Enable was established in 2000 to build custom software to meet specific business needs that off-the-shelf software cannot address. Their work with companies like Procter & Gamble, Mitsubishi Electric, DHL and the BBC has been varied and largely bespoke in nature.
A couple of years ago, their work with a buying group and a building materials supplier unveiled a gap in the enterprise software market for those companies where rebate claims make up a significant proportion of their revenue.
As a result, the DealTrack Rebate Management System was born.
DealTrack is aimed at companies that have annual rebate claims in excess of £12.5m. By preventing these companies from missing claims, DealTrack has been proven to add six figure sums to their net profit.
Intellegentia has been heavily involved in both the sales and marketing of DealTrack for over a year. Here’s what we've done to drive significant revenue for this new software package:
Initially, there was no other solution on the market quite like DealTrack, so there was no identifiable demand for a “rebate management system”.
Enable didn’t have any dedicated marketing resource. Initial work via outsourced telemarketing had some success, but Enable knew that as soon as they went to market with a package solution it was likely that there would be competition chomping at their heels.
To gain and retain market share, they needed to develop the product, generate demand and win market share in as short a time frame as possible.
Added to that, whilst Enable had a great track record with development projects, selling package software was to be an entirely new market for them.
Like many other development companies, their sales approach was to obtain a contract for a proof of concept before delivering a fully costed quotation for a software build. They had no experience of selling packaged software.
Enable engaged Intellegentia because we understood their business, and had both the sales and marketing experience that they needed to meet their ambitious growth targets: we had previously sold both enterprise software and bespoke software development projects.
Of course, before we could impact sales, we needed to generate demand. We worked through some options and agreed that an inbound approach would serve them well for the long term, but they needed some quick wins too.
We focused initially on educational content – using an inbound approach in parallel with webinars aimed at identified targets to raise awareness.
Within 9 months, we reported great results for Enable, including:
Example Inbound Campaign
There were a couple of pillars to our inbound marketing campaigns. The main focus was (unsurprisingly!) around the need for, and benefits of, a rebate management system.
But our market research uncovered other important subjects.
One of these was some important changes to international financial reporting standards (IFRS) that will impact companies throughout the world who deal with rebates. This legislation doesn't come into effect until 2018, but our timing last year was perfect because those companies that are affected will need to plan ahead. We successfully used this campaign to drive demand globally.
Over £1m business gained in the first year can be attributed directly to our inbound marketing campaigns.
Social Impact
We promoted the IFRS content initially using LinkedIn only - specifically to demonstrate to Enable the impact that this channel can have on lead generation. This campaign alone drove a 10x increase in monthly visits from social.
Sustained growth through inbound marketing
We leveraged our knowledge and experience to create compelling conversion content and honed the website SEO. Website visits have increased from the initial average of 250 per month to over 4500 per month - an increase of 1700%!
Blogs and other content that we created several months ago continue to generate good levels of organic views – a testament to the longevity and the power of inbound marketing!
Example for a single blog:
In summary, our Inbound approach delivered:
“Intellegentia have guided us through the process of creating and running a demand generation strategy, focusing on content-driven inbound marketing but also covering a multitude of other topics in both the sales and marketing functions. We wouldn’t have got off the starting blocks without them and they have proved to be a valuable partner.
If you are considering how to move from the small business ‘referral’ mentality to casting the net much wider and investing in serious growth, I would have no hesitation in recommending Intellegentia and their services.” Andrew Butt, Co-founder and Managing Director, Enable.
With a strong pipeline in place, Enable’s next challenge was to increase the amount of business being closed, so we worked with them to overhaul their sales processes.
We had first hand experience of selling both software development and packaged software globally, and this put us in a prime position to articulate the sales approach that Enable needed to adopt in order to sell DealTrack.
Our sales enablement consultancy included the following elements:
Restructuring Deal Stages to enforce Sales Process
They had modelled their original process in HubSpot CRM, so our first port of call was to restructure the deal stages. We introduced an early stage review of a prospect's ROI which forced the sales team to gather and record key information before engaging expensive pre-sales resources in demos and presentations.
We also aligned the deal stages to their monthly reporting requirements so the exec team have an accurate forecast of expected revenue and the ability to track sales activity.
Simplifying initial qualification, lead allocation and follow-up
Because our marketing strategy uses both inbound to attract new opportunities into the funnel (the net), and account based marketing to target particular companies (the spear), data accuracy and lead management is vital. Any new contacts that are associated with target companies are treated differently to those who are associated with competitors or completely unknown companies.
We introduced alerts and processes to ensure that where possible new contacts are automatically classified, and any exceptions are dealt with swiftly.
We also automated several processes around lead allocation and lead nurturing to deprive competitors from getting hold of information, keep the smaller prospects at bay and create personalised nurturing emails for those in the target market.
Creation of a sales 'playbook'
Another key sales enablement task was to shadow the sales team as they progressed deals so that we could provide guidance on qualification, negotiation and closing. This was vital for a couple of reasons:
An interesting side task was to help Enable change their contracts and associated Ts & Cs away from an bespoke software format to a set of terms more applicable to the supply of a standard software solution.
HubSpot SalesPro implementation
We implemented HubSpot Sales and SalesPro to provide sales with the right tools for their job and to give management complete visibility of all sales activity and deal progression. This, together with the 'playbook', has provided the perfect platform for us to treble the sales team by adding business development reps (BDRs).
Sales Training
We worked with the Enable Exec team to recruit, train and manage BDRs. The training combines the 'playbook' with individual coaching and formal training. HubSpot Sales and Inbound Marketing courses were a great kick-start to their induction. Being on board with Inbound Marketing really helped the sales team understand, and contribute effectively, to marketing plans.
“The Hubspot sales training and Inbound Sales approach has helped me understand that sales doesn't have to be about arm wrestling someone into a sale, it's about helping them through the buyers journeys. When you combine the training and the software, I have a great toolbox to use moving forward with my sales target." Fraser Weetman, BDR, Enable.
The Results
The result of our sales enablement work with Enable is threefold
“We've now won multiple contracts and, in total, over £1m of new business through inbound leads as a result of the work Intellegentia have done for us on: strategy, content authoring, SEO, and using HubSpot to convert the incoming leads.
We've also benefited greatly from Intellegentia's sales management expertise.
We set some very ambitious sales targets for 2017 (36% top line growth) and we have hit our H1 targets with just over a week to spare!
I am very happy with Intellegentia. We had to invest for a few months to build up a pipeline, but that investment has now paid off and we're starting to get a good return. I am excited about what we can achieve by continuing to work closely with Intellegentia over the next few months and beyond.”
Andrew Butt, Co-founder and Managing Director, Enable.
The key to our success has been aligning our services (inbound marketing, account based marketing, content, sales enablement, sales management etc) to Enable's business objectives. We are part of their 3 year business growth plan, and are helping them shape their business to meet those goals.