March 2019 Summaries

Account-based marketing (ABM) has proven successful for companies like Chorus.ai by doubling average contract values and enhancing employee focus through a strategic, data-driven approach. The process begins with creating an Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) by analyzing firmographic and technographic data to identify companies that align with a product's offerings. This involves using tools like Clearbit for Salesforce to enrich customer data and define ICPs based on successful accounts, including those of competitors. After establishing the ICP, companies can segment accounts into prioritized tiers, each requiring varying degrees of personalized attention, from highly tailored one-on-one campaigns for top-tier accounts to broader strategies for lower-tier groups. The final phase includes vetting and refining the selected accounts with input from marketing, sales, and executives to ensure alignment with organizational goals and previously established connections. This approach not only increases efficiency in targeting but also informs future marketing strategies by analyzing the conversion and customer quality of targeted accounts.

Proposify, a SaaS company dedicated to streamlining the proposal process for sales teams, faced challenges with manually sorting through hundreds of daily leads, leading to inefficiencies in identifying qualified prospects for further engagement. To address these challenges and support their expanding sales team, Proposify overhauled their sales process by adopting a new technology stack in partnership with Outshine, incorporating tools like Marketo, Segment, Salesforce, and Clearbit to automate and enrich lead qualification. This transformation enabled Proposify to transition from a basic, unreliable lead qualification method to a comprehensive lead scoring system that considers both demographic and behavioral data, ultimately allowing for a more efficient and scalable operation. As a result, Proposify not only improved their ability to close deals but also empowered their entire organization by providing broader access to customer insights, contributing to significant team growth and enhanced marketing, sales, and customer support functions.

Clearbit, a company that has been profitable since its early days, has focused on building a sustainable business by providing essential data infrastructure for modern sales and marketing operations, serving thousands of companies globally, including notable names like Segment, Asana, and AdRoll. The company prides itself on its strong internal culture, characterized by feedback, self-growth, and conscious leadership, with a team that reports high levels of happiness and minimal turnover. As Clearbit enters its next growth phase, it has secured $15 million in additional funding at a $250 million valuation, with investment from Bedrock, Battery, Cross Creek, and Zetta Venture Partners. This new capital will be used to enhance product and engineering capabilities and improve customer success and enablement for its 1500+ customers, as Clearbit aims to develop the next generation of data-first marketing tools by leveraging its insights into how top companies use data competitively.

Clearbit has effectively leveraged social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn for B2B lead generation by using mobile-optimized Lead Ads that capture email addresses with minimal user effort. These ads, which often offer educational content, pre-populate email fields to reduce sign-up friction, thus increasing conversion rates without requiring users to leave their social feeds. However, since these platforms often collect personal emails, Clearbit uses Zapier to integrate with Clearbit Enrichment and backfill additional business-related information such as company name and role. This enriched data is then routed through various platforms including Salesforce, Slack, and Google Sheets, initiating a personalized email nurture sequence that primes leads for sales outreach. This seamless workflow not only enhances lead quality but also ensures that prospects remain engaged without disrupting their social media experience.