Outbound Sales Prospecting for
Dutch Energy Management Startup
to Enter The UK Manufacturing Market
Dutch Energy Management Startup
to Enter The UK Manufacturing Market
Manufacturing is one of the most challenging industries from a digital selling perspective. In this case study, we want to give a glimpse of how we helped Dutch Energy Management startup jump into the UK market and generate a continuous flow of highly-qualified prospects using LinkedIn and email outreach.
4000 companies researched
1 in 4 leads connected on LinkedIn
4,9% conversion
rate
rate
Company Summary
Company Summary
Our Customer provides an Intelligent Energy Management System to help industrial SMEs reduce their energy cost. Сombining both hardware and software, they give an insight into current energy consumption and saving potential. The solution they offer analyzes data and creates a concrete plan for the long-term reduction of power usage.
At the moment Our Customer is the market leader in the Netherlands and is also growing actively in Germany, Belgium and Italy, and now they are expanding their presence in the UK and Scandinavia.
At the moment Our Customer is the market leader in the Netherlands and is also growing actively in Germany, Belgium and Italy, and now they are expanding their presence in the UK and Scandinavia.
Task for Prosply
Task for Prosply
Previously Our Customer had a successful experience with lead generation via cold calling. We were hired to test how a strategy combining emails and LinkedIn outreach would work for the UK market. Another part of the task was to explore the market and facilitate an expansion there.
The Challenge
The Challenge
We faced several challenges throughout this project. The main one was to carefully analyze all target prospects within appropriate Manufacturing and Engineering companies in order to spot how active they are on LinkedIn. A high percentage of these companies are still kind of old-fashioned in terms of the communication channels they use.
Another complication was to get in touch with the right person who is responsible for plant operations and knows all the numbers related to their current indicators and expenses. In many cases, key company executives referred us to these target personas which helped us start a conversation. Not every company has an active company profile as well as not every person leverages LinkedIn on a daily basis. That's why we accepted the challenge and proved that our multichannel strategy that includes LinkedIn and email could be also effective for connecting with decision-makers from industrial medium-sized enterprises.
Another complication was to get in touch with the right person who is responsible for plant operations and knows all the numbers related to their current indicators and expenses. In many cases, key company executives referred us to these target personas which helped us start a conversation. Not every company has an active company profile as well as not every person leverages LinkedIn on a daily basis. That's why we accepted the challenge and proved that our multichannel strategy that includes LinkedIn and email could be also effective for connecting with decision-makers from industrial medium-sized enterprises.
Scope of Work
Scope of Work
Our key objective was to identify the companies in the UK that have factories with the large-scale manufacturing process and with lots of equipment. The most important qualifying criterion was their power consumption, which had to be more than 1M kWh per year and the electricity bills needed to exceed €100K. Once the research of the company was done, we aimed to find the target person such as Plant Manager, Head of Technical Services, CEO or CFO and design an outreach strategy focused on the challenges they face with pretty high energy consumption.
Solution
Solution
After all the search criteria were discussed and approved by both parties, we took the Manufacturing industry and divided it into subcategories such as Mechanical or Industrial Engineering, Construction, Electrical/Electronic Manufacturing, Automotive, Industrial automation, and others.
The second step was to meticulously process each of the subcategories to make sure every company fits our ideal client profile. We started with the most global category - Industrial Engineering, by checking each company for the availability of plants/factories with huge machine production in the United Kingdom. The main source for such information was the company's website, LinkedIn profile's info and Google search.
Once we felt certain that the company meets our requirements (location, company size, production facility availability, etc), we began to search for people in this company who could be responsible for energy management. At this stage, we also faced a challenge. While exploring the decision-maker accounts, we found that many of them do not use LinkedIn on a daily basis. That is why we decided to look for 2-3 more representatives from the same company who seemed more active on LinkedIn.
Our next step was designing a well-thought-out, challenge-based outreach strategy to trigger a discussion with our potential clients. On LinkedIn, we personalized our introductory messages one by one using all available information about the company and person, leaving this "human" touch to start more meaningful conversations. For email campaigns, we compiled a highly-customized sequence of emails focused on discovering the pain points of our potential clients and sharing our experience and results within the manufacturing industry.
Our team also thought of a strong follow-up strategy that allowed us to constantly nurture our target audience with relevant content and thereby continue getting new responses.
Since the requirements for companies and prospects were pretty high, a thorough qualification process took place right before scheduling an appointment. Our specialists used a set of questions that we sent after getting a positive response to qualify the lead and ensure that the call scheduled will be productive.
The second step was to meticulously process each of the subcategories to make sure every company fits our ideal client profile. We started with the most global category - Industrial Engineering, by checking each company for the availability of plants/factories with huge machine production in the United Kingdom. The main source for such information was the company's website, LinkedIn profile's info and Google search.
Once we felt certain that the company meets our requirements (location, company size, production facility availability, etc), we began to search for people in this company who could be responsible for energy management. At this stage, we also faced a challenge. While exploring the decision-maker accounts, we found that many of them do not use LinkedIn on a daily basis. That is why we decided to look for 2-3 more representatives from the same company who seemed more active on LinkedIn.
Our next step was designing a well-thought-out, challenge-based outreach strategy to trigger a discussion with our potential clients. On LinkedIn, we personalized our introductory messages one by one using all available information about the company and person, leaving this "human" touch to start more meaningful conversations. For email campaigns, we compiled a highly-customized sequence of emails focused on discovering the pain points of our potential clients and sharing our experience and results within the manufacturing industry.
Our team also thought of a strong follow-up strategy that allowed us to constantly nurture our target audience with relevant content and thereby continue getting new responses.
Since the requirements for companies and prospects were pretty high, a thorough qualification process took place right before scheduling an appointment. Our specialists used a set of questions that we sent after getting a positive response to qualify the lead and ensure that the call scheduled will be productive.
Results
Results
We have thoroughly investigated about 4000 companies and identified more than 600 companies that perfectly fit our initial research criteria, contacted and nurtured through the sales funnel more than 1200 target leads.
Our multichannel approach helped us connect with every 4th prospect on LinkedIn (which is an excellent result for the manufacturing industry) and automate email outreach by scheduling 5 emails over 23 days for people who were not ready to add us to their network.
By getting different types of replies, we've got a valuable insight into the UK manufacturing market, the interest level of our target audience, the urgency of reducing energy consumption, the decision-making process and competition. Our SDR team smoothly entered a new market, initiated conversations with people responsible for implementing energy strategies and, most importantly, generated a continuous flow of prospects interested in jumping on a demo to explore Our Customer's solution.
It's worth mentioning that our key objective was to prove that LinkedIn and email can be effectively used even for fans of old-fashioned approaches like cold calling such as industrial companies.
Based on our result of 4,9% conversion rate for this project, we were impressed that industrial companies keep up with modern communication trends so well. It means that multichannel outreach does not only make sense, but is extremely beneficial if you want to skyrocket your response rate and significantly increase your conversion.
Our multichannel approach helped us connect with every 4th prospect on LinkedIn (which is an excellent result for the manufacturing industry) and automate email outreach by scheduling 5 emails over 23 days for people who were not ready to add us to their network.
By getting different types of replies, we've got a valuable insight into the UK manufacturing market, the interest level of our target audience, the urgency of reducing energy consumption, the decision-making process and competition. Our SDR team smoothly entered a new market, initiated conversations with people responsible for implementing energy strategies and, most importantly, generated a continuous flow of prospects interested in jumping on a demo to explore Our Customer's solution.
It's worth mentioning that our key objective was to prove that LinkedIn and email can be effectively used even for fans of old-fashioned approaches like cold calling such as industrial companies.
Based on our result of 4,9% conversion rate for this project, we were impressed that industrial companies keep up with modern communication trends so well. It means that multichannel outreach does not only make sense, but is extremely beneficial if you want to skyrocket your response rate and significantly increase your conversion.
Plans for the future
Plans for the future
Due to the quite successful results we achieved while working with the UK manufacturing market, we're not only planning to invest more time into our outreach activities in the UK, but also consider expanding into the entire Scandinavian region.
We have demonstrated to our customer the results of using LinkedIn and email campaigns together, A/B tested different sequences and created a new strategy that will help us meet key sales objectives.
We have demonstrated to our customer the results of using LinkedIn and email campaigns together, A/B tested different sequences and created a new strategy that will help us meet key sales objectives.
If you are in doubt where to start your search for high-quality prospects and what channel will work better for your business - feel free to contact us.
Let's go through all the lead generation challenges together to boost your sales!
Let's go through all the lead generation challenges together to boost your sales!
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