Use Case: La Growth Machine Boosts MeltingSpot’s Results

Deciphering the multi-channel campaign created by LaGrowthMachine for MeltingSpot

Before we go any further, let’s give some context to our case study. MeltingSpot is a platform for creating and managing an online brand community.

During our audit, they told us they were focusing their prospecting efforts on Heads of Customer Success working in SaaS scale-ups with over 50 employees.

This prospecting was mainly carried out by email, with a few occasional actions on LinkedIn. In short, these campaigns were more omnichannel than multichannel and were not delivering the expected results.

Based on this audit, we designed a new outreach campaign from scratch for MeltingSpot.

The importance of segmentation

We can’t stress this enough: sales targeting is the sinews of war. You can set up a relevant sequence and impactful copywriting, but if the segmentation isn’t done with a fine-tooth comb, you’re wasting your time.

1. Limit the number of contacts per list

One of the pitfalls of automation is the desire to build very large contact lists in order to reach as many people as possible. We’re lucky enough to have access to a lot of user data, and we’ve noticed that as soon as a list exceeds 100 contacts, the number of replies drops drastically.

It’s actually quite logical when you think about it, because the broader your segmentation, the more generic your copywriting will be, and the less your message will resonate with your target.

Precise segmentation will also enable you to accurately measure campaign results and assess whether the issues highlighted in your copywriting are relevant to your target.

For example, for the MeltingSpot campaign, we limited ourselves to 92 contacts!

2. Try to iterate

In the case of MeltingSpot, we note that their strategy is based on a company typology and a persona:

• SaaS scale-ups with more than 50 employees. These accounts are considered mature enough to consider creating a community.
• The VP or Head of Customer Success to help them reduce support time for low-touch users.

We wanted to challenge this approach by focusing on:

• B2B SaaS companies with 10 to 50 employees, a Customer Success department, and a large number of end-users.
• Decision-makers such as CEOs, CROs, and COOs, in order to avoid any friction in making appointments.

So we’ve established a very different hypothesis from MeltingSpot’s, which may or may not be validated. And that’s the key to segmentation: you have to iterate. Hence the importance of using an automation tool like LaGrowthMachine to test different hypotheses.

Keep in mind that each campaign you run will provide you with a maximum number of insights that will enable you to improve your strategy, and consequently your results.

Multiply contact points with a multi-channel sequence

Like segmentation, the choice of sequence must be adapted to your target’s habits, and particularly the channels they use.

1. Prioritize a multi-channel sequence

When working on your outreach strategy, one of the first questions you ask yourself is whether to opt for an omnichannel strategy or a multi-channel

From a general point of view, it is of course advisable to favor a multi-channel sequence. By multiplying the points of contact, you multiply the chances of a response, and therefore of transformation. That’s the whole point of an automation tool like LaGrowthMachine.

However, it’s sometimes the case that the target group isn’t active on LinkedIn– retailers, for example – or that it’s difficult to enrich profile data with an e-mail address. In such cases, we may prefer to use an omnichannel sequence, either via email or LinkedIn.

Since our use case targets the C-levels of small start-ups, i.e. hyper-digitized profiles, the multi-channel sequence is perfectly suited.

2. Defining the sequence of contact points

Once you’ve decided whether you want an omnichannel or multichannel sequence, you then need to define the channel through which to launch your campaign, and then define the sequence of contact points.

For MeltingSpot, we opted for an initial approach via LinkedIn, followed by email.

LinkedIn’s chat functionality makes exchanges more informal. It’s easier to ask an open question and have a quick chat. It’s clearly the ideal channel for creating links and encouraging exchange.

The sequence begins with a profile visit that mimics human behavior, followed directly by a connection request with an invitation note.

If the connection request is accepted, the sequence continues with the sending of two messages at defined intervals. The timing must be adapted to the campaign’s objectives and the target’s availability. On average, we recommend leaving 4-5 days between each point of contact.

If you don’t get a reply after these two messages, we advise you to try a final approach, either by e-mail or Voice Message.

If the contact doesn’t accept your request for a LinkedIn connection, then the sequence of e-mails takes over. In any case, stick to three e-mails. More would be pointless and could have a negative impact on brand image.

Educate your target with educational copywriting

Finally, once you’ve created your sequence, all that’s left to do is write your messages. Here again, it’s vital that your sales copywriting is perfectly adapted to your target audience’s pain points. You need to help your audience understand your value proposition by providing answers to everyday problems.

In the case of MeltingSpot, we star with the observation that the concept of community is not yet popular in France. That’s why we focused on educational copywriting, explaining how the development of a community could make everyday life easier.

In all cases, we advise you to:

• Be very transparent in your copywriting,
• Allude to your previous points of contact when moving from one channel to another to accentuate the feeling of human contact.

These are the essential points to consider in order to maximize your campaign’s performance. Now let’s take a look at how to measure success!

Results of LaGrowthMachine’s multi-channel campaign

It would be an unfortunate shortcut to associate the success of a campaign with the simple conversion rate. And even if it represents the most significant value in terms of business, it’s essential to closely analyze the activation rate, the acceptance rate, and the reply rate.

Using LaGrowthMachine, you’ll find all these statistics directly in the tool. You can even access statistics by channel, so you can see at a glance which one is working best, and adjust your strategy in the blink of an eye.

100% of audience activated, i.e. 100% of leads pitched

The first important stat for evaluating your campaign is the activation rate, i.e. the number of people you’ll pitch to. Hence the importance of starting the sequence with a connection request on LinkedIn, and especially of adding a note to the invitation to make sure you introduce your value proposition.

Of course, if you choose to launch a campaign via LaGrowthMachine, you benefit from the data enrichment of your contact database. Except that sometimes it’s not possible to retrieve the email address for every line.

This way, even if the enrichment doesn’t recover 100% of the leads’ email addresses, or the contact doesn’t accept your connection request, you still have the opportunity to pitch and leave a mark in people’s minds thanks to the invitation note.

The activation rate must therefore be the cornerstone of your outreach strategy.

28% of the audience accepted the connection request

The second important statistic to track is the acceptance rate, i.e. the number of contacts who accept the LinkedIn connection request.

When the request is not accompanied by an invitation note, a good acceptance rate is 30%.

In our use case, we decided to send a very direct invitation note, which starts the prospecting process, and we succeeded in achieving a 28% acceptance rate.

We work on the principle that it’s better to have a slightly lower acceptance rate, but a highly qualified one, thanks to a very clear invitation note. It saves time for both you and your contact.

13% reply rate in the middle of summer for 9% of opportunity

The third statistic to monitor is the reply rate, i.e. the number of replies received in relation to the number of messages sent.

A good reply rate on LinkedIn is between 20% and 30%, compared with 10% to 15% by email.

The campaign created for MeltingSpot achieved an average reply rate of 13%, with:

• Only 6% reply rate on LinkedIn.
• 10% reply rate by email.

These results are therefore somewhat lower than the average. When we go into the details of email responses, we see that half of all replies are OOOs. One possible explanation for this could be that the period chosen for this campaign (summer) is not conducive. It’s likely that the majority of contacts are on vacation, and therefore less active on LinkedIn.

Nevertheless, half of the replies received were positive. We, therefore, counted 2 booked calls, 2 discussions in progress, and 1 lead to be recontacted for a future need. We can therefore deduce that the segmentation was good and that there is real potential in this target group.

To make sure you don’t miss out on the audience’s potential just because of bad timing, it will be worthwhile reviving these contacts at the beginning of the school year via a CEO reactivation strategy.

Transformation rate

The last and most crucial statistic in outreach is the conversion rate, i.e. the number of leads converted in relation to the number of people targeted. This is also the rate that will enable us to calculate the profitability of a campaign.

At the time of writing, we have not yet collected this data, as negotiations are still underway. We’ll be sure to complete the article as soon as possible.

Launch your own multi-channel campaign with LaGrowthMachine

As you’d have guessed, multi-channel marketing has become essential for successful outreach. With LaGrowthMachine, you can automate your prospecting campaigns via email, LinkedIn, and even Twitter. You multiply your points of contact while retaining the human touch that’s essential for conversion!