An interview with successful technology marketing innovator, Chris Massey, Director of Marketing at Involta
Involta helps organizations plan, manage and execute hybrid IT strategies using a broad range of services including colocation, cloud computing, managed IT, cybersecurity, fiber and network connectivity. Chris is responsible for all things marketing and product at Involta. Check him out on LinkedIn!
What are some of the major business challenges you face at Involta?
Involta is known as a regional player, but we’re trying to become known more nationally and even internationally. Brand recognition can be a big challenge when we are trying to get in front of companies that have never heard of us.
Another big challenge is doing more with less. When you send thousands of emails that don’t get read, it’s like casting a giant net. Finding a way to reach the right people without expending a massive amount of time and energy can be difficult.
What specific goals are you trying to accomplish for your sales and your marketing strategy with Priority Engine and TechTarget?
We’re looking to increase revenue and margins year-over-year with our lead generation strategy. To do this, we need leads that are pre-qualified, and that’s where Priority Engine comes in. We also use TechTarget for content syndication. We can tell who is engaging with our content, and we can confirm that they now know who Involta is. So, we are able to send those leads right over to sales.
What are the details of your marketing and sales team’s process when using Priority Engine?
We started by creating lists in Priority Engine around topics specific to the services we provide. We do weekly exports based off of those lists. Those leads then go into Pardot, and they get put into a nurture campaign. We have several different forms in Pardot on each topic, and we attribute the leads that come from Priority Engine by tagging them to ensure they go through the correct nurture campaigns. We then tailor our email messaging based on which Priority Engine list they came from to get as focused as we can. We typically do three emails over the span of two weeks and measure the reaction of those emails based on our scoring model. If the score is at a certain level, we send those over to sales and let them know that these are the folks we know are very interested, because they are warm leads that have gone through nurture and come from Priority Engine. We get a much better conversion rate on our leads from Priority Engine.
Our sales team will also go directly into Priority Engine to help with researching accounts and finding new insights.
What was your team’s process prior to using Priority Engine? Have you noticed a change in behavior within your company since implementing Priority Engine?
Before using Priority Engine, our team was responsible for their own lead generation by setting up events and trying to meet new people. Our sales team did not have visibility into the types of insights that Priority Engine has. Now, we supplement these efforts with intent data from Priority Engine, which helps us engage people at the right time. Our sales folks can gain insight into what a prospective customer has installed. Using this information, they can position how they sell and how our solution fits into that to make their conversations more meaningful.
How has Priority Engine helped you overcome some of your business challenges and see success?
With Priority Engine, we’ve been able to use intent-based data to create nurture campaigns to target prospects that are interested in our services. We can tailor our message and hit them at the right time, even if they previously did not know who Involta was. When we only have so many hours in the day, it’s valuable to have those pre-qualified leads from Priority Engine.
Tell us about your experience working with TechTarget’s team? How have they made it easy for you to see success?
I work with a lot of vendors and I would put TechTarget right at the top of the list. They go out of their way to not only ensure we know how to use Priority Engine, but also provide recommendations and best practices for our specific use case. Benefits that I would have expected to pay for with other vendors are just included in our relationship with TechTarget.
What is one thing you really like about using Priority Engine?
I think data is key to any decision-making process. You can guess intent, but that doesn’t help to inform a decision. With Priority Engine, we get the critical intent data we need to stay informed.
A big thank you to Chris for sharing some feedback with us. We look forward to hearing about more of your success in the future!
If you’re interested in sharing your TechTarget story with us, feel free to reach out to Sarah Geissler.
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