How Intellimize Leveraged B2B Direct Mail to Generate $4.6M in Sales Pipeline

September 3, 2020

Intellimize used SaaSMQL’s expertise to launch targeted ABM campaigns, integrating Direct Mail with automated emails and LinkedIn ads to engage with 800 accounts within their ideal customer profile. Their investment generated $4.6M in ARR pipeline.

Summary


Intellimize used SaaSMQL’s expertise to launch targeted ABM campaigns, integrating Direct Mail with automated emails and LinkedIn ads to engage with 800 accounts within their ideal customer profile. Their investment generated $4.6M in ARR pipeline.


direct mail case study



The Challenge

Intellimize was looking to increase the conversion rate from MQL to SQL, and bring in more inbound opportunities for their Sales team. They were running an email nurturing campaign in Marketo, but were seeing low engagement and conversion to demos. They needed a way to generate more qualified meetings, and wanted to engage more senior marketing professionals (who are constantly bombarded with digital communications). This meant they needed a creative approach to catch the attention of these prospects.

 

The Solution


We decided to leverage direct mail to break through the noise and create engagement with decision makers. We focused first on the account list by mapping the attributes of current customers and listing any “must-haves”, such as company size, segment, industry, location, web traffic, Alexa rank and more. We used this information to build a list of 800 selected target accounts, making sure that every one was pre-qualified by Sales before launching the programs.

We chose to run account-based marketing campaigns against this target account list that incorporated direct mail offers, email follow-ups, and targeted LinkedIn ads-- all simultaneously. Cold emails and LinkedIn ads alone proved to only warm up the leads, but didn’t get them ready to engage with a sales rep. The addition of a direct mail component at the right point in the funnel led to a spike in opportunities, a boost in the conversion rate between MQL to SQL, and a faster sales cycle.


abm direct mail case study


The direct mail offer included custom branded, full-color boxes that arrived at the recipient’s office with bright colors and logo visible from the outside. Inside the boxes we included a nice gift and an incentive to schedule a meeting.

Every prospect was enrolled in a 5-email follow-up sequence concurrent with their direct mail gift, and also received targeted content on LinkedIn so that they would develop more brand recognition and engagement. Prospects were tagged in the CRM with their respective campaign(s) and notifications were sent to Marketing and Sales any time a prospect responded to an email or requested a demo.


abm direct mail case study


The Results


When Intellimize incorporated SaaSMQL’s highly focused ABM campaigns into their programs, they saw a surge in qualified pipeline. By effectively integrating direct mail to the digital marketing strategy, they were able to generate 54 opportunities for over $4.6M in ARR pipeline.


Example - Branded Wine Kit


One of the direct mail campaigns that we ran was exclusively focused on engaging senior decision makers and executives from Tier 1 enterprise accounts. These prospects normally have a very limited attention span, they don’t engage with digital ads or content, and receive hundreds of emails per day. We needed to find a way to break through the noise and catch their interest, so that they could learn more about the Intellimize platform. In addition, we wanted them to generate a positive impression with the Intellimize brand and to have a great experience.

case study direct mail abm

We built a direct mail offer that would be appreciated by a senior executive, but without going over our budget of $10,000 for the campaign. The gift box contained an elegant wine set with a branded cork case, and a personal note from Intellimize’s CEO. The gift was packed inside a full-color, custom shipping box with Intellimize’s logo and headline. The note from the CEO contained an incentive for a nice bottle of wine if they end up connecting live, and the follow-up emails reminded prospects of the offer.


Branded Wine Kit - Results


We targeted 250 executive-level decision makers at 200 target accounts. In just a couple of months, their investment of $9,380, generated $1,465,000 in ARR pipeline. In addition, Intellimize received a lot of positive feedback regarding the mailers - a few prospects sent thank you notes emphasizing how they were positively impressed by the direct mail box. The program was so successful and well received that Intellimize ended up re-launching a second version of this campaign.



case study direct mail abm

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