Market View
Beyond MQLs: Reframing success in B2B marketing
Sponsored by:
Produced by:
Maria Liw
Head of Global Digital and Content at SimCorp
About Maria Liw
Maria Liw is the Head of Global Digital and Content at SimCorp, where she oversees Martech, demand generation, content production, social media strategies, and digital campaigns. With extensive experience in B2B marketing, Maria is at the forefront of implementing data-driven, account-based marketing strategies. Her expertise spans across global and regional marketing initiatives, allowing her to drive cohesive digital presence and engagement across all channels while aligning marketing efforts with sales objectives.
How has SimCorp transitioned from traditional lead generation to a more intent-based strategy?
The transition from traditional lead generation to an intent-based strategy has been an ongoing process for us at SimCorp. We've made a significant shift in our approach, moving away from producing leads in the traditional sense. This change required extensive internal lobbying and education, particularly in partnership with our sales operations team.
We focused on explaining how B2B marketing works in the digital realm, which involved a lot of internal evangelism. It's almost like a gamification for marketing now. Our job is to ensure we're driving engagement within the accounts we've collectively agreed to target. This means creating appealing content, utilising the right channels, and increasing engagement within those specific accounts.
We use analogies that people can relate to from their personal experiences as consumers. For instance, when you Google something and suddenly receive targeted advertisements, you might not want to engage immediately. This helps our sales representatives understand that we need to nurture engagement before people are willing to have a conversation.
It's crucial to recognise that people aren't ready to buy something just because they've downloaded a white paper. Our strategy now focuses on growing that engagement organically, making prospects more receptive to our outreach when the time is right.
"Our job now is to ensure that we're driving engagement within the accounts we've collectively agreed to target. This means creating appealing content, utilising the right channels, and increasing engagement within those specific accounts."
How do you measure engagement, and what tools do you use to track it?
We've developed a comprehensive engagement scoring system that goes beyond traditional metrics. While we use Pardot as our primary tool, we've enhanced this model to suit our specific needs. Our system assigns scores to various interactions, including both digital and physical touchpoints.
One of the more sophisticated aspects of our system is what we call "unknown scoring." This allows us to track engagement even when we can't identify a specific individual. For example, if someone visits our website and accepts cookies, we can still measure that engagement at the company level.
We aggregate data from multiple sources to create a holistic view of engagement. This includes information from Pardot, LinkedIn, Google Analytics, Consensus and Demandbase. All of this data is then synthesised into a BI dashboard, which allows us to filter and analyse engagement by account, region, or any other relevant parameter.
The result is essentially a heat map of engagement. It's a visual representation that allows our teams to quickly identify which accounts are showing the highest levels of interest. Users can drill down into each account to see the specific activities driving that engagement score.
How has this shift in measurement impacted collaboration between marketing and sales?
This new approach has significantly impacted our collaboration with sales. We've moved away from the old model of simply throwing MQLs over the wall to sales. Now, it's about coming together, analysing the engagement scores, and trying to understand what they truly mean.
We've created a feedback loop between marketing and sales. We're not just looking at who has engaged, but also examining who hasn't engaged and why. We combine our data and analytics with the sales team's insights from their conversations, events, cold calling, and email outreach.
This collaboration informs our campaign strategy. For instance, we might identify that certain accounts are highly engaged, but we're missing engagement from specific buyer personas. Together with sales, we can then develop targeted campaigns to penetrate these accounts more effectively.
"We've created a feedback loop between marketing and sales. We're not just looking at who has engaged, but also examining who hasn't engaged and why."
"This dual approach ensures we're nurturing long-term relationships while also providing targeted support for immediate sales opportunities."
How do you balance global and regional marketing efforts in this new approach?
We operate on two levels to balance our global and regional marketing efforts. First, we have global "always-on" campaigns targeting a wider subset of accounts, looking at engagement from a high level. These campaigns are more long-term, aimed at maintaining visibility and presence, which is crucial given our extended sales cycles of two to five years.
Then, we have regional marketing teams working directly with local sales teams. These regional teams focus on specific accounts that they're targeting for the year. This allows us to personalise our approach for the accounts that sales are actively engaging with.
This dual approach ensures we're nurturing long-term relationships while also providing targeted support for immediate sales opportunities. It's a delicate balance, but one that's proving effective in our complex, long-sales-cycle environment.
To further refine our strategy, we've shifted towards a demand generation model, which includes KPIs based on engagement scores for target accounts. We’re still defining what the ideal engagement score should be, whether it's 100, 200, or 500 points per account.
Additionally, we focus on what we call the Serviceable Addressable Market (SAM) and the Serviceable Obtainable Market (SOM). The SAM represents our total addressable market, while the SOM is more immediate and influenced by factors like geographic presence and product fit. This segmentation helps us tailor our approach, balancing broad brand awareness with targeted engagement strategies across both our global and regional efforts.
lorem
lorem
lorem ipsum
lorem ipsum
About SimCorp
SimCorp is a leading provider of integrated investment management solutions, offering software and services for the global buy side. Their SimCorp One platform handels complex investment portfolios and multi-asset strategies, providing real-time data, analytics, and reporting capabilities. Founded in 1971, with more than 3,000 employees across five continents, SimCorp is a truly global technology leader that empowers more than half of the world’s top 100 financial companies through its integrated platform, services, and partner ecosystem.
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.
6sense are changing the world of marketing, one customer advocacy programme at a time. Ready to transform your business?
