for summarising and identifying trends in large amounts of content.
The results have been mixed. I think our challenges stem partly from our initial prompts and somewhat skewed inputs. We're still learning how to better integrate AI into our processes.
We also experimented with AI to enhance our LinkedIn content. Interestingly, we observed a drop in engagement, which led us to consider how LinkedIn's algorithms might detect and perhaps deprioritise AI-generated content. It's always a concern, ensuring our content doesn't trigger platform algorithms to think it's merely autogenerated.
It's a bit of a cat-and-mouse game, but I think it's great that platforms like LinkedIn monitor this. We're still in the learning phase, but I believe AI has the potential to significantly enhance our marketing efficiency and effectiveness.
About Sensat
Sensat is a technology company that specialises in creating digital replicas of real-world environments. By capturing and visualising complex physical settings, Sensat enables industries such as construction, infrastructure, and utilities to make more informed decisions. Their platform leverages advanced sensors and AI-driven analytics to transform raw data into actionable insights, facilitating better project planning, execution, and maintenance. Sensat's innovative approach helps businesses reduce costs, improve safety, and enhance operational efficiency by providing a comprehensive digital perspective of physical assets.
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.
