The software development dilemma: how we overcame oversaturation and got 115 appointments in 14 months

115 appointments booked
115%avg. KPI rate achieved

CategoryAppointment Setting

IndustrySoftware Development

HeadquartersHyderabad, India

Company size5,001-10,000 employees

About ValueLabs

ValueLabs, a global technology company specializing in software product development, data technology, digital enablement, and consulting, is a trusted partner to over 250 clients globally, serving from 26 offices worldwide. Belkins was called upon to help the company reach out to IT-related titles via a variety of tactics.

Client's Challenges

ValueLabs offers its customers a powerful edge by providing custom software solutions, digital experience, and data analytics. However, the company faces severe competition from other software providers in the niche market.

Competitive niche. We live in a world with so many software developers, data analysts, and enterprise support companies that it’s hard to stand out from the crowd. So the client experienced obvious difficulties finding new prospects and converting them into customers. Belkins’s task was to find a way to make ValueLabs brand more visible so they could continue scaling their business.
Top of the sales funnel. ValueLabs was having trouble with the pre-sales process. It had a sales team assigned to each region, but booking enough meetings to keep them busy and the pipeline full was pretty challenging. Belkins needed to develop a strategy that would help ValueLabs avoid new hires and additional expenses yet get enough qualified meetings required.

What We Did

Partnering with ValueLabs has been pretty straightforward. For its Canadian office, the client needed a pipeline full of leads for the internal sales team to work with, and Belkins had a proven lead-generation strategy in place. Here’s what’s been done.

Selecting target industries

When digitalization is all-pervasive, it’s more challenging to pinpoint the businesses you will benefit from the most. Because there are so many IT services and consulting firms on the market, Belkins had to spend substantial time and effort to figure out which industries would be most effective for bringing in clients.

We used a testing method and the offered insights by ValueLabs to find what industry types would work best for ValueLabs. Belkins’s extensive research (website, testimonials, case studies) revealed that Pharmaceuticals & Healthcare, E-commerce, Consumer Goods, and Retail provided the best regional results.

Why selecting target industries is crucial in SoftDev

Perfecting cold email templates

Cold email outreach has proved itself the most efficient sales tactic in B2B, but only when the emails’ content and value proposition resonate with the personas you’re reaching out to. The Belkins team created various templates and subject lines to test them on multiple industries and titles.

Even with the best-developed customer profiles, this approach requires the team to adjust ICPs several times to try out all the possible options. As a result, we discovered that this approach provided enough personalization, and our cold outreach campaigns were as effective as we expected.

Why cold emailing is one of the key marketing channels in SoftDev

Learn more: How to generate B2B leads for technology companies

Main Challenges We Faced

Belkins’s had a friendly and cooperative dynamic with the client. So both teams tackled challenges timely and effectively.

Corporate formalities. ValueLabs is a large organization where most processes require multiple circles of negotiation and approval. So it took time to make decisions. Belkins points of contact (POCs) were highly cooperative and did their best to make the process faster on their side.
Reporting issues. ValueLabs’s reps required multiple reports and proofs before ensuring they could move on with new strategies. However, we handled it with the POC by holding extremely productive weekly online meetings and creating extra reports.
Lack of case studies. Belkins encouraged the client to write and publish new case studies for promotional purposes. With their help, our team obtained more helpful marketing materials and could use them as expertise proof when reaching out to prospects.

Results
115qualified appointments booked
2deals won in the first 4 months
115% avg. KPI achieved

A solid friendship with the client was another great benefit of working together besides achieving KPIs. Belkins landed the best of both worlds. Our team managed to build trustful relationships with all the POCs from this organization. Weekly video calls between two teams looked like old friends chatting over Zoom during Covid.

Such a warm partnership contributed a lot to our performance. Here’s what Belkins achievements looked like:

We managed to book 115+ appointments during 14 months of cooperation;
Regardless of stiff competition, Belkins assisted ValueLabs in adding 150+ prospects to their pipeline;
During the last 7 months, Belkins have met KPIs monthly and exceeded key indicators by 10-20 percent regularly;
ValueLabs closed 2 deals within the first four months of collaboration with Belkins.

Key Takeaways

Don’t shy away from outsourcing. Outsourcing is costly, and lots of hard work goes into doing pre-sales internally. A company needs a designated employee to maintain domain health, create templates, research, run campaigns, analyze what additional resources you need to cover your business goals, count the expenses, and calculate a possible ROI. Hiring at least one SDR and a researcher may cost a fortune. Thus, you will need to spend additional funds to achieve the same results as an external prospecting partner could provide. Even with that, there is no guarantee that the sales team will have enough leads to work with. The in-house team can focus on sales and post-sales nurturing if a company can outsource these processes.
Don't give up easily on lead generation. Lead generation is not just about getting a new customer. It’s about building a relationship with them and making them want to return. It can be tough to get started with generating leads, though. You need to figure out your target audience, where they hang out online and offline, and where they’re most likely to respond to an offer or a message from you. The good news is that it’s usually pretty straightforward once you’ve figured out your strategy. You need to plan it from multiple sources like a puzzle — and everything will work out fine!
Don’t overuse email templates. Sending out the same email to all your customers would be a wrong move. It helps to slightly personalize each email to indicate your care and genuine drive to assist the client in solving any outlined issue. Not only does a personalized message capture the recipient’s attention, but it also makes them reply. Your goal is to establish a connection between you and the recipient.

Reading duration10 min
Published31 Oct 2022

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