Client: A software company with revenues of $50M selling SaaS-based software licenses to Fortune 500 consumer brand companies.
Client Challenge: The Sales Development Reps and Marketing Teams were having trouble booking demos with target decision-makers in a noisy, crowded market. Their outbound messaging was not resonating in the market, and demo bookings were down by 25% for the last two quarters. Both teams were under pressure to book more meetings but did not have the budget to hire more Sales Development Reps or increase the marketing budget.
AutoNow’s Role: The AutoSales™ Module within the AutoNow™ Workforce Solutions Platform
- Customized Outreach: Sending highly customized, one-to-one email messages to cold prospects to generate action in the form of a commitment to a demo meeting.
- Incentive Deployment: Sourcing and deployment of $50 digital gift cards to incentivize target prospects to act and book a demo meeting.
- Booking Demos: Setting up demo meetings with target decision-makers at Fortune 500 consumer brands for the client’s senior sales team.
- Saving Costs: Reducing the cost-per-meeting booked for the client’s sales team.
AutoSales™ Services:
- Customized Outreach
- Incentive Deployment
Budget Month One:
- AutoSales™ Software Services: $25/month
- Gift Card incentives: $600
The Challenge
Our client, a leading SaaS software company with revenues of $50M, specializes in selling software licenses to Fortune 500 consumer brands. Their objective was to deepen market penetration and enhance client engagement by increasing the number of booked sales demos with decision-makers. Traditionally, they employed methods such as media buys and SEO through their marketing team, alongside email blasts and messaging from their Sales Development Reps (SDRs) to cold target lists. In the last two quarters, the marketing and SDR team’s booked demo meetings’ numbers were down by 25%. They were having trouble engaging decision-makers in their target markets and getting them to commit to a demo. Both teams were under increasing pressure to improve results while sticking to their allocated budget for the year.
Solution: AutoSales™’s Software Services – Customized Outreach and Incentive Deployment
The client wanted to run a limited trial with a few of AutoSales™’s Services to see if they were effective at increasing the number of demos booked with target prospects. They signed up for a one-seat license to AutoSales™’s Customized Outreach and Incentive Deployment Services for a one-year term for $300. Setting up their account only took a few minutes using AutoSales™’s dashboard. Their objective was to do a two-month trial. For the first month of the trial, they purchased $600 in digital Visa gift cards to use as incentives for prospects to commit to a demo.
Initiating the Campaign
To start the trial, the client logged onto AutoSales™ and selected the option to send a group “Call to Action” (CTA) message to target prospects. Using the platform’s advanced upload and data configuration features, the client uploaded their list of potential prospects to target. The list came from the client’s internal resources.
Next, the client leveraged AutoSales™’s AI-powered Customized Outreach Template to create a customized email message to deploy to their list. The template included a compelling subject header and tailored message content enriched with custom tags such as first names, favorite sports teams, local weather, and relevant news taken from the websites of the cold contacts. The client could make changes to the message body of the template, the custom tags, and the subject header, and save the template for future campaigns. As part of the message, the client included an offer for a $50 Visa gift card if the prospect booked a demo meeting (“coffee and muffins on us for this meeting”).
Before fully launching the campaign, the client sent themselves a test message to verify the content accuracy and overall appeal of the message. Satisfied with the test, they sent out customized messages to their list of cold contacts. The cold outreach generated a variety of responses including:
- Out of Office
- Requests not to be contacted again
- Referrals to other people in the organization best suited to contact
- Questions about the software
- Requests for a demo
AutoSales™ parsed these messages and forwarded them to the client for action. Key to these responses were the target prospects who committed to a demo meeting.
Rewarding Target Prospects for Booking a Demo
The list of target prospects who committed to a meeting was uploaded to Engage®. The client selected the Rewards message template that thanks the prospect for booking a meeting and includes a gift card along with customized tags for personalization. The client could select the denomination of the digital Visa card to be included in each message.
By leveraging AutoNow’s AutoSales™ Platform, the client was able to overcome their lead generation challenges, reduce costs per meeting, and book more demos with qualified prospects. The success of the trial encouraged further investment in AutoSales™ Services, leading to significant cost savings and improved sales performance.
ROI Generated from AutoSales™’s Customized Outreach and Incentive Deployment Services
Cost Analysis: The client’s internal SDRs are paid $4,000 per month to build lists of cold contacts and secure meetings. The SDRs book an average of 8 meetings per month for an average cost of $500 per meeting. For the two-month trial, the AutoSales™ Software Services booked an average of 12 meetings per month. The client recognized that AutoSales™ Services were able to significantly reduce the cost of $500 per meeting to $383 per meeting, reflecting a 23% decrease in costs.
Monthly Budget for the Trial:
- Client SDR Expenses: $4,000 for list building and other preparatory tasks to support Engage®.
- AutoSales™ Monthly Licensing Fee: $30.
- Gift Cards per Month: $600.
- Total Monthly Budget: $4630.
Results
While the monthly budget went up slightly from $4000 to $4630, AutoSales™ Services increased the number of demos booked from 8 per month to 12 per month. This significantly reduced the cost of a booked demo from $500 per meeting to $383 per meeting, reflecting a 23% decrease in costs.
Trial Success and Future Considerations
Positive Outcomes: The trial’s success and the resultant cost savings encouraged the client to expand the program. To fund this, they reduced their SDR team by one and used the $4K monthly budget to expand the program.
Program Expansion:
- Additional AutoSales™ License Seats: The client used the $4K budget to purchase three more AutoSales™ license seats: for another SDR, one of their salespeople, and a marketing person.
- Increased Gift Card Budget: They used the remaining $2800 budget saved to fund more gift cards.
Expanded Use of AutoSales™ Services: The client began to explore using AutoSales™ Services in multiple ways, including:
- Using smaller denominations of gift cards to get meetings booked from alternate marketing channels including social media, web, blog, and their newsletters.
- Enhancing engagement across different trial target segments.
- Using lower gift card denominations in CTAs for broader reach.
- Using higher gift card denominations to reward their most valuable customers.
Cautious Expansion Strategy: While pleased with AutoSales™’s performance, the client opted to continue testing AutoSales™ in limited deployments before considering a broader implementation. They expanded the trial program to test how AutoSales™’s Service Suite would perform in a full-cycle campaign, including finding cold prospects, building lists, deploying personalized messaging, and using gift card incentives to book meetings for their senior sales team.
Licensed AutoSales™ Services:
- Prospect List Building
- Customized Outreach
- Incentive Deployment
- Appointment Booking
They licensed these Services on a month-to-month basis to continue assessing its capabilities and determine if it can further reduce costs compared to traditional SDRs.
By leveraging AutoSales™, the client was able to significantly reduce their cost per meeting, increase the number of booked meetings, and enhance their overall lead generation strategy. The success of the initial trial encouraged further investment in AutoSales™ Services, leading to continued cost savings and improved sales performance.