AL (01:41):
We're here with Mandy Thompson, who is the CRO at Digital Reach. And I'm so excited to talk with Mandy. We're talking about a SaaS case study from her agency, where they used ABM marketing with intent data together with a HubSpot integration to boost demo bookings by 1800%. That is not an exaggeration. That is not a typo. And SQLs by 500%. So we're definitely wanna stick around for this one, learn some cool crap from Mandy. So let's start with Digital Reach. Mandy, describe Digital Reach for me in two sentences.

MT (02:21):
Okay. We are a full service digital agency offering holistic solutions, and we have a big focus on integrations, automations, and doing those things intentionally so that we can make it easier for our clients to succeed at scale.

AL (02:38):
Amazing. Thank you. That was beautiful. Okay. So we're talking about a SaaS case study today. So I wanna start by talking about, we already heard about these incredible results. 1800% increase in demo bookings and 500% increase in SQLs. So let's start at the very beginning. What was the goal for this initiative? Why were you engaged for this SaaS client? What are you trying to solve for them?

MT (03:07):
Yeah, absolutely. So this particular client it's in the IoT space and their solution was nascent. There was only one other solution out there that didn't even do everything else that they did. They were facing some unique problems, right. So we have to build demand. But then people don't even know what it is that they need it. So it presented an additional challenge. And so, you know, the funnel that they had launched previously was not generating the volume or velocity of pipeline that they wanted to see. So we came in and we needed to identify, you know, first thing we needed to deal with, they had three really different ICPs and it wasn't even really different based on something as simple as vertical. It was the use case because their particular product can be used by channel partners who serve customers, the direct, you know, customer themselves.

MT (03:59):
Then also some providers who could also use their service, like providers of the Sims related to the IoT product who could also use their service. So it's not only different ICPs, like, oh, this one's in, you know, manufacturing and this one's in logistics. It's like, no, these are completely different use cases. So we had to figure out the right budgets and how we were going to build that out and how we were going to make sure we were reaching the right people. And so that's where we started. And I think that's where it came from, was needing something and needing more resources to have a more nuanced strategy, a more complete strategy, deploy additional tools. We deployed a lot of different tech and had to make a lot of systems talk to each other and sync up to make it all work.

AL (04:41):
That makes sense. And the end goal for them was they were looking for pipeline volume, pipeline velocity. They were finding that they weren't getting enough leads coming through from their current funnels?

MT (04:53):
Yes, it was, you know, they were not seeing a ton of success in their demo bookings and they were getting some SQLs, but making that move to actually booking the demo wasn't happening. And so this is where cuz the definition for SQL was before the demo booking because it is such a, a majority of their customers are very, very large. Like we are driving in leads from Fortune 50 companies. And so, you know, who we're reaching and how they're making decisions is one of the toughest audiences because they've got a lot of people buying for their attention. And we're talking about, you know, when they're deploying this, sometimes we're talking about deploying it across their product, across millions of devices for a customer. And so it's not a small decision, like, you know, which task management tool, not that that's a small decision for everybody, we don't wanna underestimate that. But so yeah, it was hard to get that by. It was a tough, it was a tough case to crack for sure.

AL (05:49):
Right. So you've now uniquely identified that there are, you know, three ICPs wildly different from one another. And so is your next step to build out or, or to kind of audit or I don't know if you built these demand gen funnels now from scratch, was anything usable from what they had or, or what was the next step there?

MT (06:09):
Absolutely. A content agency had created some really amazing content. And so we were able to deploy that content. What really needed the shift was the audiences and the intent and the intent was even difficult. Like we used Bombora as an agency. We have a Bombora membership so that our clients don't have to go buy one themselves. They can pay based on how much they use, but even identifying intent topics because it was new, was like, you know, we had to spend a lot of time internally as well as with our representative over at Bombora. And they're super helpful with this. In like, what should we go with here? And then deciding, because we didn't have like a massive budget, what can we reasonably go after to begin with and how can we layer and stagger how we launch our, you know, our approach to each of these ICPs? To make sure that we can also be effective with these different groups within the budget that we have.

AL (07:03):
And were there in total three funnels that you ended up building?

MT (07:08):
Yes. And so there are of course some pieces that are, you know, pieces of content that are usable and viable across all of the funnels. Like we had a really great info graphic that performed really well that worked across the funnel. But how people were getting there, how we're addressing those people, how we're building the audiences within Bombora obviously changes. So, and like who our decision makers are, right. If we're talking to a channel partner, the decision maker, there is probably going to be somebody in charge of operations or the CEO. But if we're targeting, you know, a Fortune 500 company and they're gonna be the end user, then we've got a completely different persona there within the ICP that we're going to be targeting. And then when we're looking at the very large carriers who are going to be using this product, then we have a very specific target in a specific department.

MT (07:57):
And so who we were reaching and what the tool meant to them, right? Like on the channel partner, you're expanding your own business and expanding your service offering. On the end of the end consumer, you are saving a massive amount of time and money. And so, I mean, I will say that their product is incredible. It does create a lot of value. So, you know, obviously it was our job to make sure that was communicated, but it was a really strong product as well that we were going with. And I think that makes a big difference too.

AL (08:25):
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And it sounds like you had mentioned not much competition in the market or very little competition in the market.

MT (08:33):
Exactly, exactly. And then also having to navigate though where some of the products could be compliments or competition, right. So there was also this aspect of, we don't wanna step on the wrong toes because we're wanting to position our product juxtaposed to some of these companies, but also these companies could also be clients in a different way. And so we had to be really particular about how we messaged that in order to ensure that we kept the whole marketplace open for all of the opportunities.

AL (09:02):
So can you walk me through kind of the mechanics of these three funnels and it's okay to do an overview of all of them, but walk me through kind of the entry point. What are the different triggers and what kind of, where do they land?

MT (09:16):
Absolutely. So we started with, you know, obviously top of the funnel, so some really good content there. Placements across, you know, LinkedIn. And then of course we're running SCM for top mid and bottom of the funnel so that we can ensure we're present all the way through. We did do a little bit of display in the beginning, but did not find that. I mean, not that when you're doing top of funnel display, that clicks are always the best metric, right? We wanna take a look at the frequency, the exposure, the impressions that we're getting. And so we started there with the top of the funnel, but simultaneously we launched a middle of the funnel audience using Bombora's intent data. So the way we set that up is we had an automated close loops system that we set up using ZoomInfo, Bombora and HubSpot.

MT (09:59):
So what we did is we line out our ICP within ZoomInfo, right? So we can automatically using their workflows if you have the right plan, push those people into HubSpot. So somebody who was not surging, those people would go into the top of funnel audience. But as soon as they're surging, then we would bring those people into the middle of funnel audience, right? So we're using Bombora to determine which of those accounts are surging so that we can properly deploy those audiences. And so then that automatically moves people when they start surging, it moves them to the middle of funnel, you know, content or ads or placements. When they stop surging. Well, then we have a couple of different things we do, right? We can move them back to top of funnel or we can move them to a long term nurture. Because if they're no longer surging, well, there's two different things that could have happened, right?

MT (10:44):
They already chose another solution. Now, in this instance, that was highly unlikely because the other solution there's only one other solution available. So we could move those people into a nurture. And then once they either reached the appropriate lead score or they, you know, requested a demo or they, you know, downloaded X number of pieces of content, then we could move them into SQL stage. And then we also were using HubSpot to set up automations so that their sales team could support this. Because this is absolutely the type of sale. You know, I'm all about asynchronous buying. And I think that a lot of SaaS companies should be focusing on, you know, for their own good and the good of their customers, how they can help people to buy without having to get sales involved when they, when the customer isn't ready for it, let them do what they wanna do.

MT (11:25):
But in this type of product, with the scale of everything, you have to get those stakeholders to the table. So it was also really about aligning as ABM does sales and marketing so that when you know, different activities were happening, when someone moved from top of funnel into surge, we're surfacing those accounts to the right sales reps and setting tasks with them so that they can in tandem with our efforts, be prospecting and reaching out to people. And that has been very successful in surfacing those accounts and having that orchestrated effort to reach out. And then we also did, I know that there are mixed opinions about Aircover, but we did deploy Aircover with content focus, not, nothing but just getting content out to people useful, good content that was more general, so less specific, right. Cause if we're dealing with like heavy, complex IoT information, that's not up for everybody. Right. So then you also need to think through what are we gonna serve to these other audiences? So so yeah, we expanded the reach and in these really large accounts, again, I think Aircover is one of those things. In certain types of products, like, you know, where you're gonna have maybe two or three people in the buying committee, maybe not as necessary, but when you're targeting massive companies, I do still think there is some value in just that added brand awareness and brand value that you can spread by doing it.

AL (12:39):
And when you were looking at, I'm circling back to your kind of recognition of using your word surging, which I love. Like when your data is showing you some intent, right. Are you using HubSpot lead scoring as kind of in connection with Bombora to identify when that's happening? Or how are those kind of rising up to the surface for you to assign to sales?

MT (13:00):
Yeah, absolutely. So two different solutions there. So number one, Bombora what their product does and I wish I could take credit for the Surging name. They call it a surge audience. So essentially what happens is across the company's domain, overall searches and engagement with content related to the intent topic has increased by 60% or more. So that's what they consider to be a Surge. So we had two different, you know, there's two different things we were looking at when we're surfacing people. Number one, if it's an account that's important to you, that you have been prospecting, you wanna know when that account is surging. So you wanna surface that surging account. But in addition to that, if we have a surging account where somebody is actually actively engaging with our content, because just because they're surging doesn't mean they know about us, right? It means they're looking for, you know, in this case and something like IoT management solution.

MT (13:53):
It doesn't mean they know us. It just means that they're looking. And so then once we can connect there's intent at the organization and there's intent with us now that's a higher priority. And then that can, you know, through the automations available in the workflow tool and HubSpot can be surfaced to the right person so that they can be, you know, so that they can be very active. And then of course, we set up and used all of the target account tools that are in HubSpot, right? So auto labeling ICP tiers based on our parameters. And then making sure that we're notifying the rep so that we're labeling buying roles. So that again, you can set up a workflow that's like, so the reps don't have to track this, that, Hey, we actually have like four people on this account. And we have all this activity going on based on those parameters, you need to, you know, reach out, make a phone call, do whatever it is, start moving towards whatever the next phase is in the sales cycle at that time.

AL (14:48):
And so you talked a little bit about Aircover and how this is kind of controversial, but it sounds like for this specific initiative, Aircover is actually the second half of this entire puzzle. Because we're identifying company intent, but we haven't yet identified this business' intent. Right. We're identifying, Bombora is identifying that they're out in the Internet's world doing something that helps them think that they might be ready to buy something that might be us, but the Aircover is what's actually helping you determine that they know who we are so that we are a part of that evaluation.

MT (15:27):
Exactly, exactly. And so, yeah, and the Aircover also, just if we're looking at a company wide level, we don't know, you know, buying committees are a funny thing, right? Like some of the players are really obvious, but every company sets things up differently. Right. And so to me, it is worth those impressions when we know they're active, let's put it in front of so that if it does come up like, oh, they're looking at this. Oh yeah. I read their ebook. That was really great. Yeah. They seem to have, you know, doing well at X, Y, and Z. And so I like those opportunities in those scenarios, but again, if we're looking at a lower cost tool, if we're looking at a tool that has less, you know, depending on the customer, we're targeting like the level of, you know, is it an SMB, mid-market, enterprise? In this particular solution a lot of the companies we're working with that they're working with are enterprise organizations, right? And so there are a lot of possible players that can be involved in this decision. You're smaller, smaller market than you might not wanna use those impressions on Aircover because they might be better used on your overall demand campaign.

AL (16:35):
So walk me through how, you know, the structure of the campaign led to these results. How many steps are there in these funnels by the way? And is the, was the end step, I'm assuming the demo booking, and that's how we kind of got that huge increase?

MT (16:50):
Yes, exactly. So we create, whenever we build one of these campaigns, we get our, you know, I call it like the Carrie Matheson wall of crazy for any Homeland fans out there. And so sure, you know, you get your lucid board going and you start, you know, what we'll usually do is pick like, okay, all of the, you know, all of the diamond shapes are ad audiences, and all of the pillow shapes are landing pages. So we'll get that key going. And then we build all of the conditions for the funnel. And so if they, you know, see this ad and they do this, we'll go here. If they do that, they'll go there. So kind of like a scatter plot, like we talk about it as deconstructing the funnel, like where are all of the possible places we can run into this ICP at this phase, what's qualifying them to move to the next one.

MT (17:35):
And then considering in addition to the advertising part, because we're managing the CRM as well, is asking those questions, okay, what, you know, what do we do on the sales side as well? So they get here, they've raised their hands slightly by downloading this ebook. So let's go ahead and get them into this very light sequence. And then if they don't go into this sequence, or if they answer this sequence, then let's go ahead and drop them, you know, drop down the impressions on this part of the ad campaign because they're engaged, right? So a lot of synchronizing between sales and marketing within the automations of HubSpot, so that the journey we're giving people align. And I think that's something that being, you know, on the marketing side and the HubSpot side as HubSpot Platinum partners, like we also see that, that so often that, because those teams don't always work as closely together, that nuance between sales and marketing to automatically move these audiences to have the appropriate experience isn't happening.

MT (18:29):
So I think that had a big help that when they're talking to sales, let's back off a little bit on the ads, you know, and let's not send them any nurture emails. Let's let sales do their thing. If the touches reduced or the status changes, then we can, you know, increase those ad exposures again. So there were a lot of different entry and exit points from, you know, top to mid to bottom of the funnel. And then also, you know, fine tuning, how do we, what's the right way, because this can be a very long sales cycle just because of how complex and technical and integrated the solution is. And so what do we do during that sales cycle that's six months long, right. We don't necessarily wanna spend the money on like a ton of out impressions. We don't wanna bombard them with emails. So then also pacing that out so that you're, you know, having the right touch points throughout to stay top of mind, but not, you know, not harassing them.

AL (19:21):
Absolutely. Oh man. I mean, I feel like we could talk about this for like six more hours, but I wanna get us into our lightning questions cuz I'm really excited to hear your responses to these. So I have three questions for you. Are you ready for the first one?

MT (19:33):
Yes.

AL (19:34):
What is one thing you did this week to support your team?

MT (19:40):
So this week we had some meetings on to work on our structure and flow. We've been growing and with that we're, as I'm sure, you know, whenever you grow, you break it a little bit because you have new positions and responsibilities get redistributed. So having several, one-on-one and small group meetings to help sort that out, I think is something that has supported the team this week.

AL (20:07):
Great answer. Number two. What is your most webinar moment?

MT (20:14):
Man. So I was doing a webinar on using Google Optimize and I hadn't double checked to make sure that all of the experiments I was going to be using on the front end were actually set up. So I got to like the middle of the class and like, I just didn't have anything that I needed set up to finish that part. So I had to like call like, let's take a 10-minute break right now. I'm sure everyone wants one anyways, and let me, you know, figure out what I did here. But it was very clear to everybody involved that I made a mistake.

AL (20:50):
That's amazing though, that you had the wherewithal to say, you know what, we're gonna take a brief pause. We'll be back in a moment. Rather than just like slowly melting into your chair, which is another option.

MT (21:02):
Yeah. Which, you know, I think I started there, but then I was like, this is like, I can't try to comfort everybody into thinking this is okay and fix this at the same time. That's not gonna happen. Gotta choose one.

AL (21:12):
Totally agree. Last question. What is your favorite tool that you just can't live without?

MT (21:18):
So there are like, man, there are so many. And so like my top of the head answer is HubSpot. However, a new tool that I am in love with like, honestly it's blown my mind, iorad. So I O R A D it is a tutorial tool that, get this. So I can go through and click through like on HubSpot, how to do something by me doing that, you know, taking three minutes, it will generate. Okay. So it'll generate something you can watch and it'll actually create a text transcript and read it of everything I did. So I don't even have to record it. You could click through it like you are doing it. Or if you have the IRA extension, you ready for this? You could click it, click go, and it will take you to your HubSpot if that's how I (inaudible) and take you through the actions.

MT (22:06):
And so this like, all of our SaaS clients, I'm like, we have to get this set up. I think it is like a sleeping giant in like pre presale trial periods. Think about that. Nope. Like I would rather, I am a self, like I am a kinetic learner and I prefer to be self-taught. That is just my preference. And like nothing drives you more crazy. I mean, if you have two screens, it's a little better than like, okay, I'm watching this. I'm trying to do it. I'm watching it. Like, like, let, let me just put it in here. And wow. And I can go through as fast as I want, rather than having to wait for this 10 minute video. I mean, it reminds me of being a kid in school. I was just like, you know, in math, like, could you get to the core thing so I can like finish my homework before we get outta here today. Like, so iorad is yeah, I feel like it's gonna become one of the, they've got a lot of big customers already, but I am just when I think about the possibility for our clients and for us, cuz we teach a lot of people how to do a lot of things, whether it's in the back end of their website or in, you know, in HubSpot, whatever tool they're using it is super cool.

AL (23:06):
Ah, I love that answer. I'm so glad to learn that. Okay, Mandy, it was such a pleasure. Wrap us up by telling us where we can learn more about you and where we can learn more about Digital Reach.

MT (23:16):
Absolutely. And thank you. It's been so fun to be here, Ashley, and like I'm just, you know, honored that you invited me to come and chat with you. So Digital Reach Online Solutions. You can visit our website at Digital Reachos .com. So you can go there and you can learn about all of our services. We put our pricing on the website, at least where we start from. So, you know, if somebody wants to see what it costs to work with us, that's all there and transparent. You can book a consult directly from the site. We have our chatbot and then on LinkedIn, I am, you know, Mandy Thompson. So you can find me and connect. And I post about, you know, I post about the brain a lot and like how we make decisions and you know, how we all behave and then also about marketing. And then I also have a TikTok that I'm like building up it's rev lady on the road. So, cause I love travel, so.

AL (24:10):
I love it. Oh, Mandy, such a pleasure. Thank you so much for joining us.

MT (24:14):
Absolutely. Thank you.