How I became more prosperous by eating
“our own dog food.”

This sounds like a title for a new diet, but rest assured, I will talk mainly about what I have learned as a marketer. I intend to inspire you. Earlier I spoke about the lack of creativity I sometimes see and how research helps me be more creative

We go back in time to the autumn of 2019. While making plans for 2020, I looked at my marketing goals and channels to use. In all honesty, I was mainly looking at online channels (social, website and email). I only looked at channels I was already using, but not at any others.

This is quite special since as marketing lead of Smart Profile, I often create content about how effectual outbound calling can be. When a colleague pointed this out to me, I realised that I really should consider it. After all, if you keep doing what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten. Ping!

Full of energy, I started to get things ready. After making various selections in our CRM system and our MarketBase, I soon saw that there were interesting parties for us. Who haven’t heard from us in a while. They may have seen one of our newsletters, seen something on our social channels or visited our website, but there has never been any actual contact.

It was not difficult to find a suitable colleague to call those parties, given the many outbound callers within Smart Profile. Within Smart Profile, we call these colleagues business development specialists. Together with one of our experienced project coordinators, I was able to draw up a script. Our approach was mainly to get back in touch and have a conversation. We wanted to avoid having a very commercial approach to the conversation, as we also do for many clients through SPIN selling.

Result

Everything was set up, and we started work in January 2020. It soon became apparent that our contact was appreciated, and this resulted in extra pipeline. When I now see the growth this has caused in early 2021, it is substantial: 30% additional pipeline!

Perhaps some readers will now think, great, but having that person call outbound for a whole year also costs a lot. So what has been the ROI? After one year of using outbound calls, each euro invested has resulted in 4 euros in extra turnover and 8 euros in additional pipeline. There is still part of the pipeline open, so the 4 euros could be even higher.

Besides, there are also the necessary benefits, which we cannot express in money, based on this campaign:

The cooperation between marketing and sales has further improved.
The leads that are now passed on are warmer or better qualified. On the other hand, the marketing team also has more feeling with the market than clicks on emails and website visits. This is because conversations are held from which we hear very clearly what the need is, and we can tailor our content even better to that need.
Improvement of existing products
The outbound call tactic has also helped us make one of our free-to-use products, the MarketViewer, even more user-friendly. We got feedback from calls that some people did not understand or could not find certain filters; by adjusting this, the MarketViewer is used more often.
More insight into internal processes and how you experience that as a customer
Furthermore, the added value of using the products and services that we as a company offer as marketers should not be underestimated. I have gained more insight into the processes that surround them and can therefore talk about them better. As a customer, I was also able to experience how certain communications take place, which enabled us to sharpen up internal processes.

In short, my tip: eat your own dogfood

This blog was written by Jurgen Verheijen, the Marketing Lead at Smart Profile.
Would you like to get in touch with him or make a connection? Check out his LinkedIn profile here.

Let’s meet again!

Smart Profile
Otto Reuchlinweg 1094
3072 MD Rotterdam
The Netherlands
Tel +31 (0)10 322 07 33

How I became more prosperous by eating “our own dog food.”

Result

In short, my tip: eat your own dogfood

Let’s meet again!

How I became more prosperous by eating
“our own dog food.”