Lead generation for a startup investment platform

Challenges the client faced

While generating significant outreach, our client’s high-volume email campaigns struggled to convert leads into qualified opportunities. This resulted in lower-than-industry conversion rates, hindering revenue growth and impacting overall sales efficiency. Additionally, the client's sales team was frustrated with a lack of consistent, high-quality leads, wasting valuable time on unqualified prospects.

Furthermore, our client’s focus was series A and seed-stage startups for investment opportunities. The time-sensitive nature of early-stage investments required swift and accurate lead research to capitalize on emerging opportunities.

To address these challenges, the client juggled multiple vendors and handled various aspects of their sales operations in-house. However, this fragmented approach led to inconsistent results and hindered their ability to scale their operations efficiently.
After seeing the early success of our pilot program, they quickly realized that our approach could give them exactly what they were missing.

Why they chose Belkins

The client had experience working with other vendors, but the lead-to-conversion rate of those campaigns barely reached 3%. They ultimately decided to partner with Belkins for 2 key reasons:

1. Fast ramp-up and execution. Most agencies take months to develop their efforts fully, but we acknowledge how important it is to revitalize the pipeline quickly. Thanks to our best practices and clockwork processes, we were able to get things moving within the first month after onboarding. This quick turnaround made an immediate impact, allowing the client to see results much faster than they expected and predict their long-term growth accurately.
2. Revenue-focused model. Our performance-driven approach stood out. The client appreciated that, unlike other vendors, we focus on delivering results that directly contribute to their bottom line and long-term business growth.

Additionally, a few other factors played a significant role in their decision:

• Deep understanding of the client’s ideal customer profile (ICP). We didn’t just scratch the surface. We dug deep into who their ideal customers are and found leads that went beyond basic criteria. These were high-quality prospects their team saw as top priorities.
• Seamless communication. The client valued our responsiveness and proactive communication. They never had to chase us for updates, and managing the relationship was easy thanks to our consistent engagement and transparent reports they could access freely.

How we exceeded the client’s expectations

Our strategy went beyond simply delivering leads. We ensured those leads were the right fit, and the results spoke for themselves. Here’s how we surpassed the client’s initial expectations:

1. Deep dive into their business. As we don’t follow a one-size-fits-all approach, we started by thoroughly researching the client’s industry, business model, prospect verticals, their clients’ key challenges, and general market trends. This helped us create detailed profiles of buying personas and tailor our value proposition to resonate with decision-makers.

2. Sales and marketing audit. We analyzed the client’s past sales and marketing efforts to identify what worked and what didn’t. This helped us to:
• Identify potential pitfalls and opportunities in their current strategy.
• Establish a baseline for future performance measurement.
• Build an omnichannel outreach strategy (after 4 months of collaboration) that aligned with their resources and goals.
3. Meticulous lead research. We knew the client was seeking high-quality leads within a specific niche, so we focused on startups in series A and seed funding rounds. Our manual research, based on previously determined buying personas, specifically targeted founders, CEOs, and CFOs from the Fintech, Biotech, Robotics, AI, and Food & Beverage industries, ensuring we reached decision-makers who could move things forward.
4. Email outreach that evolved into omnichannel. Our initial strategy involved test campaigns with cold emails only. The quick success of our single-channel outreach allowed us to realize the true potential in the market. So after 4 months of collaboration, we implemented an omnichannel approach that included graduate email, LinkedIn, and intent-based calling campaigns, along with other initiatives that the client had directed to the same audience. This strategy not only boosted our reach but also allowed us to engage prospects through multiple touchpoints, increasing our chances of getting responses.
• Initial outreach volume: 1,500 startups per month
• After switching to omnichannel: increased to 3,500 startups per month

Here’s an example of an omnichannel sequence we used.

Starting the conversation with cold emails

We chose email as the first touch channel with the prospects due to its extensive reach and scalability.

Our team offered several messaging options we approved with the client:

• Referral-based approach: Using pre-researched colleagues of our main contact (POC) to find the right decision-maker. This makes the outreach more personal by mentioning people who are actually relevant. For example: “We’ve seen that {{referral_name}} might also be involved in this — would it make sense to loop them in?
• Case study approach: Sending messages that describe the client’s value proposition, amplifying it with real success stories and results for other customers.
• Networking approach: Shifting the focus from a sales pitch to collaboration, inviting prospects to exchange ideas or share feedback.

So, we started with a referral-based email that established a connection and introduced the client’s value proposition. Normally, this approach works great for tech companies, though it requires more precise and detailed research.

This email highlighted the platform’s benefits, including efficient capital raising, brand exposure, and streamlined administrative processes. We amplified the value of potential collaboration by demonstrating real results of existing clients. At the end of the email, we name-dropped another potential decision-maker.

While we primarily relied on the referral strategy, we selectively employed the case study and networking approaches for smaller, targeted lead segments. This enabled us to test various audiences and refine messaging for better results.

Important step — fixing email deliverability issues

In 2024, new spam algorithms demolished many email campaigns, making cold email outreach harder than ever. Here’s how we handled this and other deliverability challenges:

• Preparing a top-quality lead database. Deliverability hinges on how relevant your proposition is to recipients. Our research team meticulously selected and verified each contact using multiple tools to ensure they would benefit from partnerships with our client. This approach proved highly effective: The recipients frequently replied to our messages, signaling spam algorithms that these conversations were meaningful and safe.
• Warming up mailboxes. Launching mass emails from a newly created domain and mailbox is risky. We started with small batches of emails, sending 5 per day and gradually increasing to 10, 20, and eventually 50 messages (or more for some email-sending tools).
• Constant iterations of email templates. Our content writing team refined email copies every 1–2 weeks. Spam filters often flag repetitive bulk messages as suspicious. We introduced variations by adding new phrases, picking combinations of different spam-triggering words if we couldn’t replace them, and incorporating case studies and client titles.
• Shifting email domains. Spam filters penalize messages containing most money-related vocabulary, like “funds” or “invest,” making domain blocks inevitable over time. To counter this, our deliverability team monitored domain health daily and created new domains when necessary, allowing our SDRs to relaunch campaigns seamlessly.

LinkedIn follow-up

If we did not receive a reply to the email, we launched a supportive LinkedIn campaign as a reengagement channel.

LinkedIn only lets you send about 100 connection requests a week, you can't message people you aren't connected with easily, and it’s recommended to limit your activity to 150 messages/day. This made it too slow to reach thousands of our leads. So, instead of trying to contact everyone who didn’t respond, we focused on the groups of people in our industry that we thought were most likely to engage, based on what worked well before.

Here’s a brief example of some industries we targeted. Biotech prospects initially showed poor engagement rates, so LinkedIn wasn’t a primary focus for that segment. However, when we shifted to prospects from Food & Beverage, we saw a surge in appointments. This industry-based approach allowed us to refine targeting and maximize results.

Seeing these trends, we scaled up LinkedIn outreach by adding 2 additional client profiles to expand the outreach efforts across multiple industries. The results reinforced our strategy — performance varied significantly by sector:

• Strong engagement & high appointment rates: Food & Beverage, Micromobility, Robotics
• Poor engagement & low response rates: Biotech, Fintech

This LinkedIn strategy worked as a second-touch channel, complementing our email outreach and ensuring no high-potential leads were left behind.

Boosting attendance rates with intent-based calling

When a prospect expressed interest but then dropped out of the conversation, we leveraged intent-based calling as a strategic follow-up. Our goal was to reengage the prospect, remind them of the previous interaction, and assess their interest in exploring the platform further. Our structured approach ensured that calls were timely and relevant, maximizing engagement and response rates.

Here’s what helped our client maximize the number of appointments:

Timing optimization

To determine the best time to call, we tested different time slots in the prospect’s time zone. We found that the highest pickup rates were around midday.

The waiting period before making a call depended on the type of intent:

• Cold calling: Immediate outreach upon obtaining contact details from research.
• Semi-intent (e.g., LinkedIn connection accepted): Calls were made the following day or within 2 days to allow time for lead exports and phone number verification.
• Full intent (e.g., an active email exchange but no response after answering their questions): Two days later, a call was placed as a reminder instead of a standard follow-up email.

We also proactively called prospects who missed scheduled meetings and offered to reschedule. This ensured that leads who initially expressed interest were not lost due to scheduling conflicts or miscommunication.

Call attempts and no-reply protocol

On average, we attempted 2–3 calls per prospect before marking them as non-responsive. This ensured that we maintained persistence without overwhelming the lead.

Script adaptation and personalization

Unlike with email templates, we did not make major changes to the script, as the offer was clear and well-suited to our audience. However, our experienced SDRs, familiar with both the project and the product, had the flexibility to deviate from the script and personalize conversations based on the prospect’s responses.

Handling objections

While most prospects responded positively, some objections were inevitable. Below are the most common objections we encountered and the scripts we used to handle them effectively”

• If the prospect doesn’t remember the previous interaction: “No worries! I can give you a quick rundown, and then, if it makes sense, we'll set up an appointment before we get off the call today to go over it in more detail. Sounds good?”
• If the prospect is too busy to talk: “Sorry to bother you. Maybe I should contact someone else from {{Company}} about raising capital for your startup?”
• If the prospect is aggressive or confused: “Oh yeah, so sorry but my boss wanted to share how we can help with funding for your business because he noticed that your startup is on the {{FundingStatus}} stage of its growth and thought you might be looking for investors. Should I follow up later or give you a quick overview?”
• If the prospect wants to schedule a meeting: “Are you free in two days at 2 PM [prospect's time zone] for a quick call with us to discuss our offering?”

Reengaging email campaigns for closure

Finally, we launched one more email sequence to reconnect with the leads who hadn’t converted before we let them cool down for a while.

The only issues we faced were working around a massive do-not-contact list of over 400,000 companies and strict requirements for the target companies.

However, thanks to the client’s flexibility and our team’s diligence, we found a balance. We adapted our outreach tactics, which helped us maintain a steady pipeline of qualified leads and ultimately led to 30 meetings per month.

Below, you can see our entire journey and the important milestones we’ve experienced throughout our collaboration:

Results in a nutshell

• 346 appointments booked during the 15 months of our collaboration — 285 from email, 40 from LinkedIn, and 21 from calls. This number continues to grow each month as calling and LinkedIn channels gain more traction.
• After four months of collaboration, we increased the monthly meeting quota from 15 to 30, leveraging an omnichannel approach.
• The lead conversion rate is around 9%, which is much higher than the 3% of their previous vendors.
• 13 deals with top-tier clients were closed-won within the first year of collaboration, bringing about $150K in revenue.
• $434K of projected value from pending deals was added to their pipeline.
• The client reached a stunning ROI of 125%, higher than the industry average of 107%–110%.

Overall, these results prove the superiority of an omnichannel approach over single-channel outreach and the efficacy of multi-touchpoint campaigns.

Future collaboration

Now that we’ve hit the one-year mark with this client, we’re rolling into year 2 with even more momentum. With a solid 125% ROI so far and a projected 200%+ ROI ahead, we’re doubling down on what works and refining our approach for even stronger results.

Moving forward, we’ll focus on tighter integration with the client’s marketing efforts, ensuring seamless collaboration across channels. We aim to drive an even greater impact in year 2 and beyond by strengthening our partnership and optimizing engagement strategies.