Learn how this award-winning team delivered an increased client retention to 85% and over £460,000 in revenue, while boosting morale and productivity in the process. 

Summary:

Really B2B’s MA team are the in-house martech function across the UK B2B agency space. 

By taking their methodology into the martech space, they helped clients realise the full value of their martech investment. Committed to growing talent from within, the board built their own expert team. Ash Chandler, Really B2B ‘s account director, demonstrated a desire to start an MA team, coming from a martech agency background and successfully supported Really B2B’s first MA client. 

The growing team now has five members covering both consultancy and delivery for clients. The team collectively has three Hubspot accreditations, four Marketo Certified Experts (of only 3,000 experts globally) and Really B2B is now a Hubspot Certified Agency Partner and an Adobe Partner. 

This team has delivered over £460,000 in revenue, increased client retention to 85% and supports a large amount of brands to deliver outstanding results, including Nespresso, Travelodge and SD Worx. 

About the team 

The martech team within Really B2B is one of the only completely in-house martech functions across the UK B2B agency space. With the increased volume of martech in the industry, the company recognised an opportunity to support clients from a martech perspective. 

They felt it was vital to build the team from within the agency – ensuring their values and commitment to client centricity wouldn’t be lost. 

Ash Chandler onboarded his then account executive, Bryn Rainford, to support the delivery of the campaign and trained him on Marketo functionalities.

Ash Chandler’s responsibilities:

• Consultancy for all marketing automation clients 
• Challenging the team and campaign results to grow the department’s capabilities 
• Recruitment 
• Agency innovation through IGNITION 
• Knowledge sharing through in-house and industry training through the IDM, industry speaking slots and guest lecturing 
• Vendor management 

Jess Cooper’s responsibilities: 

• Consulting with clients to optimise their martech
• Campaign management and sign-off 
• Reporting and analysis 

Harrison D’Andrea’s responsibilities:

• Data processes and management 
• Building and launching campaign workflows 
• Troubleshooting 

Josh Tyler’s responsibilities: 

• Campaign workflow build and set-up 
• Data management and maintenance 
• Email build and launches 

Liam Oliver’s responsibilities: 

• Building and testing all landing pages including interactive 
• Building and testing email templates 

The brand/organisation that they work for 

Really B2B is a full-service B2B marketing and lead generation agency. Using an award-winning formula of bold creative, innovative strategies and right-fit technology, it generated real results and measurable ROI for its clients. 

For 15 years, the company has been supporting clients across a breadth of industries including automotive, manufacturing, technology and professional services to deliver powerful demand generation strategies that drive real revenue. 

Its integrated marketing strategies were built from years of audience insight and performance data across 600 campaigns, 7,000 industries and 53,000 job functions, so Really B2B could confidently forecast client successes. 

Key agency wins, which combine Really B2B’s demand generation strategies with marketing technology include: 

• Travelodge
• TMF
• Redstor 
• Nespresso
• SDWorx 

Commercial context, challenges and objectives 

This year has been a period of transition within the agency, particularly within the MA department. 

Recruitment:

The right mix of an analytical mind-set, account-management experience and skill and knowledge across multiple platforms is difficult to find. Another struggle is the balance between resourcing when the right talent becomes available vs. the workload required – with martech activity fluctuating in resource levels, typically with a big increase at client onboarding stage before plateauing once the campaign is live. 

Technology:

The team needs to remain up-to-date with training, platform developments and vendor updates. The team each have strong relationships with our vendors and attend industry events to support continual learning. 

Empowering clients to do more:

When reviewing client tech stacks and creating campaigns, all activity must be deployed in a timely fashion, whilst ensuring clients understand the ‘why’ behind what the company is doing and what it means for their internal practices. To achieve this balance, Really B2B regularly holds training sessions with clients, educating them on our processes. 

GDPR:

With robust GDPR process in place at agency-level, the company needed to overlay these to all marketing automation campaigns. With a mix of systems/platforms, each needed a revised process to ensure data was held securely and that both the Really B2B tech stack and its clients, talk to one another to feed through any data updates. 

This is particularly relevant to Marketo. As the database ‘lives’ in Marketo, we build bi-directional APIs with our internal CRM system (Vortex) to achieve a single data view point. 

Impact on business performance and/or customers 

Travelodge:

Since 2016, we continue to drive corporate account sign-ups for the Travelodge Business scheme. This year, we made the decision to migrate their campaign activity from Adestra to Marketo, due to the platform’s complex data management tools and robust campaign delivery capabilities. 

Results: 

• 122% of sign-up target
• Business spend continues to overtake consumer spend in the UK 

TMF Group:

We developed a complete-end-to-end strategy for TMF’S MA. Firstly, to increase their lead generation to prospects in the US & APAC and most recently, to overlay this strategy into a customer marketing campaign. From platform selection, implementation and integration with the existing tech stack through to building out all segmented customer journeys and lead scoring, we transformed the way TMF talked to their prospects and customers. 

Results: 

• 2,101% ROI 

Agency impact:

The MA team is responsible for bringing an additional £460,066 into the agency in 2019. By integrating with clients’ technology stacks, this offers additional value to them in terms of resource, innovation and expertise. This has led to an 85% retention rate of clients integrated within its MA department (agency average 71%). 

Impact on the wider marketing team, stakeholders and other departments 

Content creation:

The MA team supports the agency marketing function by providing in-depth thought-leadership content and event seminars – integrating with the wider marketing strategy. Utilising this specialist content positions us as experts within the martech space which increases our competitive advantage. 

Marketing support:

Practicing what we preach, the MA team also run the agency nurture activity through Hubspot. 

Team working and collaboration 

In order to ensure the martech team supports both clients and the client services team to reach their objectives, a number of processes have been put in place: 

SLAs:

Individual SLAs are developed on a case-by-case basis. These cover all elements including timescales client services need to provide client-approved assets for builds and support function timescales. 

Sign-off processes:

To launch campaigns efficiently and compliantly, a robust sign-off process has been created which incorporates timings and approval stages from the client, client services team and the martech team. Scheduling With the teams’ time in high demand, and to monitor the billed resource, Synergist has been implemented as a scheduling tool – this links to the teams’ timesheets to monitor profitability. 

Martech presence:

With such a technical offering, it’s imperative the team have a strong presence with clients and prospects. We take a collaborative approach with the team supporting our sales function at pitch stage, demonstrating our full wealth of expertise and at monthly client meetings to continually challenge and improve the client campaigns. 

Team development and retention 

In a competitive marketplace and with the recruitment challenges outlined, ensuring the right talent is retained is a constant focus. To achieve this, Really B2B focused on personal development, with each team member having a bespoke progression plan, ensuring they continue to develop and achieve. 

These cover:

Investment in them as individuals:

In terms of both salary and incentives and with training budgets – allocated to ensure they have the opportunity to gain personal accreditations. 

Freedom to explore:

Understanding the importance of being able to try new things, we ensure every team member has both the time and opportunity to experiment, test and explore new approaches, software and tactics. 

Client exposure:

Often seen as a delivery function, it’s vital for the teams’ growth to get sufficient face time with clients – demonstrating their expertise and raising their own profiles within our clients’ eyes.