The B2B Sales-Marketing Quick Action Playbook…
Chapter 3.
From Lead Volume to Account Intelligence
The traditional focus on marketing qualified leads (MQLs) is giving way to more sophisticated approaches based on account-level intelligence. Sales teams now require deeper insights about account behaviour and buying intent to effectively prioritise their efforts and engage prospects meaningfully.
Alex Freeman from YouGov articulates this evolution clearly: "MQLs have limited effectiveness in identifying real buying opportunities. We've found value in separating hand-raisers, like inbound demo requests, from the broader MQL category. This 'unblending' of the funnel is crucial, but it leaves the remaining MQL bucket quite ambiguous."
Jamie Willey shares his structured approach: "I operate with an A, B, and C tier targeting strategy. Tier A is our short list of specific businesses and individuals I've strategically selected. Tier B is typically more sector-based, aligning with trends I've identified in our A-tier sectors. The C tier encompasses everything else - inbound leads, organic traffic, and referrals."
Richard Francis from Foleon describes the scale of opportunity: "While an inbound inquiry obviously indicates strong interest, we know that only about 1% of our website traffic actively reaches out. The remaining 99% might be well into their journey—engaged with our ads, exploring our website, consuming content, watching videos—but haven't yet requested a demo or pricing."
Luke Rogers from ComplyAdvantage highlights the importance of tracking engagement: "During a conference call, I discovered that this contact had accumulated over 2,000 touches within our marketing ecosystem before requesting a conversation. Yet this valuable information isn't currently available in our CRM system, where most salespeople operate."
Pieter Heyvaert from Materialise adds a regional perspective: "In Japan, we see impressive conversion rates of around 40% from marketing-qualified leads to opportunities. However, in regions like China and Latin America, these rates can be as low as 5%. These variations often stem from cultural differences and database quality."
Kosovare Lenjani from Spendesk describes their modern approach: "The real value comes in enabling highly personalised customer interactions without the traditional time investment. Previously, it might take an hour to build a comprehensive understanding of why we should engage with a particular prospect. Now, AI can scan and analyse information from across the internet, helping us categorise and qualify prospects much more efficiently."
Gary Young from VITRONIC Machine Vision emphasises the practical requirements: "Given that only about 10% of our market is active at any given point, identifying who they are and where they're located is crucial. Ideally, we'd like to know their job descriptions, what they're looking at on our digital properties, and how long they're engaging with our content."
The key to success lies in marketing's ability to provide:
- AI-powered account prioritisation
- Comprehensive intent signals
- Behavioural analysis at the account level
- Predictive insights about purchase likelihood
- Real-time engagement tracking
Our survey data reinforces this evolution, with 46% of sales leaders selecting predictive account scoring using AI as their preferred alternative to traditional MQLs.
Key Insights Recap
Traditional lead scoring often fails to capture true buying intent. Accounts may have several "anonymous" visitors actively researching solutions, yet never surface as MQLs. The shift is towards AI-powered, account-level intelligence.
Quick Action Guide
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.