Accelerating Qualified Lead Generation With Cognism’s Data

A global digital manufacturing firm used Cognism’s sales intelligence platform to:

• Secure uploads on the website in 2021
• Contribute to yearly marketing KPIs 
• Have a consistent email deliverability rate of 95-98%
• Find qualified prospects for niche project briefs 

The company

Protolabs is the world's fastest digital manufacturing source for rapid prototyping and on-demand production. It has offices in Europe, USA and Japan.

The technology-enabled company produces custom parts and assemblies delivering automated 3D printing, CNC machining, and injection moulding processes within 24 hours. Protolabs’ digital approach to manufacturing enables accelerated time to market, reduces development and production costs, and minimises risk throughout the product life cycle.

The challenge

Protolabs have proudly been a Cognism customer since 2019. We spoke to Michael Sibley, Digital Marketing Specialist EMEA and Paul Coupe, Digital Marketing Manager EMEA about their experience with Cognism. 

How did Protolabs discover Cognism? 

Nicky Davies, Director of Marketing for Europe initially found and purchased Cognism. 

Michael explained why Protolabs chose Cognism over other B2B data providers. 

“Prior to Cognism, Protolabs did not use a lead generation platform. All of our new business was generated from a list of contacts built over time, referrals and inbound leads. In this vastly changing digital world, we needed to find a platform that would enable us to accelerate our outbound efforts.” 

“The problem was we were never going to find a mass number of contact details on our own accord. It’s a very laborious process and the contact details were likely to be inaccurate.” 

“In short, we needed Cognism’s extensive B2B contacts database and automation functionalities that would allow us to email a broad list of prospective customers in one go.”

“Three years on and the tool has proven to be a huge asset to achieving our marketing KPIs.” 

The solution

The Protolabs marketing team owns Cognism with Michael being the main user. In recent months, he’s also encouraged eight internal project coordinators to use the platform to assist with their projects. 

Protolabs typically use Cognism to target Design Engineers, Mechanical Engineers and Supply Chain Managers in EMEA. They are industry agnostic but the majority of their customers are in the automotive, consumer electronics, energy, aerospace and defence industries. 

What is Michael’s workflow with Cognism?

“The marketing team's core focus is to drive interest through emails and lead generation. With this in mind, I create personas in the Cognism platform filtering based on the briefs I’m given from the project managers.” 

“Cognism allows me to filter, refine and create reliable target contact lists. Once I’ve generated the data lists, I then sync them into our email campaign platform.”

“Overall, I spend at least one hour per day on the platform. It’s a prime asset to my day-to-day responsibilities.” 

How has the account management support helped streamline Michael’s workflows?  

“Cognism’s customer support is integral to our adoption of the tool. Our CSM regularly informs us when new features are launched. If I need assistance with a search, our CSM is willing to have a call almost instantly. This level of support gives more opportunity for the campaign to be a success. It’s really reassuring.” 

“I’ve also found Cognism’s event triggers to be paramount to finding niche audiences.”

Michael told us more:

“As a business in Q1 2021, we decided to approach the start-up space in addition to our typical ICP. The funding trigger on the platform allowed me to see which businesses received funding in the last 24 months. As this is a very specific search criteria, the list of contacts naturally decreased but the quality of the leads was much greater.” 

Paul concluded:

“This shows that the information provided from Cognism’s event trigger functionalities leads to insightful conversations. And potentially, those conversations can lead to new projects for us.”

The results

Paul explained how Cognism’s premium data has contributed to Protolabs achieving its marketing goals. 

“We measure Cognism’s success based on how many prospects are generated through content registrants. Our ultimate goal is for a lead to upload a CAD design through our website landing page.” 

“Secondarily, many of our registrants are also driven by someone signing up for a webinar, clicking on the website or enrolling for a free trial.” 

“As a result of Cognism’s data, in 2021 we reached 124 unique content registrations and  uploads on the website and 40 unique content registrations so far in 2022.”

What other benefits have they found from using Cognism? 

Michael explained:

“Time saving. We have a platform which allows us to decide if a project is worth it. The tool gives us the ammunition to qualify a lead quickly.” 

What is the biggest reason Michael would recommend Cognism? 

“Recently, I advocated for our US marketing team to use Cognism for the following reasons:

1. Ease of access to the data

“You can obtain contact details within 10-15 minutes.” 

“When I’m on the Cognism platform for about an hour per day, I'm not just looking at one project but approximately ten different projects. I can quickly give feedback to the project lead and make recommendations or alterations based on the data. The time used is well spent.”

2. Diversity of information available

“Not only is the list of individual contacts extensive but the breadth of companies available is phenomenal. Being able to rely on so many data points is a real win.” 

3. Highly accurate data

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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