How We Helped a Newly-Founded Swiss Branding Agency Generate a 3.5:1 ROI and $13,000 in Their First 3 Months With Us

1. Choosing an Outreach Method & a Market

We decided that since Rosenmond was looking for an outreach approach focused on building relationships, we had to orient ourselves towards a social channel, rather than cold email. Cold email tends to be a lot more transactional, and it becomes a lot more difficult to build relationships in a non-social setting.

As they wanted to approach female-led or female-centric eCommerce businesses, we chose LinkedIn as the most effective channel, and recommended for maximum effectiveness that we start by focusing on their local market in Switzerland.

Since Rosenmond is a relatively new agency, this would enable them to build a foundation that could then be leveraged for future growth and utilize the added trust that they would have with local clients to sign new deals quickly.

2. Setting up Different Campaigns based On Language

Since the Swiss market is divided into German-speaking, French-speaking and Italian-speaking peoples and the founders of Rosenmond only speak German and English we decided to create two campaigns: an English-speaking campaign that would go out to French & Italian speakers, and a German campaign that would go out to German-speaking people.

Being able to speak with part of the market in their native language is a huge differentiator, as most messages on LinkedIn are sent in English.

3. Building eCommerce Contact Lists

As Rosenmond targeted eCommerce female-centric businesses, a big challenge was building the eCommerce contact lists. Sales Navigator is notoriously bad when it comes to locating eCommerce businesses, so we couldn’t rely on it.

Instead we had to rely on eCommerce-specific databases which we purchased to identify the right companies, and then find the contact details of the needed people on LinkedIn using Sales Navigator. Our team also cross-checked with Kristina’s profile to ensure they were 2nd degree connections to maximise acceptance rate.

As a result we produced 99% quality leads for Rosenmond – which far exceeds the less than 20% which would normally be achieved just by using Sales Navigator.

4. Creating Outreach Sequences with a Soft Connection Approach

Since one of the key goals of the project was connecting in a soft, non-aggressive, non-pitchy way, we had to get creative. As a result, we ended up building a sequence that followed the guidelines below:

• We would initiate the connection based on the larger social mission that Rosenmond had, which was helping female-centric and female-led businesses. Being able to connect around a shared passion, rather than around a business opportunity, would frame the rest of the conversation as non-salesy.
• We would generate authority & credibility for Kristina early by leveraging the name of a well-known organization for female entrepreneurs in Switzerland of which Kristina is a part: the Female Founders Initiative. Doing so would enable others to see how serious Kristina is about Rosenmond’s mission.
• Instead of trying to find problems or pitching directly, we would send messages that quickly introduced what type of company Kristina ran, and then shifted the focus back on them by asking about the projects and initiatives they were working on at that time.
• We also chose to go for just 3 messages as part of the outreach, which would be enough to make sure most people see them, and not more so as not to create negative feelings or feel pushy.

5. Starting Outreach & Optimizing

Using the target audience and language-specific campaigns, we began outreach. We quickly observed that generally female-founders were a lot more responsive and also that the Swiss market was more responsive than outside of Switzerland, exactly as we had predicted.

This enabled us to narrow down our focus on the subsegments of the market that obtained the best results and further personalize the sequence for their needs.

6. Pipeline Management with our Ready-Made CRM

To be able to keep track of the data and assess effectiveness and see how we can improve, we provided Rosenmond with a ready-made CRM which enabled them to 1-click import prospects from LinkedIn. This was extremely useful in keeping track of their pipeline, and being able to follow-up with clients at fixed times in the future.

It also kept the team accountable by always having a next action for each prospect, which was key to maximizing the number of high quality meetings booked.

7. Social Selling & Sales Process Training

The final challenge which was a bit unexpected came because there seemed to be problems with the sales process that Rosenmond had adopted – conversions weren’t high enough and sometimes time was wasted on prospects who lacked budget. So by the middle of month 2, our team had to step in and advise regarding a few key changes to improve things:

• We encouraged Rosenmond to stop putting all the pressure on sales calls, and instead use email automations before the calls to deliver social proof, case studies and evidence about their success, so they would start the calls with massive credibility.
• We restructured the sales process to be more goal-directed, since initially it was a very soft conversation with the prospect, which often failed to uncover needs successfully and only appealed to those who were already aware of their issues. By becoming more goal-directed and asking problem-questions, it became possible to uncover more needs and therefore frame their work in the context of fulfilling those needs, which greatly improved conversion rates.
• We recommended a different approach in handling conversations on LinkedIn that, while building the relationship, would also help qualify the prospect, so as to reduce the chances of booking calls with a prospect who lacked budget.