Refining Mulitchannel Outreach to Target High-Value Prospects

Sales Development

ControlMap Case Study

Key Takeaways

  • Investing in an outbound strategy that focuses on in-depth research and data analysis will ensure the highest results.
  • Refining the ideal customer persona (ICP) is essential to the success of any outbound campaign.
  • Targeting the people surrounding key decision-makers is a great way to influence prospective companies.

About ControlMap

​​ControlMap is a compliance software company specializing in cybersecurity. It provides software to help manage audit readiness and compliance certification. Many companies are required to follow cybersecurity and privacy regulations. These can come from federal, state, or local authorities, and continue to grow in number and complexity. These regulations are important, as they can prevent costly breaches and hacks, and help safeguard customers’ data.

Such regulations, however, can be difficult to comply with, draining time and energy from other important tasks. Non-compliant companies face penalties and fines. ControlMap’s automated compliance software takes care of these difficulties, streamlining the compliance process.

Control Map was founded in Bellevue, Washington in 2018. In the last two years, the company has seen triple-digit growth and plenty of new clients and partners, successfully raising capital to reach its business goals.

Mark Wilcox
Mark Wilcox
Co-Founder
Industry
Computer Software
Website
www.controlmap.io/

The Story of ControlMap

The path that led to this fortuitous collaboration began inside of a leadership club, frequented by Vince Heaton, VP of sales at CIENCE, and Mark Wilcox, chief revenue officer at ControlMap. While collaborating together on another project, Heaton shared some insights about outbound lead generation.

With over twenty years of experience leading sales teams, Wilcox was already convinced that a salesperson should never spend their time prospecting. He instantly expressed how valuable a lead generation approach could be at getting access to high-value prospects.

 

Wilcox reached out to ControlMap’s CEO, Pallav Tandon, who was also interested in learning more about outbound. Thus, they conducted some research, interviewing several different companies. Of these, CIENCE’s data-driven approach and proven results stood out, which launched the successful partnership.

Challenges & Scope

In the three years since its incorporation, ControlMap had accomplished a great deal. The team was determined to maintain its impressive growth rate and transform the company from a small start-up into a mature company. However, in order to unlock ControlMap’s full potential, there were several pressing challenges to overcome. 

Challenges

The main challenge ControlMap faced was accessing the right prospects to start sales conversations. Contacting decision-makers working within specific departments or carrying certain responsibilities is notoriously difficult within the cybersecurity industry. 

Given that ControlMap was still a start-up, another challenge the company struggled with was not yet having sufficient bandwidth to do all of the prospecting and vetting. Without the additional support, it would be difficult to bring the right clients on onboard, resulting in slower growth.

Need

ControlMap wanted to take proactive measures to address these challenges. To ensure continued success, ControlMap needed to build brand awareness and increase pipeline development. To best achieve these goals, it needed help finding and reaching out to potential prospects. 

Opportunity

By partnering with CIENCE, ControlMap could shore up the gains it had made during the last couple of years and continue its growth trajectory. By connecting with more high-value prospects, ControlMap had a great opportunity to maintain its momentum and build upon its earlier successes. 

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Why CIENCE?

Once CIENCE had been brought onboard, the team quickly worked on creating a multichannel campaign strategy and ideal customer profile (ICP). CIENCE conducted in-depth research on ControlMap, analyzing its target market, value proposition, and what differentiated it from the competition.

CIENCE’s team hit upon a strategy of targeting smaller businesses that employed between ten to fifteen people. The idea was that these companies were big enough to be subject to numerous compliance requirements yet small enough to need support in these areas. 

Narrowing the ICP even further, CIENCE chose to focus on companies within highly regulated industries, such as healthcare, finance, and insurance, as these businesses were more likely to be subject to cybersecurity and privacy regulations.

Companies tied to compliance violations or data breaches were targeted as high priorities, as they would be receptive to custom messaging explaining how these negative outcomes could be avoided in the future. The C-suite and VP titles were also considered priority. 

CIENCE also drew up a playbook, outlining the sales cadences to be followed. This playbook was based on CIENCE’s orchestrated omnichannel solution, wherein companies would be targeted across multiple channels, such as email, phone calls, landing pages, and banner ads. These contacts were orchestrated in a precise sequence, timed to perfection, to give the greatest likelihood of converting prospects into clients.

Results

CIENCE’s campaign with ControlMap ran for six months, from June to December 2021. Throughout the time, the campaign underwent major revisions on three separate occasions. The CIENCE team stayed committed to optimizing its processes, constantly searching for better signals and more traction. 

During this time, the teams met biweekly over Zoom and communicated regularly via email and Slack. During these meetings, CIENCE explained how the campaign was going and presented ControlMap with real-time metrics and statistics. These catch-ups provided a great opportunity to adjust the campaign as needed. 

The campaign, for which email was the standout channel, resulted in converting a number of high-quality C-suite leads, which was exactly in line with the ICP that was targeted. CIENCE booked sales meetings with CEOs, CISOs (chief information security officers), and CPOs (chief product officers). 

CIENCE’s team worked hard to build a comprehensive lead generation program for ControlMap. They conducted in-depth research and data analysis, gave serious and careful thought to the marketing aspect of the strategy, and provided effective messaging. 

“The CIENCE team has done a great job of building our messaging,” said Mark Wilcox, chief revenue officer at ControlMap. “They've successfully reached out to our prospects and found great leads for us. We’re happy with the amount of research they've done. The CIENCE team is super organized, and the process has gone incredibly smoothly.”

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Partnership Success

The partnership achieved its primary goal of connecting ControlMap’s sales team with key decision-makers who fit its ICP. By letting CIENCE take care of outbound outreach, ControlMap’s internal team was better able to focus their efforts on converting the appointments booked with C-suite prospects. 

In addition, both teams gained valuable insights into the importance of targeting key decision-influencers, including compliance managers and security officers, who can be profitably prospected alongside the C-suite. 

Dallal Samaan, sales executive at CIENCE, explained: “When we are engaging with prospects today, we reach out not only to the key decision-maker and the budget holder, but also everyone that surrounds them and the buyer circle.”

Samaan continued: “People working at the C-suite or executive level may be difficult to reach and not very accessible. So we also think about who else would they listen to in their organization. Who else might influence them to take a meeting? And that’s who we start including in our targeted outreach.”

After a successful outbound campaign, ControlMap is now well placed to build on its impressive growth and win new clients. “We genuinely feel that the whole team is working on our project.” said Wilcox. “We have yet to find that level of dedication anywhere else.” 

Thus, the partnership became a prime example of the value of reaching out to a wide range of prospects. It’s also a great example of how CIENCE’s adaptable approach to outbound was able to help ControlMap refine its ICP and long-term campaign strategies. 

Going forward, ControlMap’s collaboration with CIENCE will have a lasting positive impact on the company, beyond the high-quality meetings booked during this campaign. The research and data component of this campaign will be a powerful resource, helping ControlMap to better understand its market as it continues to grow.