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Databricks sought to efficiently get the word out on Spark, an open-source unified analytics engine for large-scale data processing. Meetups and events were a slow and costly way to educate and stimulate adoption. The technical audience of data architects, developers, and big data analysts were often generically identified with titles like software engineer or analyst. Specific and actionable client use cases for the Databricks solution needed to be efficiently identified.
Increase in volume of opportunities
Decrease in cost per opportunity
After conducting an audit of the funnel, it was evident that most early adopters were students or people at the wrong types of firms with little authority to purchase. A more efficient way of boosting adoption and generating HIRO or high intent revenue opportunities was needed. A Databricks Academy was created with a freemium solution that supported a PLG strategy.
Increase in sales velocity
Increase in
win rates
While the academy courses were being developed, we conducted detailed persona identification and a targeting methodology through a tiered ABM approach. The first step entailed collaboration and buy-in with sales and the content development teams. We defined the initial pilot goals for 3 sets of BDRs and AEs before rolling it out to the rest of the sales team after their initial success. Tiered accounts were jointly selected in key industries with the most traction and content already developed.
Technical and business unit owner personas along with buying influencers, and account insights were identified to gain coverage and actionable intel within each target account. Additional content specific to issues being tackled by personas was developed into nurture tracks, and leveraged in digital, social and other channels.
BDR training on talking points and content in sales enablement tools ensured relevant outreach when engagement thresholds were met. The comprehensive ABM plan with deadlines, SLAs and KPIs was documented and agreed to by all stakeholders and published internally for full transparency.
Increase in
deal size
The freemium solution was designed to enable PLG insight into actionable data points that included company size, industry, student titles, log-in frequency, amount of data ingested, and use cases being worked on. From the 7 available use cases or problems being tackled, we prioritized resources on the 4 most common with the greatest opportunity to drive revenue. That knowledge led to specific AIDA ( awareness, interest, decision, action ) content that boosted relevance and accelerated sales cycles.
Multiple dashboards were developed to report on and refine campaign, content, funnel and BDR performance. Refinement of engagement thresholds aligned to BDR capacity ensured efficient follow up and an enthusiastic adoption of the lead management process upon roll out.
The Databricks Academy and freemium generated explosive growth during the first 9 months of the campaign. The database expanded from 20K to 190K, but more importantly, the opportunity target was exceeded 3 fold. The focus on incorporating actionable account insights into nurture tracks and very targeted digital efforts reduced cost per opportunity by 34%. Calibrating alerts on engagement thresholds boosted sales velocity by 12%. A laser focus on the problems being tackled at each account increased win rates by 63%. Emphasis on gaining account coverage of both technical users and business unit owners, and serving relevant content to each, brought more stakeholders to the demos and sales discussions which increased deal size an average of 28%.
This ABM and PLG campaign is still in use today now that Databricks is generating over $1.5 billion in annual revenue.
This project utilized all the services offered by LeadGenesys with the exception of Team Building.
Tools used included Salesforce, Hubspot, DemandBase, Outreach, Clearbit, Full Circle Insights, Google Adwords, Linkedin, Facebook, Google Analytics, SEMrush, Hootsuite and Tableau.
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