The most common reasons for companies successfully increasing their sales twice or thrice over are likely to be either a launch of a top-notch, brilliantly-innovative product, , or an unbeatable offer that can’t be matched by competitors.
At the same time, however, impressive sales growth can actually be caused by a much simpler, but extremely efficient catalyst - adding many qualified leads to the top of the sales funnel and being aware of competitor insights. So, in this case study you’ll discover how some of our clients overcame their Q3 difficulties and increased sales during the Q4 of 2017, all using proven techniques in combination with the verified data that the Global Database platform provides.
We are not allowed to disclose the clients’ names due to the NDA restrictions in place, but we can still provide the numbers in order to better illustrate the case.
So let’s get to the case study itself...
“By purchasing access to the Global Database Middle East database, our company ensured its access to extremely accurate company intelligence and high quality leads. The last financial year was closed successfully due to a good sales increase in Q4.” - this is one of the reviews our clients provided us with at the beginning of 2018.
The customers
We’ll talk about an EU-based company and a US-based company, one of them from the marketing and another from the leisure and entertainment sector. They had several things in common as of July 2017:
- 5 to 10 years old
- 3 to 5 offices in US, EU and Asia
- around 3000 employees worldwide
- around 340 000 USD annual turnover
The challenge
The average income these clients experienced as of summer 2017 was near 38 000 USD. The goal was to increase income by 30%. Both of them tried to apply different boosting strategies; from hiring new sales professionals and developing powerful scripts to rethinking the overall brand image and major product improvements.
Indeed, our clients were looking to boost their sales as this is the recipe for success in achieving the goal they had. With a strong data-driven mentality they were seeking something that would complement all of their efforts.
They understood that quality data could be the solution, but how much money they could win from investing in a B2B database, in addition to all of their previous investments?
The Solution
Insightful competitor research
As a first step, the US and EU companies we described earlier needed to reach the competitors in their fields and keep up with them in their competitive markets. Since they hadn’t completed substantial competitor research before, Global Database was used to get insights on their rivals’ financial state, key executives and their position in the market. They applied filters such as:
Company Information
Executive Search
and Financials
What was discovered here after this data analysis? The difference between the companies’ positions on the market and that of their competitors was in reality quite possible to overcome. This task happened to be easier than it seemed because of the strong PR campaigns of the competing businesses that created an image of a powerful and prospering organisation, that aren’t afraid of anything and have no weaknesses whatsoever.
Specific actions were taken, like using the competitors’ weak points to improve the companies’ own product and brand image, and mergers and acquisitions of some of the weaker companies (3 deals during Q4 only) alongside headhunting of the rivals’ top specialists (10 executives hired from August to October).
Constantly updated database and manually validated contacts
The second discovery came later and was quite unpleasant - more than 15% of information a database contains is becoming stale each day. The EU company faced this problem in its most acute stage. Its database of North and South countries, created just four months earlier, was absolutely irrelevant - just 1,489 valid contacts out of 23,748. Total failure.
This is the exact type of issue that Global Database was created to solve.
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New data from many different sources, such as Chambers of Commerce, stock exchanges, public filings, Companies House and others, is collected and added into its datasets every day.
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Every email address is validated monthly by our research team. And yes, they do it mostly manually, contact by contact.
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Real-time information replenishment and updates due to our in-house web crawling technology.
Thus the companies could be sure that any moment they intend to start a sales campaign via email or phone, they will have an 85-95% email deliverability rate and will reach the decision makers via either means of communication.
The sales teams reviews after the implementation of the database in their everyday routine were very positive. Now when calling a person they were sure he/she really had authority to make a purchasing decision, and they were not wasting their time in vain trying to convince the individual of their product or service’s capabilities. When dialling a number or sending an email, a sales executive no longer had the frustration of hearing or reading something like “This number doesn’t exist / This email is no longer valid”. These facts motivated the sales team’s work with double force and resulted in an a significant sales increase during Q4.
Personalised offers
Neither the EU nor US company had satisfactory results from their previous sales campaigns, though they invested huge amounts of money in email marketing tools, professional copywriting for the text, sales call scripts and, in the end, training for the newcomers in the sales team. The information that the sales departments received about the clients was incomplete. They therefore had to act blindly when trying to offer a product or service to their potential customers.
The overall information on each company and its executives from our database gave them a better understanding of each customer’s needs, weaknesses and spending power, providing a possibility to personalise the offer in terms of price and conditions, and a chance to sell using exactly the words the prospects needed to hear.
What’s interesting is, at first, the main reason for buying a dataset from Global Database was to fuel the sales pipeline with verified leads as sales professionals were losing too much time filtering relevant contacts from irrelevant ones. After 2 weeks of use they discovered it could provide valuable insights on their potential customers’ and competitors’ financial state, as well as help closing strategic partnerships and giving their businesses a real boost.
The senior executives of the departments using the data procured from us, as well as the top overall management of their companies, recognized 3 main advantages of using Global Database.
1. Validated leads and up-to-date information. No more wasted time and money on manual research in order to fuel the sales pipeline and verify company details. They just integrated the datasets from Global Database with their Salesforce account and forgot about it, shifting their attention to their more pressing business needs.
2. All the countries and industries covered.
Plans for expansion on the foreign markets, especially with a different mentality and business culture, suddenly became more than real.
3. Competitor assessment. The overall information on each company’s financial state in detail, as well as on its key executives and office locations, made it possible to perform a quick competitor research and use their pain points in the companies favour.
The Results
Better time management
Thanks to the constant updates and verification checks completed on their database, the US company was able to gain better time management and boost productivity as a result.
Only 5% of the sales executives’ time is now spent on verifying contacts, in contrast to 40% only three months earlier. Their working hours are now spent on their direct responsibility - selling.
Obviously, no trustworthy company intelligence provider would claim to have 100% accuracy, but the company can rest assured, that with Global Database’s 93% accuracy they have some of the highest quality data in the industry at their fingertips.
Value for money, a better return on investment
By purchasing their company intelligence, the companies were able to save money without having to compromise on quality. The databases that they now have access to will be continually updated and checked for errors, meaning that they don’t have to worry about sourcing any more information or manually validating each entry themselves. Q4 passed calmly and saw them enjoy greater success.
Increase in sales
The companies reported a sales increase of 31.8% and 32.5% respectively during Q4, which in turn led to an impressive 28% and 29.1% boost in sales for the whole of 2017.
By purchasing access to the company database for their specific industries in the EU and US, the companies gained access to some of the most accurate company intelligence on the market. As a result, they:
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Were able to add high quality leads to the top of their sales funnel, all of whom they managed to contact directly and avoid wasting time and effort attempting to get past gatekeepers.
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Had given their marketing department the best possible chance of scoring new contracts and giving their overall revenue a boost.
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Got valuable insights on their customers' financial states, as well as their purchasing power and pain points, which were used in the next product / offer updates.
