Dirty data and disjointed marketing efforts leave many companies struggling to find their footing. ExtensisHR, a leader in HR solutions, experienced just that — and set out to align marketing and sales with data-driven transformation.
Using 6sense’s powerful combination of account-based marketing (ABM) and sales intelligence, the new approach resulted in a 25% increase in marketing-sourced pipeline.
Lara Black, director of marketing operations at ExtensisHR, spoke with us about how they did it.
The Challenge
Before implementing 6sense, Extensis was facing several key issues:
- Outdated and dirty data in Salesforce, leading to ineffective marketing efforts
- Lack of integration capabilities with existing data providers
- Insufficient person/contact data, with only company information available
- Manual and time-consuming manual data cleaning processes
- Inconsistent marketing qualified leads (MQL) identification
As Lara put it: “You think you have 100,000 names but in reality, you don’t. People change jobs, leave, get promoted; companies go out of business — contact data needs to be enriched consistently.”
On top of that, their MQL standard was based solely on email clicks. “We had a formula internally for if a contact was an MQL, but we didn’t consistently have important info like job title or geographic location,” Lara says.
The Solution
To revitalize marketing and sales efforts, ExtensisHR integrated 6sense sales intelligence with their ABM efforts. Lara and her team can enrich lists, enabling seamless follow-up communications and more personalized customer interactions through targeted ads and content.
Implementing 6sense also allows ExtensisHR to automate and refine their MQL criteria, ensuring that only the most relevant stakeholders are targeted. The platform’s ability to create detailed segments based on specific identifiers like industry and geographical location further improved the precision of their marketing efforts.
“It all comes down to targeting the right people. We’re targeting the right audience, serving them ads, they’re coming to our website to do research, we’re nurturing them along the way, and when they’re ready to raise their hand, they’re qualified.”
Lara Black
Director of Marketing Operations, ExtensisHR
Additionally, 6sense’s integration with Mutiny and Drift facilitates personalized experiences on the ExtensisHR website, greeting visitors by name and providing tailored content. And when accounts reach the website, Marketing detects companies over a threshold of interest and sends them down a nurture program in Salesforce.
“It’s not just website forms anymore,” Lara says. “None of our recent opportunities filled out forms. These deals are attributed to other things marketing is doing that may not have a concrete outcome — but marketing is touching them and the Extensis name is coming through strong.”
The Results
With 6sense, the ExtensisHR revenue team went from making educated guesses to knowing exactly who to target and how.
They’ve achieved substantial outcomes:
- A 25% increase in marketing-sourced pipeline
- 23 marketing-influenced deals closed in 2023 alone
- Marketing has become a proven source of high-quality meetings
Internal adoption of 6sense has also produced impressive results from a cultural perspective. “Sales and marketing play well together now,” Lara says. “Marketing pays for the tool, but it’s positioned as a partnership because we want the sales team to be successful.”
