Bought lists were out of date, so we scraped our own
Instead of buying the list, which was often out of date, not accurate, and bad quality in general, we had scraped our own lists using multiple tools. One of the most used tools we had was PhantomBuster. We scraped using LinkedIn and reached out using other methods, validated the data, and also used browser-based automations to enrich certain data.
I used multiple tools. The main one would be PhantomBuster and LinkedIn by scraping the data. After that, we use Hunter to find emails and NeverBounce to validate if emails are valid.
Sometimes, depending on a campaign and data accessibility, I might use LinkedIn automation in a browser and other tools in parallel to enrich and find the data. Also, I did website scraping using some scraper tools or Octopus and combinations of these.
Typically, there is a multi-step process to blend the data once it is gathered from multiple sources. Also, we use proxies to make sure that we're not being blocked by bot spam.
To scrape a list normally takes 2 to 4 weeks, sometimes 6. It depends on the complexity, and on not being detected as a bot.
I learned this from a growth lead on the German team. I took these learnings for the UK and also added a lot of other things on top.
Also, to reach scalability, we created fake LinkedIn accounts, mostly females.
The exports still exist. Four accounts, 920 contacts between them, each row carrying name, title, company, location and a verified email. That is the list we would otherwise have paid for.
That's our lead generation, and we have used this approach in account-based marketing strategies.
The same principle, taken further: our biggest competitor had left its entire customer list readable in public, so I built that list too.
Read how I found 606 of a competitor's customersABM was where we focused the most
The account-based marketing was something we focused on the most, because, along with other kinds of traditional digital marketing, paid ads help us to target already engaged users. We identify who we want to reach, and we create creative campaigns to engage with them.
We had a lot of buying committees, so sometimes six departments. Sometimes it's difficult to know who will be the decision maker. Even though most of the time we found that marketing is the one who has the budget, sometimes the driver to purchase our solution would be:
- logistics
- operations
- the chief executive
It really depends, so we needed to hit each department or persona with a bottom-up approach to make sure that we maximize our chances to engage and close the opportunity.
Our solution was quite unique and new, and a lot of brands and our prospect accounts didn't know that such a solution existed. We needed to outreach and educate them as well, which made it a bit more difficult, lengthening our sales cycle.
The sales cycle could take anywhere from 6 months to even 2 years if they decided, let's say, to build it in-house, and after that they came back to us with a budget. Such a case was with IKEA.
What we were selling was the post-purchase experience itself: the messages a shopper gets between checkout and delivery.
When people engage and start browsing around and learning about us, we had a website section where we can enter a phone number and email. We would send them examples of communications we would be sending to their clients, so that's kind of like a live demo to them. It worked quite great, and it was low effort for them when they get to experience firsthand what we are actually doing as part of our platform.
The popcorn campaign
We called it a popcorn campaign. We sent out a package of branded popcorn with caramel and a leaflet brochure about what we actually do. That leaflet contained the QR code and the link where, after scanning, they can watch a hyperpersonalized video for them.
Around 700 boxes went out, for sure. Could be over 1,000. It ran in waves, so May 2019 was one of several.
We rendered 2,000 videos, one for each person. The video was strategically shot so we can render the name, company logo, and person's job title on the screen of the TV. When they watched this video, it felt like it's hyperpersonalized just for them.
This is with our CTO: one video shot talking about our product, which was about 1 minute. We had tracking using HubSpot, and at the time of watching, when they landed on a personalized homepage using UTMs, we would trigger a notification to the sales team to give them a call so they can engage at the right time.
That was quite a huge success in getting engagement, which led into demos. Salespeople loved it because we helped them to open the doors, start the conversation, and after that, they can just sell that product in a personalized way by running demos and following up on a sales motion.
Against the benchmarks for a targeted physical send, we were above on both counts: more than 40% of the people who got a box scanned the code, and more than 15% of them ended up in a meeting.
The study book
Another quite successful campaign we have done almost every year, where we picked up 100 brands. Sometimes we do thematically, sometimes fashion, sometimes sub-brands, and we study them and benchmark against the competitor.
It was the UK E-Commerce Shipping Study, one edition a year, each covering the top 100 retailers in its category end to end. The 2020 one was the Fashion Edition, 74 pages, ranking them on checkout, delivery and returns.
We create this kind of study book, and we print 1,000 of them, sometimes more, and ship it directly to the target accounts, multiple people from one company. We include personalized messages to them as well to increase the likelihood of engagement and the feeling that this is personalized to them.
The call to action is that we studied the competition, we studied the market and the industry, and we can share our insights and help them to:
- figure out what competitors are doing better
- where they are falling short, so they can increase or improve customer satisfaction anywhere in what they are doing
- give them a competitive edge because we studied the market and are on top of the game
Especially for the post-purchase experience, but also during the checkout as well, because we study the end-to-end journey, including the pricing, return policies, the checkout experience, anything in between, and star ratings.
The study books
The same research went out several ways: a printed hardcover posted to named accounts, a landing page, display ads in every standard format, and key-finding cards built so one statistic could carry an ad on its own.
The 2020 Fashion Edition set was built once and exported to ten standard sizes, from a 970x90 leaderboard down to a 120x600 skyscraper.
What happened after it landed
Something physical, blending digital plus physical, is pretty fast. We get to see engagement as soon as we send, so in the first week we get first engagements.
After that, we have other complementary campaigns to support it, like running ads for specific ABM target accounts.
We work with the sales team to follow up, even on engagement, or just follow up on the campaign itself: "We sent you something. Did you receive? I wanted to check if you would like to get more insights on a study personalized to you."
Where it ran
I was hired as a first growth hire for the UK and European market. First, it was the UK, and after that, we expanded into the European market. After that, I was supporting and leading growth for go-to-market for the U.S.
We also later tested the Middle East, but the Middle East didn't stick for us because the structure was very, very different compared to the rest of the markets.
Four things were different at once:
- More marketplaces, resellers and distributors sat between the brand and the customer, so the brand often did not own the post-purchase moment we were selling into
- Deals moved through introductions and in-person relationships rather than through inbound and sequenced outbound
- Post-purchase was not a budget line yet, so the sell started with the category rather than with the product
- Cash on delivery, a different carrier mix and different returns norms, so the product mapped less cleanly onto how the market actually shipped
What made it work
We did it ourselves because if we bought the list, it was overused, it didn't fully cover the company, and it didn't capture the most recent changes. Doing it ourselves was higher quality, and we could go deeper and wider. We could enrich it ourselves. We understood the data quite well, and we could be adjusting on the fly.
It also got us into markets nobody could sell us a list for.
Timing is super important. Just by having it in advance and coordinating with the sales team, making sure that we are ready and we can hop on a call as soon as they get a notification, that was a super critical time to engage.
Account-based marketing campaigns and the data which we scraped were interlinked with its own success. In order to maximize the chances of having better success, we needed to get the best data we possibly could, even enrich and validate it. We also needed to come up with a creative campaign to attract attention, engage, and stand out from the rest of the competition.
Our unique advantage was that nobody had a list we created.
The version of this I build now, with the data layer, the channel logic and the sequencing written out in full.
Read the ABM outreach system