Generating $3 Million of Opportunities in DACH With Cognism

5 minute read
By: Emma Sands
Sales, B2B Data

simpleshow, the pioneer platform for explainer videos, uses Cognism’s B2B data to:

Create $3 million worth of pipeline in DACH.
Book 425 meetings by October 2022.
Cross-sell into existing customer accounts.
Automatically integrate Cognism with the Salesforce CRM.

Website: www.simpleshow.com

Number of employees: 260

Industry: E-learning

HQ: Luxembourg
Teams using: Sales

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The company

Founded in 2017, simpleshow produces world-class explainer videos for digital products and services. Guided by the mission to make modern communication simple and concise, the market leader enables everyone to explain complex topics very simply. The artificial intelligence within the SaaS solution supports the user to create a professional explainer video with just a few clicks.

In over 50 languages, the simpleshow team serves clients from offices in Berlin, Luxembourg, London, Miami, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Tokyo. Large international companies value simpleshow as their partner for simple explanations.

The challenge

We interviewed Filipa Enes, Sales Administrator at simpleshow based in Berlin. Her role is to develop, execute, optimise and manage the sales team's processes to ensure they have the best tools possible to do their job effectively.

How did simpleshow discover Cognism?

“I received a great cold call from a Cognism SDR. This came at the ideal time as the German sales team were struggling with ZoomInfo’s data quality in the DACH region. Despite the US team seeing some success with the platform, there was a clear difference in data quality between the US and Europe.”

What techniques did simpleshow use to assess and evaluate Cognism?

“Cognism delivered a sample of DACH contacts for the sales team to trial. We were blown away by how many phone numbers and email addresses there were. Immediately, we moved our German sales team to Cognism.”

Overall, how did they find the sales process?

“The SDR really listened to our challenges with DACH data. The subsequent demo and conversations we had with the Account Executive were always fun and informative. We really enjoyed the sales process and were promised exactly what was delivered!”

The solution

The DACH sales team consists of sixteen account managers, four inside sales reps and three BDRs. They all use Cognism.

What is their target market?

“The DACH 500 are our target accounts. Occasionally, we broaden the search and approach smaller businesses as they have a shorter sales cycle.”

Filipa explained how Cognism is used for two purposes at simpleshow.

“The BDRs and inside sales reps use Cognism for new business opportunity generation. The tool is also used by the account managers for cross-selling into their existing customer accounts. Both teams identify what industries and companies simpleshow are successful with and focus on targeting that ICP accordingly.”

How has Cognism been beneficial for cross-selling opportunities?

“Cognism’s diverse database of contacts in the DACH region is hugely useful for the account managers. Here’s an example: Siemens is a customer and has a number of subsidiaries. The account manager can input a Siemens subsidiary domain in the WebApp, refine the search, generate a list of contacts and directly sync the contact details to Salesforce.”

Filipa explained how they use Cognism’s Salesforce integration to action leads. It allows companies to export contacts in bulk from the Cognism WebApp into Salesforce either as Leads or Contacts, with or without Accounts. All integration settings for both the WebApp and Chrome Extension are located centrally and can be managed in the WebApp.

What is simpleshow’s workflow with Cognism’s Salesforce integration?

“Each rep uses the WebApp to search for contacts in their assigned accounts. The contacts are then saved as a lead source and synced to Salesforce in just two clicks. It’s magic!”

What outbound tools are used to action the leads?

“We use Pardot, a marketing automation platform by Salesforce for mass mailing. However, the sales team regularly use Salesloft, a sales engagement platform to build and nurture pipelines through sales cadences.”

Filipa explained how the sales team uses a multichannel approach in their cadences for prospecting.

“The team action leads through sending personalised emails and cold calling. We used to place a large emphasis on email. However, since using Cognism, we now have a large B2B contact database of mobiles at our fingertips. As a result, the team has started to cold call more.”

Cognism is always keeping data compliant with international data regulations. How has Cognism’s leading compliant B2B database helped when pitching to prospects in the DACH region?

“If a prospect asks where we’ve obtained their mobile or email address from, the team can confidently say that they’ve acquired their data from Cognism’s GDPR-compliant database. This reassures the prospect that they are being contacted for B2B purposes only.”

Cognism has hugely helped raise efficiency levels. Filipa explained why:

“When we used ZoomInfo in 2021, there was no automatic integration with Salesforce making the workflows very tiresome. Here’s why: we had to search for the contacts in the platform, download the CSV and manually import the Excel file to Salesforce.”

“Having been in sales for years, I used to spend hours of my life formatting and importing excel spreadsheets to the CRM. Cognism’s automatic integration with Salesforce means I no longer spend time manually inserting leads to our CRM. It has completely transformed the way sales operate on a daily basis. It merits 5 stars!”

Finally, how have they found the customer support at Cognism?

“Cognism has the best client service I’ve ever experienced with a vendor. Our account manager helps us outline our goals and challenges us on what more we can do to use the platform to the best of its ability. We aspire to have an account management service like Cognism. It’s truly amazing.”

The results

Filipa explained the time-saving benefits that simpleshow has experienced since using Cognism.

“Firstly, there were no technical issues when integrating the two technologies in the onboarding process. This is credit to Cognism’s support team for making this a breeze.”

“Overall, the bottleneck of manually exporting leads to Salesforce has vanished since using Cognism. Salesforce is our single source of truth and the direct integration with Cognism means no leads slip through the cracks.”

How many more outbound conversations have simpleshow had since using Cognism?

“Output and volume of meetings booked have skyrocketed. From September to December 2021, the German team booked 250 meetings and closed $62k of new business. So far in 2022, the team has booked 425 meetings and closed $140k of new business.”

“Our 2022 opportunity pipeline for the DACH market is already worth $3 million from Cognism generated leads. The sales team are in meeting heaven.”

What are simpleshow’s growth plans with Cognism?

“We’ve now expanded Cognism to our UK team. We are increasingly buying more credits because the sales team are so reliant on the data.”

“There is no other lead generation tool that facilitates as many meetings as Cognism. This is because we are targeting the right people, sending emails that don’t bounce and calling mobiles that exist. It’s our best investment for opportunity generation as we are already seeing a x3 return on our investment. I love it!”