demandDrive, a leading integrated sales and marketing agency, uses Cognism to:
- Help generate 100-200 new opportunities per week.
- Help its clients win business in EMEA and DACH.
- Generate ROI for demandDrive and its clients.
- Generate a high volume of quality connect rates.
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The company
demandDrive offers integrated sales, marketing and marketing technology services in the B2B tech space. The company’s marketing services range from content creation, web builds and HubSpot implementation to paid search.
A big part of its business comprises building and managing outsourced sales development teams that work closely with the client, almost as an internal team.
What teams use Cognism?
Around 130 of demandDrive’s staff leverage Cognism data to support their clients across a range of functions, from sales development to team managers.
The challenge
We interviewed Greg Cammarata, Director of Sales, and Darren Zawada, Operations Manager at demandDrive, to learn how they use Cognism and what results it produces.
How did you first find out about Cognism?
Greg explained how a well-executed cold call was what got him interested:
“I received a cold call from an SDR at Cognism on my cell phone, which I hadn’t received before. The rep did a good job explaining the value, but even more than what they said, what was persuasive was the fact they had my mobile number.”
“Sales development is a major part of our business, so the fact they reached me made me think, all right, that’s interesting; we could benefit from this.”
“I had also heard about Cognism, so there was brand recognition there, too.”
What problems were Greg and Darren trying to solve?
Darren explained how Cognism helped demandDrive kill two birds with one stone:
“One of the things we’re always evaluating is our connection rates and the territories that we can service. We’d seen a dip in phone connection rates and needed to fix that, so Cognism was able to jump in with mobile phone coverage.”
“I know Greg has nothing but praise as far as getting people on the phone goes. So the coverage there has been great.”
“And then Cognism being in the UK and having strong European data has been great for our clients who are starting to push into EMEA territories and DACH regions. Cognism has been a great fit for that initiative as well.”
What did the evaluation process look like?
Darren outlined the process:
“We’d used ZoomInfo, Seamless.AI, Infotelligent [now Selling.com] and probably a few others. A lot of our decision-making is influenced by industry word of mouth, what our clients are using or seeing a data tool at a trade show or something like that.”
How does Cognism perform against its competitors?
Darren explained:
“Firstly, we were able to reach EMEA right off the bat, whereas we would have had to scale our spend with our old solution to reach that region.”
“And then there is the general feedback on connection rates. We saw an uptick, especially in the phone connection rates. Usually, the best way to get somebody to take that next step to have a conversation with you is to get them live on the phone.”
“We had one tool in place where people would call a list of 100 people, and they’d tell me they had two phone numbers that were right. We don’t hear that anymore.”
Darren outlined how Cognism’s data quality compares with ZoomInfo.
“Because ZoomInfo takes so long to update accurate contacts, you might have the right contact information for an individual, but that individual hasn’t been at the company for six months. I’ve gotten feedback that this doesn’t happen with Cognism.”
The solution
Who is demandDrive’s ICP/target audience?
Greg explained demandDrive’s twin use cases:
“For demandDrive itself, we target sales and marketing leaders at B2B tech companies.”
“And we use Cognism on behalf of our B2B tech clients – so in that respect, our target audience is pretty broad. If we have a client in cybersecurity, we’ll build a sales development team that prospects in the cybersecurity space, and they’ll use Cognism to help build lead lists and target folks in that space.”
Darren outlined demandDrive’s geographic focuses:
“We’re still primarily a North American operation, so our focus is majority Canada and the United States.”
“But about a year or two ago, we started creeping more into the EMEA area, especially the DACH region. So calling into Germany and Austria has become more common. We’ve even had a few clients recently wanting to prospect in Latin America, too.”
How do Greg and Darren use Cognism?
Greg told us:
“Cognism is used to build lists. There are a few ways the demandDrive sales teams use Cognism.”
“We all have LinkedIn Sales Navigator licenses, which we’ll use to build out a base list. Then, we’ll enrich that list with Cognism data. The mobile numbers are so important because they work really well for us. We use all different aspects of Cognism to get that contact data.”
Darren chipped in:
“From an Ops perspective, one of the biggest things is the reporting dashboard. The dashboard makes it easy to see where people aren’t using it if they have a seat, so we can align it to the right client.”
The results
How has Cognism helped demandDrive?
Darren explained the role Cognism plays in delivering client value:
“Recurring revenue and client retention are directly tied to our performance. And a big part of our performance is the data we work with. So if our connection rates are there, that means our conversion rates are there. And if our conversion rates are there, our clients are happy and stay.”
Greg talked us through Cognism’s contribution to demandDrive’s outreach performance:
“We practice what we preach and use Cognism in our own outbound, and we’ve seen wins there as well. Cognism helps us proactively reach some of our highest-value targets. Quality outbound has led to some of our most exciting opportunities.”
“Recently, we’ve been generating around 100-200 new meetings per week, and a high proportion of that comes from our Cognism licenses.”
Greg expanded on the quality of leads generated by Cognism:
“We track what we call ‘quality connect rates’, which is a call in which we engage with a prospect and find out valuable information. We had seen that number dip, so we turned to Cognism. And since then, we have seen that number go back up, or even outperform historically.”
Darren also explained how Cognism’s data quality gets their SDRs up and running quickly:
“The ramp-up time for our SDRs joining client programs has shortened, and this is thanks to them having reliable data from the get-go. When I started as an SDR it was like a month and a half before you started performing and being at goal. At this point, I’d say our SDRs are up to speed after a couple of weeks after a program kick-off.”
And these ramp-up times translate into ROI. Darren said:
“Our ramp time determines client value and that translates directly to ROI. We may not be able to put a direct dollar amount on it, but if we’re under a month in terms of ramp time, we’re producing value for our clients early.”
“That leads to client happiness, which leads to retention. So the ROI has definitely been there in terms of getting our programs off the ground quicker and keeping clients here longer.”
Have there been any intangible benefits to having Cognism?
Darren explained:
“The ease of alignment to the right programs through reporting and the ease of efficiency in credit management are less material benefits.”
“Not having to worry about a rep running out of credits at the end of the month because they’re burning through their credits quickly is a big thing.”
“Running out of credits hasn’t been the case with Cognism. The credit system is a lot more reasonable. And if we ever have a program where we need an enrichment credit service, you have that available to us, too.”
How did demandDrive find Cognism’s onboarding process?
Darren talked us through his onboarding experience:
“Cognism was very easy to adopt. There are little nuanced things that we had to learn, but our experience working with various data tools in the past made it easy.”
“But throughout the entire time, your team has been great at offering training whenever we need it. If I ever have a question, I know I can get a response within an hour at most.”
What was demandDrive’s experience with customer success like?
Darren had some kind things to say about the value of Cognism’s customer service:
“The monthly recap that our customer success person, Josh, has been sending our way has been great in determining which reps aren’t using the tool. I can deduce that maybe that isn’t a project that needs the tool in place, so we can better optimise our costs there. That directly translates to ROI.”
Why demandDrive recommends Cognism
“Would I recommend Cognism? Yeah, I absolutely would.”
“The biggest reason I would recommend Cognism is the phone connections, especially with our success with Cognism’s mobile number coverage.”
“Because at the end of the day, the biggest wins we see for connections and conversions come from talking to someone on the phone, finding out what their problems are and helping them understand the value that your client, or demandDrive itself, can help in overcoming the challenges they’re facing.”
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
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