Transcripts
Hey everyone.
Speaker:And welcome back to another
Speaker:episode of demand gen chat.
Speaker:Today, we are doing another rendition
Speaker:of a hot take, so only myself.
Speaker:Um, and today I just
Speaker:want to cover this topic.
Speaker:That's being talked about a lot online,
Speaker:um, around moving away from this motion
Speaker:of marketing's north star being in MQLs.
Speaker:Um, I think for definitely, for as long
Speaker:as I have been, um, running demand gen.
Speaker:MQL seems to have almost always been
Speaker:my north star, um, except for over
Speaker:the last maybe four years or so.
Speaker:Um, marketing has started to evolve and
Speaker:especially demand gen has started to
Speaker:become much more innovative and, um,
Speaker:further ingraining themselves within
Speaker:the sales process and better aligning
Speaker:KPIs from that regard to sales KPIs.
Speaker:So that marketing and sales truly
Speaker:are working towards one north star.
Speaker:However that's a little
Speaker:bit easier said than done.
Speaker:So today on this episode, I just
Speaker:wanted to be a little bit vulnerable
Speaker:and talk about kind of what I stepped
Speaker:into when I stepped into this role.
Speaker:Um, as a director of demand,
Speaker:gen some of the challenges that
Speaker:we faced, how we overcame them.
Speaker:And then of course, like some of the
Speaker:actual tactical actions that we took,
Speaker:um, as a result of being able to move
Speaker:away from MQLs as our north star.
Speaker:So.
Speaker:Um, when I stepped into this
Speaker:function, a previous leader had set
Speaker:up a traditional old school, um,
Speaker:waterfall marketing model, right?
Speaker:As our growth model for our business.
Speaker:Um, obviously sales, we have a pretty
Speaker:large outbound function here as well.
Speaker:So sales had their own growth model
Speaker:marketing had their own growth model, but
Speaker:marketing's was, anything and everything
Speaker:you can imagine when it comes through a
Speaker:traditional waterfall model, started all
Speaker:the way with, um, website, traffic and
Speaker:moved through typical conversions lead
Speaker:to MQL, Sal SQL, although to close one
Speaker:revenue, right by channel, et cetera.
Speaker:So that in and of itself has
Speaker:been great for several years.
Speaker:It's worked for several businesses,
Speaker:um, but moving away from
Speaker:having MQLs, be our north star.
Speaker:Um, allows for such greater alignment
Speaker:between us and the sales department.
Speaker:Um, as well as further ingraining
Speaker:ourselves, obviously the deeper
Speaker:in the funnel that you can align
Speaker:your marketing metrics, the
Speaker:better off you'll be long term.
Speaker:Um, because that way you're not
Speaker:optimizing your funnel based off.
Speaker:Pretty top of the funnel, not qualified
Speaker:MQLs or like leading indicating leads.
Speaker:Um, you're further ingraining
Speaker:yourself in the sales funnel.
Speaker:So you'll have a better understanding
Speaker:of which types of leads, prospects,
Speaker:companies, accounts, industries, et
Speaker:cetera, convert deep in the funnel.
Speaker:And then of course ultimately convert
Speaker:in actual revenue for your business.
Speaker:Anyways, those are obviously some of
Speaker:our back story, kind of where we started
Speaker:when I first joined this organization.
Speaker:Um, and then of course, all of the area
Speaker:of opportunity that's in front of us.
Speaker:If we can move away from this
Speaker:MQL model and further ingrain
Speaker:ourselves into pipeline and revenue,
Speaker:actually being our north star in
Speaker:conjunction with sales north star.
Speaker:So that's a little bit about
Speaker:the backstory and kind of where
Speaker:I knew we wanted to move then.
Speaker:How do you actually move past that model?
Speaker:Um, so that you're not looking to
Speaker:MQLs as your north star or your source
Speaker:of truth or your success metric.
Speaker:And so the very first way that we
Speaker:thought to do that would be obviously
Speaker:to start with our growth model.
Speaker:That was our source of
Speaker:truth for our business.
Speaker:It still is our source of truth today.
Speaker:Um, realigning around this growth model
Speaker:between myself and our sales leader
Speaker:has been pivotal to our success here
Speaker:in terms of alignment and clarity.
Speaker:Um, it's a great source of truth for he
Speaker:and I both to touch base on weekly to
Speaker:just make sure that what he is projecting
Speaker:and what I am projecting are aligned.
Speaker:Nothing has changed if something
Speaker:has changed in our business,
Speaker:our models, our projections.
Speaker:Um, or our expected outcomes based off
Speaker:of any of the actions that we're taking,
Speaker:hiring, et cetera, all of that can be
Speaker:easily reflected in this one document.
Speaker:So what better place to start in kind
Speaker:of shifting this marketing strategy
Speaker:than there in this growth model?
Speaker:So we started by actually removing the
Speaker:MQLs as part of our waterfall model.
Speaker:And we now start our top line
Speaker:metric is what we call QHMs which
Speaker:are qualified, held meetings.
Speaker:For any other company, I think
Speaker:this would serve as an SQO.
Speaker:So we don't just want demo requests.
Speaker:We want qualified demo requests
Speaker:that have actually booked a demo
Speaker:and showed up for that demo that now
Speaker:have pipeline dollars attached to it.
Speaker:So most often I know that there's
Speaker:some level of customization.
Speaker:Uh, within any organization for how you
Speaker:actually classify each of your stages.
Speaker:But majority I think would classify that
Speaker:as an SQL, but for transparency sake,
Speaker:we call it a qualified health meeting.
Speaker:So QHM is probably what I
Speaker:will naturally refer to it as.
Speaker:Um, so our model now goes QHMs down.
Speaker:So we have QHMs, pipeline, product line.
Speaker:Um, for inbound and for outbound.
Speaker:So this provided a great source of
Speaker:clarity for how much revenue marketing
Speaker:sourced was actually on the hook
Speaker:to provide versus sales sourced or.
Speaker:So that was a good, like leading indicator
Speaker:and alignment exercise for both of us.
Speaker:And now of course, everything
Speaker:we do is centered around that.
Speaker:So there's no miscommunication
Speaker:or misalignment.
Speaker:Um, and it's just a good natural
Speaker:place for us to come back to and
Speaker:review it weekly at a high level
Speaker:what's working, what's not working.
Speaker:Do we need to adjust, et cetera?
Speaker:Um, from there.
Speaker:Having this clear alignment
Speaker:around, we are here to drive QHMs.
Speaker:The sales team is also here to drive.
Speaker:QHMs it's freed us from this
Speaker:notion of having to gate everything
Speaker:and drive in MQLs, right?
Speaker:No one like MQLs are a
Speaker:great leading indicator.
Speaker:Um, growing your subscription.
Speaker:Um, in your email marketing database
Speaker:or your marketing automation
Speaker:platform, et cetera, are great leading
Speaker:indicators, but they weren't the
Speaker:pivotable point of success for us.
Speaker:And so we knew we didn't have to rely on
Speaker:getting a certain number of names every
Speaker:month that were net new to the system.
Speaker:Which allowed us the freedom
Speaker:to actually innovate and
Speaker:update our marketing strategy.
Speaker:Um, we were now not dependent on running
Speaker:display ads, which really weren't
Speaker:working for much of anything other
Speaker:than driving false hope around right.
Speaker:So we didn't have to lean
Speaker:into display ads anymore.
Speaker:We could ungate all of our content.
Speaker:Um, for us it was ungating all of
Speaker:our content with the exception of.
Speaker:Anything that needed to
Speaker:actually be transactional.
Speaker:So webinars and, um,
Speaker:email nurtures for us.
Speaker:We have a couple of ungating
Speaker:everything, except for those things
Speaker:that needed to be transactional.
Speaker:So for us, those things are,
Speaker:um, webinars or virtual events
Speaker:and any kind of email course.
Speaker:So things that we actually need
Speaker:your email in order to deliver
Speaker:the value that you are seeking.
Speaker:Whenever you fill out the.
Speaker:Other than that everything was ungated.
Speaker:So this allowed us to shift that narrative
Speaker:to become a company that is truly focused
Speaker:on educating the market and helping
Speaker:our buyers as well as our customers.
Speaker:Um, before with this MQL model, you're
Speaker:trapped into this motion of having
Speaker:to gate everything so that you are
Speaker:ultimately reaching that MQL number.
Speaker:When at the end of the day, if you ungate
Speaker:everything, you show people the value
Speaker:that you, um, you as a company, but also
Speaker:you as a product can actually bring to
Speaker:their organization or even bring to their
Speaker:own personal and professional growth.
Speaker:You will see more QHMs qualified demos,
Speaker:further down funnel naturally because
Speaker:you're spending more time educating the
Speaker:market and ultimately convincing them to
Speaker:volunteer, become part of our sales cycle.
Speaker:Whereas.
Speaker:With this MQL model.
Speaker:Obviously what you're doing is gating
Speaker:everything before they even have the
Speaker:opportunity to learn about your product.
Speaker:The sales team is spending more
Speaker:time educating your buyers.
Speaker:Once you've passed over those MQLs
Speaker:to the SDR organization, that's
Speaker:actually what they're doing.
Speaker:So now we're bridging that gap.
Speaker:Marketing is taking over more ownership
Speaker:of educating the market and letting
Speaker:the sales team do what they do best,
Speaker:which is actually selling our product.
Speaker:So that's kind of the.
Speaker:Unmentioned like split between why
Speaker:that Delta needs to happen and why
Speaker:the split in work needs to shift.
Speaker:So that comes when you're allowed to not
Speaker:optimize your funnel for , which is great.
Speaker:It's a beautiful shift.
Speaker:It also allows the marketing team
Speaker:to provide more qualified leads and
Speaker:qualified hand-raisers over to your
Speaker:sales organization so that your
Speaker:sales team isn't coming back to
Speaker:use as a marketer and saying, Hey,
Speaker:we're getting all of these leads.
Speaker:They're not qualified.
Speaker:They're not ready.
Speaker:They're not engaged.
Speaker:They're not even in buying mode.
Speaker:Like the sales team, is then spending
Speaker:a lot of their time chasing down leads
Speaker:that aren't really in the buying process.
Speaker:So moving towards this motion of
Speaker:pipeline and revenue, being your north
Speaker:star, as well as the sales team's
Speaker:north star are helps with so many
Speaker:areas that are often broken between
Speaker:marketing and sales organizations.
Speaker:And so I feel like we
Speaker:finally gotten to a point.
Speaker:Where we can re, like I was saying,
Speaker:remove the gates, move towards
Speaker:this new marketing model where we
Speaker:aren't dependent on display ads.
Speaker:We aren't dependent on running,
Speaker:uh, three or four webinars a month.
Speaker:We are dependent on attending, um,
Speaker:in-person events, which obviously
Speaker:we haven't been able to be defended
Speaker:on anyways, but it has been a
Speaker:large majority of other marketing
Speaker:teams budgets, um, throughout the
Speaker:course of the last five, 10 years.
Speaker:Um, and of course over the last year,
Speaker:we've all been forced out of the in-person
Speaker:events world and become less becoming
Speaker:less and less reliant on massive events
Speaker:that allow you to generate leads or names,
Speaker:which become MQLs is a really good cycle
Speaker:to get yourself into so that you can spend
Speaker:your time actually educating the market.
Speaker:And you aren't relying on all of these
Speaker:different types of marketing activities
Speaker:that force you into being dependent
Speaker:on some type of gate or lead gen
Speaker:form, um, to fill that top of funnel
Speaker:number without them, you shift your
Speaker:mindset a little bit, you shift your
Speaker:goals, you align better with sales.
Speaker:All of those things allow for much
Speaker:more qualified down funnel metrics.
Speaker:So that's a huge.
Speaker:Mind shift more so than anything.
Speaker:There's a little bit of change management
Speaker:that has to happen internally, but I
Speaker:feel like for smaller organizations,
Speaker:especially organizations that are trying
Speaker:to, um, basically that are positioning
Speaker:themselves as the challenger brand
Speaker:against that, um, category leader.
Speaker:Definitely have the upper hand in this
Speaker:situation because you are smaller, you're
Speaker:more nimble, you're more innovative.
Speaker:It's going to be faster and easier for
Speaker:you to make this type of marketing change.
Speaker:Versus that category leader that's
Speaker:likely bigger and a little bit more,
Speaker:um, structured has a larger team, bigger
Speaker:lift on the change management front.
Speaker:It will take them longer to adapt.
Speaker:So this is for all the challenger brands.
Speaker:This is your competitive advantage.
Speaker:Understanding the market,
Speaker:making the shift, educating
Speaker:the market with your content.
Speaker:Um, all of these things will
Speaker:better position you in the long
Speaker:run and just takes a little bit
Speaker:of internal mind shift, right?
Speaker:To just make that change away from MQLs.
Speaker:Get yourself off of MQLs right?
Speaker:Make that no longer your main north
Speaker:star, but a leading indicator.
Speaker:Um, for how successful some of your
Speaker:campaigns have been, or your programs
Speaker:have been that you're running, et cetera.
Speaker:But anyways, that's a little bit about
Speaker:kind of how we were able to move past
Speaker:this, um, game of MQLs and move to
Speaker:something that's really much more
Speaker:ingrained in our business funnel.
Speaker:Um, And this is of course,
Speaker:just like a teaser.
Speaker:If this is something that's interesting,
Speaker:this is obviously not, not a topic that
Speaker:we've covered a ton on demand gen chat.
Speaker:It was just something that's kind of been
Speaker:on my mind over the last couple of days.
Speaker:So if this is something that's
Speaker:interesting, I hope that this episode
Speaker:sparks some conversation I'll of
Speaker:course, post this on LinkedIn and
Speaker:would love to hear how everybody else
Speaker:is kind of navigating these waters.
Speaker:So hop over there and comment if you
Speaker:have any thoughts or suggestions of
Speaker:your own for things you've tried,
Speaker:maybe tried and failed or tried and had
Speaker:success with, um, would love to hear it.
Speaker:And until then, we'll see
