2X Sales at Half the Budget: How Plannuh Turned Data into Revenue
When it comes to B2B marketing, Scott Todaro is an authority. A 30-year hands-on marketing veteran and a co-author of The Next CMO book, Todaro has worked with over 300 CMOs to help them become better marketers.
Todaro’s formula for success is simple: It starts with knowing who your customer is and what problems you help them solve. Then generate content to educate them on best practices for solving their problem, and don’t be shy about it. If you do it right and do it consistently, you will find the ones that are ready for a sales conversation and close deals.
As CMO and Co-Founder of Plannuh, Todaro was struggling with a key ingredient of this formula: “We just couldn’t get reliable contact information from our list providers to target the CMOs and Marketing Ops people at the organizations at the right size and right industries. Our database was small and full of bad contact data, and that was really holding us back,” says Todaro.
The right data changed the company’s trajectory
As a long-time marketer, Todaro heard countless pitches from vendors that promised better lead data. “When I first looked at RevenueBase, I was skeptical,” he admits. “But that changed very quickly once we started using the data.”
The first campaign Plannuh ran using the RevenueBase data was promoting The Next CMO book.
Within the first 30 days of using the new data, Plannuh achieved 1,200 downloads and 53 demo requests.
“We got a lot of interest in the book,” recalls Todaro. ”The interest turned into meetings and the meetings turned into deals. We exceeded our sales goals. It helped us with our next round of fundraising, and we were off to the races.”
Doubling down on data slashed cost per lead 90%
Following the initial success, the Plannuh team doubled down on their use of the RevenueBase data, shifting their marketing mix from expensive advertising to content-based nurturing.
Their average cost per lead went from $52 down to $5.
“We created a lot of good content that people were interested in. RevenueBase gave us the vehicle to get this high value content to the right people that fit our ideal customer profile,” says Todaro. “Along the way, we were able to double the number of leads we generated while cutting 60% of our demand gen spend.”
Insight-driven personalization boosts response rates
With RevenueBase, Plannuh gets more than just accurate ICP and persona-level contact information. They also get unique detailed insights about each prospect that help them tailor the message to their specific pain points.
“We moved from mass email to highly segmented emails that can be customized for our six audiences,” explains Todaro, “and it’s the level of detail and insights that we get from RevenueBase that allows us to do it.”
This level of personalization has moved the needle on email engagement. In an era when email response rates are plummeting across the board, Plannuh is reaching an average of over 40% open rates on most emails.
Can data buy you love?
Another thing Todaro learned in his long marketing career is that sales teams love to complain that they don’t get enough good leads. RevenueBase changed that dynamic 180 degrees at Plannuh.
“Our BDRs are exceptionally successful,” says Todaro. “One big reason is that they get high quality leads from marketing, and a lot of them: 88% of all the meetings we set come from marketing leads.”
The BDRs also use the data for their own outreach. RevenueBase keeps their data fresh, so they don’t waste time calling on people that are no longer at their position or chasing wrong contact information.
But the BDRs especially appreciate the level of insights they get on each prospect, which allows them to personalize their messages. “They simply love it,” says Todro. “Every time they get the database updated, it’s like Christmas morning for them. And the results prove it.”
“If you take RevenueBase away, it would dramatically hinder our database marketing success.”
The acquisition by Planful was a momentous achievement for Plannuh. As it often goes, it also meant some changes in how the company operates, and that included the Plannuh marketing team.
Following the acquisition, the marketing team had to make the transition to the Planful marketing tech stack. Todaro insisted on keeping RevenueBase on board, a decision that continues to pay dividends in the form of a growing pipeline and better conversion rates. And wIth access to a larger customer base, they now use RevenueBase to identify the right personas for cross-selling the Plannuh product within existing Planful accounts.
“I told the Planful team, if you take RevenueBase away, it would take years to rebuild what we have using the product today,” shares Todaro. “If we do not know our audience and we cannot reach our audience, we will fail every time. Marketing starts with knowing and reaching the buyer, and that’s what RevenueBase allows us to do.”
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