Frida Ahrenby’s extensive background in sales, product management, and marketing has deeply influenced her view of marketing as a revenue driver, with sales as the foundation and centerpiece of her strategy.
How has your background in sales impacted your marketing strategy?
– My DNA is absolutely in sales, in my mind, everything is sales. Whether you work in product, customer success, or marketing, you need to understand sales and how to connect the dots between all these areas.
This mindset is central to her work at Rillion, where Frida Ahrenby has built a marketing team that focuses on supporting sales and driving company growth. I take a very revenue-oriented approach to marketing. I aim to create a marketing ‘machinery’ that aligns seamlessly with sales and contributes directly to the bottom line.
What’s your approach to aligning sales and marketing?
– It mixes tech, processes, targets, and human interaction. At Rillion, we use HubSpot, and we’ve mapped the entire customer journey collaboratively with sales to ensure everyone sees the same touchpoints and handover points.
Beyond technology, Frida Ahrenby emphasizes the importance of shared goals. We’ve aligned on overall revenue targets, then broken those down into joint KPIs like pipeline and booked meetings. When sales and marketing share the same objectives, it builds trust and fosters better collaboration.
How do you approach creativity and resourcefulness in your marketing team?
– I love working with smaller budgets because it forces you to think creatively. It’s easy to do marketing if you have a big budget but constraints push you to innovate and come up with better ideas. The same goes for scaling the team, hiring more people comes with additional challenges such as silos and internal competition.
Frida Ahrenby’s approach is particularly suited to the startup and scale-up environments in which she thrives.
– When you’re the underdog, you can’t just outspend the competition. You have to outthink them. That’s where the magic happens.
What is revenue marketing, and how do you implement it?
– Revenue marketing is all about driving measurable results that impact the company’s bottom line, Frida explains. At Rillion, this philosophy informs every aspect of her team’s work, from campaign planning to attribution.
To succeed, you need clear revenue targets for marketing and a prioritization framework that ensures your efforts are aligned with those goals. I can’t imagine doing marketing any other way.
What is your strategy for building an effective marketing team?
– I’ve focused on hiring for specific domains—SEO, customer marketing, demand generation—so we can be self-sufficient, move fast and stay agile. Everyone has clear responsibilities, and we work closely together to optimize for speed and collaboration.
To foster a strong team spirit, Frida Ahrenby prioritizes trust-building and communication.
– We’ve run workshops to set our team purpose, define expectations, and establish feedback routines. It’s all about creating a sense of security and shared goals.
How have you defined your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) and why is it important?
– When I joined Rillion, our ICP wasn’t clearly defined. We started by analyzing our existing customers to identify the ones with the highest lifetime value and average customer value, lowest churn, and best product adoption. Then we looked at the broader market to find pockets in the market in terms of industries, company sizes, and geographies where we could see the most potential.
The toughest challenge was narrowing the focus and having the courage to say no to less ideal prospects.
– It’s not just about defining who you’re targeting; it’s also about deciding who you’re not targeting. It’s challenging, but discipline is essential for success, especially in a market like the US which is a huge market where it’s crucial to go narrow to win. The whole point of a clearly defined ICP is to be better at going after a clearer set of targets instead of shooting broad.
What trends do you see shaping marketing in the future?
– Marketing is becoming increasingly polished and perfect with all the AI tools and automation available. I think there’s a huge opportunity to embrace imperfection. Customers want authenticity—they want to see the real people behind the brand.
Frida Ahrenby believes this trend aligns with the growing focus on customer-led growth.
– Building genuine relationships with your customers and staying transparent will be more important than ever.
