Boosting Connect Rates by 300% With Cognism’s Mobile Data

Nivo, the award-winning secure messaging app for regulated industries, uses Cognism’s B2B data to:

• Produce 20-30 MQLs per month per SDR.
• Increase call-to-connect rates by 300%
• Seamlessly integrate with Hubspot.
• Learn from Cognism’s best practices and value-led content.

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The company

Nivo is a verified identity messaging solution. It provides digital identity checks and secure instant messaging in one simple solution.

Working with the likes of Freedom Finance, Pepper Money, Ocean Finance, United Trust Bank and Together, the team has invested heavily in R&D. The goal is to shift lenders and other financial services organisations away from email, phone, paper and post.

By using Nivo, customers reply to their clients faster, and with higher-quality information. That way, Nivo’s clients spend less time chasing their customers and more time on the things that matter. At the same time, information risk controls are significantly improved.

The challenge

We interviewed Amanuel Zeleke, Business Development Representative at Nivo about his experience with Cognism. 

What lead generation bottlenecks did Amanuel encounter before Cognism? 

“LinkedIn and another data provider were our main data sources. However, the data available for our target market was often missing or dated.”  

How did Nivo come across Cognism? 

“Prior to joining Nivo, I trained at the SaaSLeads Academy. They train future SDRs for innovative B2B companies looking to ramp up their commercial team's performance. Throughout the programme, we used Cognism to find B2B data to help us with our prospecting. After a very positive experience, it was clear how integral the platform was to my overall sales output and performance.” 

“Nivo required a data source that could integrate with LinkedIn and assist with hitting overall business objectives. Cognism met both of these objectives. There wasn’t a better competitor out there than Cognism.” 

The solution

Nivo has been using Cognism since February 2022. The sales team consists of three people - two SDRs and an AE. 

What is their target market at Nivo? 

“About 99% of our business is with the UK financial markets. Our main ICP are lenders ranging from high-street banks to more specialist lenders. For example asset finance, invoice financing and more niche financial products. We target C-Suite executives but there’s also a level of senior positions we target. Such as where people spearhead projects themselves and look after certain products.” 

What Cognism products do the SDR team use to maximise prospecting efficiencies? 

“Firstly, I use the WebApp when creating lists en masse. For example: if there’s a huge international lender with thousands of employees. I can generate a list of all relevant contacts in the WebApp and connect with them on LinkedIn. It’s very valuable when creating a set of high-volume accounts.” 

“I also generate a CSV file in the WebApp. Then I'll sync the data through the HubSpot integration to our marketing workflows. Being able to import an incomplete and outmoded CSV file to Cognism, refresh the dataset and sync it back into our Hubspot CRM is a huge time saver.” 

What outbound lead generation methods do your SDRs use to action the leads? 

“I conduct a multichannel approach. I use Hubspot sequences with a focus on cold calling and messaging via LinkedIn and WhatsApp B2B. We also use Lavender, the AI email assistant to drive email reply and conversion rates.” 

“I use the Cognism LinkedIn Chrome Extension daily. I find the desired account to approach and search for the relevant buyers at the company on LinkedIn. At the click of a button, the API reveals the contact’s email address and phone number. This information gets synced to Hubspot sequences for outreach.” 

How have Cognism’s mobiles been useful for prospecting via Whatsapp B2B? 

“As our ICP is highly-regulated, we don’t expect as many call-to-connects as other industries. So having legitimate mobiles is very important. Particularly when capturing prospects at the earliest time in the buying cycle.” 

“Since February 2022, we’ve seen a 300% increase in call-to-connect rates using Cognism’s mobile numbers.” 

How has Cognism’s highly-compliant GDPR database been valuable to Nivo given the nature of its target market? 

“Much of the C-Suite at lenders prohibit publicly giving out their phone number for confidentiality reasons. If they don’t want to be contacted, they are logged against the Telephone Preference Service (TPS). Cognism is one of the few vendors that provide a notified database and meets all B2B data processing requirements. From a GDPR standpoint, it’s reassuring to know that Cognism gives prospects the option to opt out.” 

The results

Amanuel explained how the platform has skyrocketed productivity in the sales team. 

“The biggest time saver is the Chrome Extension’s integration with Hubspot. Syncing contact details from the API to our CRM at the click of a button removes the bottleneck of manually exporting contact details to the CRM. It’s my favourite Cognism product!”

“Cognism is a cosmic time saver when you take into account hours saved in your working day over a whole year.” 

We asked Amanuel what quantifiable success Nivo has seen since using Cognism.

“The SDRs generate ⅔ of opportunities from Cognism’s data. As a result, each SDR produces around 20-30 MQLs per month.” 

“We have a lengthy sales cycle as there are always several stakeholders in the regulated sectors we work with. Having a complete dataset is valuable for our Account Executives. Because having a robust follow-up process could be the difference between a won or lost deal."

"Cognism’s vast array of emails and phone numbers gives them a higher chance of keeping in touch with their prospects. As well as increasing the chances of a closed won deal.” 

“While the quantifiable results from Cognism are not immediate, we see the impact at the top of the sales funnel. Over time, this has a domino effect on closed won revenue at the bottom of the funnel.” 

The top reasons why Nivo would recommend Cognism

1. Accurate data source

“In sales, there’s nothing more demotivating than researching a prospect's company, creating personalised outreach only to find that the number or email doesn’t exist. Cognism removes this obstacle.”

“I’ve not come across a competitor that bolsters confidence like Cognism’s database does.” 

2. Educational, digestible content

“Cognism’s marketing material helps me perform better at my role, on top of providing the data source to do my job!"

"For example, I have built my cadence based on Cognism’s best practice. Cognism’s SDRs often use Vidyard in their cadences. This has prompted me to embed this channel in my own outreach."

"I also love Cognism’s cold calling live training webinars with subject matter experts. They make me feel like part of the SaaS sales SDR community.” 

“What Cognism provides is a higher cut against its competitors. The marketing team have personality. [They] provide a relatable experience and add extra value [on top of] their core offering."

"They understand their customers and provide a wealth of helpful SDR content, emails and webinars. No fluff and genuinely helpful and insightful. It’s not just a B2B lead gen provider…it’s a source of knowledge.”

Try Cognism’s sales intelligence solution

Over 3,000 revenue teams around the world trust Cognism to:

✅ Build qualified B2B contact databases.

✅ Plan and launch their outbound campaigns.

✅ Power up their social selling.

✅ Meet and beat their revenue targets.

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