Brainshark Increases Lead Connect Rates By 30% With Persona-Based Marketing

Challenge:

The Brainshark marketing team was falling short on converting leads due to poor connect rates and unclear buyer personas. They were spending too much time and too many resources generating leads for sales, most of which were incomplete or inaccurate. One of the biggest problems was obtaining the direct phone numbers of prospects.  The team didn’t have access to the numbers, resulting in lackluster connect rates.

“We have been so reliant on email that we never really spent time [checking] that [our] direct dial information was right,” said Kate Sarkissian, Senior Manager of Database Marketing at Brainshark.

Solution:

By partnering with ZoomInfo, Brainshark was able to move to an account- and persona-based campaign model, as opposed to a broad-based marketing approach. ZoomInfo enabled Brainshark to shorten the sales follow-up time with leads, and enabled Brainshark to integrate insights from the solution into its CRM and marketing automation platforms.

Brainshark leveraged ZoomInfo to:

• Build out targeted campaigns based on buyer personas;
• Fuel the sales funnel with new, targeted contacts using ZoomInfo’s self-service platform;
• Provide sales with a complete picture of incoming leads; and
• Fill in data gaps and update inaccurate information.

After implementing ZoomInfo, Brainshark was able to focus on targeting high-level leads with senior and C-suite titles, and change their messaging to the prospects and companies they were targeting.

“Now we have a tool that can analyze current data sets, and we can focus in on those people and find more of them,” said Sarkissian. “Working with a smaller subset may mean looking for more names, but we’re not just sending out 50,000 names and hoping to get a response anymore.” 

Results:

After partnering with ZoomInfo, Brainshark was able to:

• Achieve a 30% increase in connect rates;
• Reach decision makers four times faster; and
• Increase marketing qualified opportunities by 10%.

“Because sales reps are getting the direct dial phone numbers, they are reaching people four times faster and delivering a better connection rate,” said Sarkissian. “Our sales team is now 30% more likely to reach decision makers when calling. If you are going to go through the trouble of running a lead generation program, you need to make sure your sales team can continue the conversation.”

Case In Point is a new editorial section devoted to real-world case studies that show how B2B marketing teams are planning, executing and measuring their campaigns. Do you have a successful solution to share? Send it to Audrey Goodson Kingo at audrey@demandgenreport.com to be considered for a future Case In Point.