Market View
Beyond MQLs: Reframing success in B2B marketing
Sponsored by:
Produced by:
Sarah Haddon
Vice President of Growth at Planday
Market View
Beyond MQLs: Reframing success in B2B marketing
Sponsored by:
Produced by:
Sarah Haddon
Vice President of Growth at Planday
About Sarah Haddon
Sarah Haddon is the Vice President of Growth at Planday, a position she has held since February 2024. Based in London, Sarah brings extensive marketing experience across various sectors, with a recent focus on scaling SaaS companies. Her career has spanned significant roles at companies such as CloudCall, MyHomeMove, and Volvo Trucks, where she developed and executed innovative marketing strategies to drive business success. In her current role, Sarah is responsible for leading growth initiatives and expanding Planday's market presence.
Can you explain how Planday's approach to account-based marketing (ABM) differs for small and large businesses, and why this dual strategy is important?
At Planday, we've developed a dual approach to cater to both small and larger businesses within our target market. For inbound marketing, which typically attracts smaller businesses with fewer than 20 employees, we've streamlined the process to facilitate self-conversions. This includes simplifying follow-ups and reducing sales team involvement, which lowers our cost to serve and allows us to realise revenue more quickly from these smaller leads.
For larger accounts, where the decision-making process involves more stakeholders, we adopt an account-based marketing approach. Here, our sales team engages differently, focusing on addressing the specific pain points of each stakeholder throughout the sales process. This approach is particularly important for multi-site operations or hotel or restaurant chains, where the complexity of buying decisions typically requires a broader discussion.
Both segments are equally important to us, as we currently primarily focus on the small to mid-sized market segment. This strategic segmentation ensures we efficiently address the distinct needs of each group while maintaining our focus on growth. It also helps us manage risks without diluting our focus across too broad a spectrum.
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We've embraced the philosophy that sales win when marketing wins, and vice versa. We rely on sales to gather insights from customer interactions during demos.
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For larger accounts, where the decision-making process involves more stakeholders, we adopt an account-based marketing approach.
How have you improved collaboration between marketing and sales teams, and what results have you seen from these efforts?
We've implemented several initiatives to bridge the communication gap between marketing and sales. One simple yet effective change was instituting regular updates where we discuss past successes and upcoming engagements. This led to the closing of one of our biggest customers in the last 12 months as a result of a networking event supported by marketing and attended by sales.
We've also embraced the philosophy that sales win when marketing wins, and vice versa. We rely on sales to gather insights from customer interactions during demos, using tools like Jiminny for sentiment analysis. This helps us understand the terms and phrases prospects use, which we then use to refine our paid and organic search strategies.
Moreover, we're making a concerted effort to ensure that insights from sales lead to actionable changes in marketing. We closely examine sales talk tracks to ensure alignment with our marketing messaging, creating a cohesive flow in the customer journey. This prevents any disconnect between the marketing a customer sees and the sales interaction they experience.
Outside of direct sales collaboration, product marketing plays a vital role. We focus on defining ideal customer profiles (ICPs), pain points, and clear benefit statements, which we then pass on to the sales team. This creates a sales enablement "crib sheet" that helps them tailor their outreach, ensuring they address specific pain points with relevant features and benefits.
How are you leveraging generative AI in your marketing strategies, particularly for multilingual content?
We've started using generative AI, specifically a tool called DeepL, to assist with our translation requirements. This is particularly important for us as we operate across multiple geographic locations, including the Nordics, Germany, and the UK. We're exploring how generative AI can help speed up our translations while reducing costs.
However, we've found that while AI can perform accurate translations, it's crucial to still have a human review them. Certain terms and phrases don't translate directly or lose their semantic meaning. For example, key search terms like "time tracking" or "scheduling" in the UK don't translate directly in German. So, we use AI to initiate the translation, and then in-market copywriters make necessary adjustments.
We primarily use these translated contents in digital and online channels, including email campaigns, paid marketing, and for optimising our organic search terms. This approach has indeed reduced time and costs, and we are seeing some benefits in terms of efficiency and reach across our various markets.
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If I had to choose just one metric, it would be opportunity value. The real value of marketing is shown by how much potential revenue opportunity the leads we've generated have introduced into the funnel.
What key metrics do you focus on to measure marketing's contribution to new business revenue generation, and why?
If I had to choose just one metric, it would be opportunity value. The reason for this is that at the top of the funnel, we have an MQL (Marketing Qualified Lead) which then goes to sales. They assess if we can create an opportunity from this—have a discovery call and determine if there's real value tied to that lead. At this point, it's essentially the handover from marketing to sales.
For me, the real value of marketing is shown by how much potential revenue opportunity the MQLs we've generated have introduced into the funnel. It's like passing the baton to sales and saying, here’s the potential, and then they can use their specialised skill set to win those opportunities.
We do, however, also look at other metrics. Customer acquisition cost (CAC) is crucial to ensure it's viable and feasible for us to continue operating as a revenue-generating business. We also focus on monthly recurring revenue (MRR) and annual recurring revenue (ARR) of the deals we bring in. Lastly, we monitor conversion rates, specifically from trial and MQL to opportunity, and then from opportunity to a closed deal. This helps us monitor the quality of trialists and MQLs entering the top of the funnel.
These metrics, when used together, allow us to drive top-of-funnel activity while ensuring it translates into conversions throughout the sales funnel.
About Planday
Planday is a software development company specialising in workforce management solutions, designed to simplify the complexities of scheduling, vacation management, payroll, and employee communication. Enabling managers and employees to streamline daily operations through its innovative platform.Headquartered in Copenhagen, Denmark, the company serves businesses across various sectors, with a focus on Hospitality, Retail and Healthcare. Planday's technology focuses on efficiency and flexibility, helping organisations adapt to the dynamic needs of the modern workplace for shiftworkers.
About 6sense
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