CLIENT SUCCESS STORY

EightBar Delivers International ABM Impact Leveraging MRP Prelytix®

The Client

With offices in 20+ countries around the world, Eightbar is a collective of WPP talent dedicated to IBM and focused on making IBM’s brand matter and its business perform. As part of that, Eightbar manages relationships with vendors providing services that help Eightbar deliver on its mission. As the agency charged with interfacing with these vendors, Eightbar is committed to ensuring these outsourced resources deliver as promised.

Impressed by what it heard about MRP Next Generation Inside Sales, IBM directed Eightbar to engage MRP. Unlike traditional ABM vendors, MRP aligns itself with the modern buyer journey and an account-based approach. MRP’s inside sales team is equipped with a next-generation inside sales platform powered by MRP Prelytix® that supports this advanced approach. Unlike other platforms that only leverage prospecting data gathered inside the firewall, the MRP platform taps into additional data to understand the buyer journey, purchase intent, and timing. This action-oriented architecture solves the top challenge plaguing marketing professionals who have already seen the value of predictive analytics and intent data – the ability to put that data to use and derive value from it. 

“Most vendors deliver nothing more than unqualified engagement, or worse, multiple instances of low engagement from the same organization. When we tell campaign managers at IBM that we won’t be delivering the target account buyer engagement we promised, it reflects poorly on us and strains our relationships going forward.”

Ross Smith

Account Manager, Eightbar

The Challenge

Unfortunately, after running demand generation and qualification campaigns for one quarter with various vendors, Eightbar was unimpressed. As Ross Smith, Account Manager at Eightbar explains, most vendors delivered nothing more than unqualified engagement, or worse, multiple instances of low engagement from the same organization. “We can only deliver two opportunities maximum per target account,” he says. In some cases, Eightbar had to issue credit notes to IBM because the vendors did not deliver the promised opportunities.

After evaluating multiple ABM vendors, Eightbar partnered with MRP to accelerate speed to market, pipeline, and to revenue. To kick off inside sales campaigns for IBM, Eightbar sent a brief to MRP outlining objectives. These included qualification requirements; targets by roles and company size in EMEA; and the timeline for desired marketing qualified leads (MQLs) and sales qualified leads (SQLs). MRP then indicated how many opportunities it could deliver.

The Solution

Once the agreement was in place, MRP developed call guides in multiple languages for its inside sales reps aligned with the solution areas that IBM was promoting. The goal was to help IBM fill its pipeline for 12-24 months and identify highly engaged and contactable opportunities: C-level tech leaders in mid-to large-size organizations across 12 EMEA countries. Intelligently guided on who to prospect and when MRP inside sales rep called upon MRP’s unique data set and platform to engage with relevance and quickly and accurately qualify opportunities.

According to Ross, numerous factors set MRP apart from other vendors. Along with MRP’s ability to consistently deliver quality opportunities across countries as promised, Ross was impressed by the reliable communication thread between MRP and Eightbar. In addition to weekly updates, MRP provided bi-weekly reports that highlighted opportunities displaying the highest intent and engagement in particular markets. By identifying the accounts with elevated levels of both interest and engagement, Eightbar can bubble up the highest-priority accounts and reach out to them first.

“My clients within IBM are extremely happy with the quality and contactability of the opportunities. MRP delivered head and shoulders above other vendors. Eightbar and IBM’s faith was well placed in MRP as it delivered on its promises. In response to
the uplift in delivery, IBM increased the budget earmarked for these campaigns.” 

Ross Smith

Account Manager, Eightbar

The Result

After just two-quarters of the campaigns, MRP accelerated the delivery of quality BANT qualified opportunities to Eightbar, who then uploaded them to IBM. In Q1, MRP delivered 268 MQLs and 269 SQLs. In the next quarter, MRP delivered 65% more opportunities: 827 total, of which 413 were SQLs and 414 were MQLs. In Q3, MRP delivered a further 1,311 quality engagements: 661 SQLs and 650 MQLs.

As a testament to the success of the engagement and strength of the relationship, a second Eightbar location is engaging MRP for inside sales and demand generation. “It speaks volumes that MRP was able to establish relationships with two of our offices,” concludes Ross.