Discovering More Ideal Buyers With Cognism
What's on this page:
Learn how CloudInsyte used Cognism’s B2B lead generation solution to:
- Acquire leads with confidence
- Fine-tune their ICP
- Book meetings with ideal customers using outbound email and LinkedIn
- Cut down on admin work
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The company
Due diligence can take technology buyers a long time.
CloudInsyte has developed a smart vendor marketplace that helps businesses of all sizes and industries to make their vendor-buying decisions in a very short amount of time.
CloudInsyte’s software breaks down the due diligence process and allows teams to perform IT vendor due diligence a lot faster with fewer resources.
The challenge
We spoke with Kate Huber, the co-founder and COO of CloudInsyte to learn more about CloudInsyte’s experience with Cognism. Kate shared what their customer acquisition process looked like before they discovered Cognism.
“Previously we were relying mostly on our networks and customer referrals to generate new business before we had our platform developed.
The challenge post-development was that we needed to introduce our own new product to a larger audience and we needed the tools, technology, and resources of a large firm to do so, however, we still needed to keep costs reasonable.
So, we were looking for a solution that was cost-effective for where we were today, but that helped us scale for where we planned to go tomorrow.”
Once CloudInsyte’s stakeholders agreed that they needed to start using automated outbound outreach to augment their sales process, they started exploring different tools.
But their journey didn’t come without its challenges.
“We tried using Hubspot with our existing data, but there was no live connection between our paid data source and Hubspot so it required manual uploads of lists, meaning oftentimes the data would be outdated, resulting in a high bounce rate which blocks Hubspot users from the service.
I began to feel like the effort we were putting forth at that time was not yielding the results we had hoped for. It wasn’t long before we agreed that our approach wasn’t working and decided to go back to the drawing board.”
The solution
As soon as they realised they could hardly rely on their existing data, CloudInsyte started exploring sales intelligence solutions. It was around that time when they found Cognism.
“We received a demo, and decided to try it and see what happens. At the beginning we were sceptical. But then we started booking meetings directly from the emails we were sending to our ideal customers, and realised that the tool worked even better than expected.”
We asked Kate to tell us more about the way CloudInsyte use Cognism.
“The setup was easy and it has been extremely straightforward to train new people, which as a product person I appreciate. We typically use a combination of automated email and Linkedin steps in our outbound campaigns. If we do cold calls, we can leave notes in the system too to document this as well.”
Kate also touched on one of the biggest challenges CloudInsyte had in the past.
“Before we discovered Cognism we had to take data from one system and manually input it into another, so it was hard to keep track of how many times we had touched the leads and still be both thoughtful and strategic. Cognism helped us solve this challenge. Having the lead prospecting piece and the outbound automation in the same platform was a game changer for us.”
The results
CloudInsyte spent the first couple of months with Cognism to flesh out their persona, work out the ideal automation flow, number of emails, touchpoints, subject lines and so on. Within 3 months CloudInsyte hit a stride.
“After a few months, we started discovering different ways we can use Cognism and got creative with our touchpoints. We got our first client onboard 3 months after we started using it.”
Currently, CloudInsyte is mostly focusing on brand awareness and are testing different personas and messaging. Kate explained:
“You start to see the real power of Cognism when you really fine tune your personas and messaging to fit those personas. The platform has certainly helped us go through the exercise of constantly refining our buyer personas and messaging to each of them. We discovered there are more even ideal buyers than what we thought before, which is definitely a result of this exercise.”
For Kate, Cognism’s value lies in its ability to help CloudInsyte to not only unearth new revenue, but also save time.
“I would spend a ton of time if I were manually doing all the things I’m doing with Cognism. The CRM integration and the universal email integration are honestly features I would not want to live without. If I respond to an email from my inbox, there’s not much else I need to do, because it’s all integrated into every system I need it to be in and that alone saves a lot of time.”
Kate also praised the team and support.
“The team is wonderful. We feel like we’re working with a company that understands us and listens to customers. Our CSM is super responsive and is always proactively reaching out if there’s a new feature that could help us, or if we have some questions or feedback.
We also like the product newsletters and customer webinars featuring subject matter experts. By taking nuggets of advice from the webinars we’ve been able to make changes that would’ve taken us a while to discover on our own.”
Kate had some final words to share:
“We used to acquire leads without as much confidence. Even if we found a good-fit lead, we couldn’t be sure if the information was current. Since Cognism constantly update the leads, we’re now confident in the leads that we’re buying. From a functionality standpoint, Cognism has all the bells and whistles we need and then some. It is truly a platform that allows us to do much more in much less time, which we are obviously all about!”
Try Cognism’s sales intelligence solution
Over 3,000 sales and marketing teams around the world trust Cognism to:
✅ Build their ICP and discover their ideal buyers
✅ Connect with decision-makers in accounts that are ready to buy
✅ Plan and launch their outbound campaigns
✅ Power up their social selling
✅ Meet and beat their revenue targets
Why not see for yourself? Book your live screenshare here 👇