66 leads from Cold Outreach not in the IT business

My name is Dina, and I am a marketing specialist focused on product launches in international markets. I'm sharing the results of my work with the Simplyture team, with whom we have successfully launched lead generation campaigns in multiple markets from scratch over the past 4 months.

About the Company

Simplyture offers a groundbreaking solution for parking monetization: replacing barriers and parking staff with cameras that read license plates upon entry and enabling cashless payments through the app or website. This allows parking facilities to increase revenue by 40%, streamline fine collection, alleviate traffic congestion, and enhance the overall service for end-users. The solution is already in use in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and Finland. The company is actively expanding to new international markets.

About Marketing and Sales in the Company Before

Sales were conducted by Business Development Managers (BDMs), taking into account the peculiarities of local markets: searching for potential customer contacts, word of mouth, cold calls and meetings, and participation in tenders. The company had a website, commercial proposals in different languages, and video testimonials from clients.

What Has Been Done

Over the course of 3 months, working collaboratively with Sergey, the Chief Revenue Officer, and the sales team, we launched Email and LinkedIn campaigns targeting the most widespread segments: shopping centers, theme parks, hotels, and real estate agencies.

More than 5000 emails were sent out, with 9 offers sent to clients.

Interesting Facts and Challenges We Encountered During the Work

• The contact databases were small, with some segments in specific countries we were sending emails to as few as 50 prospects. The maximum number of contacts in one segment in one country was around 500. We scraped companies using Phantom Booster from Google Maps, then searched for contacts in Apollo or manually (with the assistance of two SDRs working with us).
• In some segments, it was challenging to find the email of the key decision-maker, and we resorted to sending emails to general addresses such as info@, essentially reaching reception in hotels or general inboxes in shopping centers. Nevertheless, the conversion rates were just as good.
• In all the countries we worked with, Outlook emails predominated, with a consistent ratio of 80% Outlook to 20% G-Suite and other providers. Sales team responded to leads within a week due to the absence of a system (which is currently being addressed).
• Certain industries were language-agnostic; for example, in the segment of hotels in Germany, we sell in English but send emails in German.
• We considered a prospect a lead if they expressed interest in discussing details over the phone or scheduling a meeting.

Conversions We Achieved in Each Country

Conclusion We Reached

You may notice that the conversion rates, for example in Denmark and Sweden, are significantly higher than in the United Kingdom and Norway. After receiving feedback from BDRs, we correlated this with the "maturity" of the market. For instance, in Norway, similar solutions were introduced 5 years before Simplyture appeared there, while in Germany, people still pay for parking with coins in parking meters.

About LinkedIn Outreach:

Since our segments were small, we decided to simultaneously connect with all key decision-makers on LinkedIn. Using LinkedIn Helper, we sent 25 invites per day in each country. For those who didn't respond to our emails, we sent a subtle message about who we are and how we could help, expanding our network and assisting BDRs in developing their networks. Prospects might respond to our offer even a year later when their contract with a competitor expires.

"We haven't delved deeply into LinkedIn yet, but it seems that the results vary significantly by country. In Finland, we have 2-3 leads. We plan to continue LinkedIn outreach in the background (because it's cost-effective), not expecting immediate results. Our strategy is based on the assumption that all added contacts will see our company content in their feed," - commented Sergey.

Hope this was helpful. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out on Telegram @dinamft and connect on LinkedIn.