Challenge:
Solution:
Results:
An interview with technology sales and marketing innovators Kelly Michael, Marketing Director, and Jackie Joly, Marketing Operations Specialist at QTS
QTS is a leading provider of data center solutions. Through its software-defined technology platform, QTS is able to deliver secure, compliant infrastructure solutions, robust connectivity and premium customer service to leading hyperscale technology companies, enterprises, and government entities. Check out Kelly and Jackie on LinkedIn!
What are some of the major business challenges you face at QTS Data Centers? What were you looking to accomplish using Priority Engine?
KM: At the beginning of last year we were given some very specific goals. One of those goals was to reach our Fortune 1000 companies, especially those that had never heard from us. This was a top-down approach that was not only a marketing directive, but it was also a sales directive, so our teams needed to be aligned. As a small company in a very niche industry, one of our major priorities is finding ways to get in front of the right people at those companies.
JJ: With Priority Engine purchase intent platform, we knew we wanted to focus on those Fortune 1000 accounts, as well as get in front of our strategic account lists as well. Another goal of using Priority Engine was for our sales reps to have more relevant and intelligent conversations with our prospects.
Walk us through your process and setup of Priority Engine.
JJ: Our lists are set up in Priority Engine to align with our Fortune 1000 and strategic accounts, so each rep has their own list set up. We export the contacts along with all relevant firmographic data from Priority Engine into Pardot on a weekly basis. After they move to Pardot they are pulled into an email nurture. At the same time that we email them via marketing efforts, they also go through to Salesforce and into SalesLoft for sales to do their follow up and outreach. We have a seven-email cadence over seven weeks to engage our prospects with the content they are interested in. In the future, we are planning to create more tailored email outreach around the specific entry points and interests from Priority Engine.
Priority Engine has helped us provide Sales with the contacts and the intent data to better prioritize their outreach and tailor their conversations to break in.”
How are you and your sales teams leveraging Priority Engine day-to-day?
JJ: Originally, Priority Engine was intended for our Inside Sales team. After we rolled it out to Inside Sales, the rest of the organization was interested in trying it out, so we recently distributed to two new sales teams – our Hybrid Sales team, which are the regional sales folks, and our Federal Sales team.
The sales teams go into Priority Engine often. Depending on the sales team and preference of individual reps, sales uses Priority Engine a few different ways. For the most part, they go directly into Priority Engine and look at their account lists. They’ll check for who has been actively researching at their accounts and leverage the insights and installed tech data to tailor their outreach and conversations. They also use the activity to help prioritize their outreach efforts within their lists to determine which account is the hottest right now. Some of the reps also like to use the Priority Engine for Salesforce Widget to leverage those insights from Priority Engine directly in Salesforce.
How has Priority Engine helped you overcome some of your challenges?
KM: Historically, sales and marketing teams butt heads. In the past, we’ve provided contacts and leads that don’t go anywhere because they didn’t trust the data. Since introducing Priority Engine, we’ve really been able to align sales and marketing. We have a combined target and are able to provide them the contacts and the intent data to better prioritize their outreach and tailor their conversations to break in. Not only does this help them in their sales process, but it also builds trust between marketing and sales because we’re on the same page and working toward the same goals and we have the same set of data. Priority Engine has helped us tremendously to align sales and marketing.
JJ: With Priority Engine, we’ve been able to achieve our goals of reaching those Fortune 1000 accounts, as well as our strategic accounts. We’ve been able to identify the right people at our accounts and have gained that real-time data and intelligence that our sales team is able to leverage in their outreach.
KM: This year, we weren’t able to do the events and traditional marketing we had done in the past. Priority Engine has helped us get our content to the right people at our accounts. It has also helped us prioritize our content plan by seeing where we got the most traction and how many eyes were on the content and make an educated plan moving forward.
JJ: TechTarget is our main source of traffic for our content now, which is just an amazing value add.
Our sales reps really like using Priority Engine and love how easy it is to use. It’s been a big factor in helping them book meetings and progress deals.”
What are some of the things that you really like about using Priority Engine?
JJ: Our sales reps really like using Priority Engine and love how easy it is to use. It’s been a big factor in helping them book meetings and progress deals. With our main goal for Priority Engine being to help get our foot in the door, we look at how many conversations reps have been able to have with prospects from Priority Engine. We’ve seen up to 25 conversations per rep which is great.
Also, being in Marketing Operations, I really like that Priority Engine integrates with Pardot and Salesforce – it just makes it easy to track.
Tell us about your experience working with TechTarget’s team? How have they made it easy for you to see success?
KM: I love our TechTarget team! Working with everyone at TechTarget, and especially our customer success team, is like working with an extension of our own team. We couldn’t do half of the things we do without them and without their guidance. They’ve taken the time to understand our business and have really dug in and helped push us to the next level. I cannot say enough good things about the TechTarget team – It’s been a true delight, and you can’t always say that about working with other platforms. TechTarget genuinely wants the best for our company and want to see us do well.
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