Who is Shortways
Shortways helps companies to accelerate and increase user adoption of cloud solutions (ERP, CRM, HRMS, …) with an in-app learning solution. Compatible with any software (ERP, CRM, etc.), Shortways works with large, international businesses like Total, Sodexo, LafargeHolcim and Altedia Lee Hecht Harrison to help them increase ROI on IT investments, reduce user support workload and better utilize employee knowledge through collaborative solutions.
The Importance of Outbound
As Shortways’ Marketing Manager, Nathalie Hoch is responsible, along with her colleague Emilie Belliot, for generating and qualifying leads for their CEO to close. Since the pair both create and promote marketing content, as well as qualify resulting inbound leads, Nathalie and Emilie quickly found themselves short on time and hard-pressed to accomplish their grueling to-do list. They were also well aware of the limits of inbound for lead generation: sporadic interest, inability to choose the right decision-maker, and major investments in time and effort. The release of IKO’s Automated Engagement Solution came at the perfect time to help Nathalie complement their inbound efforts and insure a steady stream of qualified projects.
“Combining the efficiency of sales automation with the intelligence of predictive leads really made the difference for us.” - Nathalie Hoch, Marketing Manager at Shortways
Ten Minutes to Generate Meetings
With IKO predictive leads already in place, Shortways immediately saw the value in combining high quality outbound leads with automated engagement, and decided to put the latter in place in July 2016. Today, Nathalie and Emilie have added a simple outbound prospecting routine to their inbound efforts: “We spend 10 minutes a day engaging 25-30 scored IKO leads. The fact that IKO is so simple and quick to use fits perfectly with our busy schedules. It was easy to set up our first email scenario, click a button, and start seeing results,” explained Nathalie.
“We have different email scenarios for different buyer personas, and each scenario contains 5 emails. We start with an introduction email, and then we mix “content sharing” emails with follow up ones. Soon, we’ll start warm calling contacts with high engagement analytics.” - Nathalie Hoch, Marketing Manager at Shortways
Nearly twice as many meetings after 3 months
Adding IKO leads plus automated engagement as their outbound channel proved extremely effective. In the first three months of use, Nathalie and Emilie had booked nearly double the number of meetings that they had booked for the entire previous year. Almost half of those meetings came directly from IKO leads engaged via IKO’s automated engagement solution. “For us, IKO’s value lies in the combined scored leads and automated engagement approach. This really allows us to generate quality leads quickly that actually lead to projects,” explained Nathalie.