Across virtually all businesses and sectors the last year has proven challenging. Nearly all organizations have been forced to dial in their GTM strategies and focus on efficiency and demonstrating ROI. This has led to some dramatic shifts for many teams requiring a new focus on sustained, efficient growth instead of the growth at all costs philosophy that has dominated the space for nearly two decades.
ProQuo AI was facing many of those same challenges when they came to DemandMagic seeking help with bringing down their acquisition costs while making a strategic shift in their primary ICP they were targeting.
In this success story, James Woodman, Sr. Marketing Manager ProQuo AI, shared how ProQuo AI partnered with DemandMagic to address its challenges and optimize its lead generation efforts.
ProQuo AI is a live consumer intelligence platform that provides fast creative testing, daily competitive insights, and real-time brand tracking. ProQuo AI operates in the market research and marketing technology industry, providing consumer brands with valuable insights into the effectiveness of their marketing strategies.
Intending to show brand marketing and insights teams which marketing actions are working in real-time, ProQuo AI has become a trusted partner for numerous renowned consumer brands.
Focusing on NRR, ProQuo’s team had realized that they needed to shift their focus and move up market where their solution provided more long term value with larger and more established brands. While SMB customers closed quickly they were not able to achieve the same value that SMB and enterprise customers were able to, and as a result they were at a heightened churn risk.
“We had changed our ICP from SMB and Mid-Market to Mid-Market and Enterprise, a strategic shift based on identifying our best fit and most profitable customers.”
The change in target customer profiles necessitated a complete overhaul of their lead generation approach. They encountered difficulties reaching and engaging Mid-Market and Enterprise clients effectively, resulting in a decreased volume of qualified leads, booked meetings, overall sales opportunities, all while seeing their Cost Per Lead & Qualified Opportunity spike.
In Q2 2022, ProQuo AI’s lead generation strategy was focused on driving volume, with a substantial marketing spend of £330,000 per quarter. However, this approach was not yielding the needed results.
The key metrics before partnering with DemandMagic were as follows:
Looking at the numbers, especially CAC and CPL, this shift required a complete reengineering of their entire demand generation strategy in order to reach and engage their new ICP effectively.
Like every business seeking a solution to their challenges, ProQuo AI evaluated several potential vendors. While evaluating solutions James primarily encountered agencies offering standard, generalized solutions. However, with the magnitude of the strategic shifts ProQuo AI was undergoing, James needed a partner who would take the time to understand the company’s goals and develop an in-depth and tailored approach.
The strategy DemandMagic developed for ProQuo AI was a comprehensive and multi-faceted approach aimed at capturing the attention of Enterprise and Midmarket target accounts in the US and the UK. The strategy involved combining different marketing techniques to move prospects through the marketing and sales funnel effectively and ultimately drive qualified meetings with potential clients.
Brittany Pinney, Global Head of Sales & President at ProQuo AI, also shared her experience with DemandMagic, saying, “On a daily basis, all of our content and our ad campaigns are run by DemandMagic, overseen by our in-house Senior Marketing Manager.”
After a detailed study of the new target ICP, DemandMagic started with brand awareness ad campaigns on LinkedIn. These ads were designed to increase the visibility and awareness of ProQuo AI and aimed to engage and attract top-of-the-funnel leads. A deeper understanding of the new ICP was the key that helped draft engaging ad copy that resonated with their targets’ challenges and goals.
The top-of-the-funnel ads were combined with lower-funnel LinkedIn conversation ads and Google ads to drive meetings within a strategic group of around 2000 target accounts. These ads were designed to encourage prospects to take specific actions, such as signing up for a webinar, downloading a whitepaper, or requesting a demo. By providing valuable content and CTAs, DemandMagic aimed to convert interested prospects into qualified leads.
Introducing and utilizing DemandMagic’s fractional BDR service was a masterstroke to complete the cycle. DemandMagic’s BDR supplemented the inbound efforts by proactively reaching out to engaged leads and qualified prospects, connecting with them, and converting them into qualified meetings.
We created the demand and delivered some magical numbers.
“Our aim in Q1 was to get our lead gen engine set up and produce a regular cadence of meetings with our new ICP at the top of the funnel. DemandMagic helped us achieve this by establishing a target account list and running a lower funnel offer/ad campaign for this ICP.”
The team achieved a remarkable 2.3x improvement in the conversion rate of leads to SQLs from Q2 2022 to Q2 2023. This indicates their successful efforts in turning more leads into qualified prospects, leading to better sales performance.
The team effectively generated a 53% increase in inbound demo requests from Q1 to Q2 2023. This increase illustrates the effectiveness of the multichannel, full funnel strategies utilized to attract more qualified leads interested in seeing product demos.
The team also significantly streamlined the lead-to-SQL conversion process, reducing the average time from 14 days in Q2 2022 to just 2 days in Q2 2023. This remarkable reduction in conversion timelines is due to both the increased quality and qualification of the leads being generated as well as the dedicated fractional BDR services whose top priority was staying on top of these inbound leads.
James shared how his team was thrilled with the results they were seeing.
“The feedback from the wider team is that DemandMagic is doing an amazing job in generating demo requests with large name brands that are difficult to break into.”
Our team had brainstorming sessions at regular intervals to make sure all were on the same page and moving toward a common goal. This created a clear path of how we, as a team, can achieve the agreed upon objectives.
Since partnering with DemandMagic, ProQuo AI could easily notice the change not only in the numbers but also in the overall approach.
DemandMagic worked as an extension of the ProQuo AI team. This meant meeting with the team on an at least once-a-week basis and many times more frequently. The DemandMagic team was also available async at all times through Slack and email. And part of DemandMagic’s success is focusing on what’s happening downstream from the leads being generated. Feedback was constantly solicited regarding updates to opportunities, qualification of meetings, qualitative as well as quantitative insights from reps working the deals, etc.
“We are thinking more strategically, particularly regarding long-term efforts like measuring intent signals.”
