More Reach & Stronger Positioning

5 min read
06.07.2023 16:29:13
More Reach & Stronger Positioning
7:47

You're striving tirelessly to generate new leads for your B2B business, but all you can manage are frustrating cold calls and old-fashioned sales tactics. That's where our revolutionary industry study software comes in, specifically designed for companies with high-value products and long sales cycles.

Our solution is not just another method of customer acquisition. It's a whole new approach to how you fill your sales pipeline. Instead of sending out pushy, annoying cold emails, you can now use AI and marketing automation to leverage insights from industry studies to generate, nurture and qualify your prospects at scale.

To give you a deeper understanding of our solution and its impact, we conducted a short interview with one of our early customers, who jumped at the chance to try this new approach.

Case Study: MySign

Reto Baumgartner founded MySign 25 years ago. Today, MySign is a web agency with 45 employees specializing in e-commerce automation. Reto is also the founder of Eventfrog (largest event calendar in Switzerland), and Linsenmax (online store for contact lenses and care products).

Reto, what were your thoughts when you decided to start an industry survey with us?

Some context is necessary to give the full picture. As you mentioned, we are an e-commerce agency with extensive expertise and years of experience. Our team consists of about 45 specialists, and we have already implemented hundreds of projects for SMEs.

The Recurring Challenge

One challenge we encounter again and again is to effectively communicate our expertise and experience to a large volume of companies, especially in the B2B industry. 

Finding B2B companies that have a specific need is an enormous challenge. It can be compared to searching for the famous needle in a haystack, an experience probably shared by many of us in the B2B space.

For this very reason, I have been looking for a way to engage with more companies, especially at stages when they do not yet have a specific need. This way, we can proactively share our expertise and knowledge, position ourselves, and lay the foundation for future business relationships.

Our long-term goal is always to be present and relevant to companies when they have a need for our expertise, be it in one, two, or even three years. This goal has been at the core of our efforts.

Finding the Right Survey Topic

We chose the topic of E-Commerce Automation for our industry study because it offers huge potential and is an area that every SME is dealing with somewhere today. Every SME has starting points in this area and will face challenges in the years to come.

At the moment we are conducting the survey, and it allows us to get in touch with a lot of companies without any obligation while offering real added value. What stands out is the direct benefit to each participant that is realized through Cotide. Once someone sees themselves in the spider diagram compared to the market, they understand the real value. This willingness of companies to disclose information within the study is, in turn, very valuable to us.

Here's the spider diagram, where participants see themselves compared to the industry average:

Screenshot 2024-04-02 at 12.39.51

The responses we receive from participants confirm this very point. They appreciate the immediate feedback and the direct benefit for their time invested, rather than waiting months for the survey to be analysed. They can see in real time where they stand compared to the market and the industry.

The feedback we get is consistently positive and valuable. This is what sets Cotide apart from traditional surveys. It is this immediate benefit that your product provides that makes a significant difference.

Your industry survey is in partnership with the University of Applied Sciences, Northwestern Switzerland. Was that important for you to find an academic partner?

I found it particularly important to have a dialogue with the companies and draw the maximum insights from the data collected. In this respect, of course, a university can do much more than we can. That's why I'm particularly looking forward to the evaluations and the final report that the University of Applied Sciences, Northwestern Switzerland will produce.

The survey not only brings us many new contacts, but also a lot of relevant and exciting content. We can then use interesting insights and results from the survey in our daily consultations with clients or for our own communications.

For me, these two aspects are precisely the benefits of our efforts: on the one hand, the dialogue with companies and the leads generated, and on the other hand, the unique content we can produce from it.

Your industry survey is still collecting data. Have you been able to have conversations with potential customers yet?

Yes, actually I was surprised. We are promoting the survey with several webinars and already among the participants of these webinars, two or three exciting leads and follow-up conversations have emerged. In fact, a couple of meetings have already taken place.

In addition, I'm noticing that the topic of e-commerce automation we're covering in this survey is getting a lot of interest from many companies. It is not only exciting for us as a brand but also generates contacts within the industry. For example, we have already established contacts with other universities, event organizers, media, and potential partner companies.

The great interest and the first exciting contacts show me that this campaign, with the survey at its core, meets a need and raises interest. It's encouraging to see the impact this survey is already having.

Campaign Results 

Cotide's software played a pivotal role in a campaign that targeted and engaged a total of 6,728 leads. Of these, 174 actively participated in a detailed survey, contributing to a comprehensive industry report and benchmark that captivated 2,334 leads. This engagement highlights Cotide's strength in capturing and maintaining interest across a wide spectrum of lead interactions. From survey participation and email interactions to report downloads, Cotide continuously scores each lead's engagement level, providing invaluable insights for tailored follow-ups.

A key advantage of working with Cotide is our ability to source a substantial number of leads—6,300 out of the total were directly found by us, addressing potential concerns for clients starting with a smaller lead base. This capability ensures that starting with fewer leads is not a hindrance to campaign success.

Our software's continuous lead scoring system is a cornerstone of this approach, tracking and scoring every interaction, whether a lead participates in the survey, opens an email, clicks on a link, or downloads the study report. This system not only boosts engagement, but also significantly enhances the sales pipeline, offering sales teams a wealth of opportunities to identify and pursue buying signals effectively.

Screenshot 2024-04-02 at 13.41.28

Cotide’s strategy enriches the client's sales process, making the journey from initial contact to successful sale both efficient and smooth. Our product is designed to empower clients from any starting point, enabling the launch of campaigns that engage thousands of leads. This approach has consistently proven to be a robust solution for clients looking to elevate their sales strategies and achieve significant results.

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