Pliant is a software company focused on helping businesses fundamentally change how their IT organizations deploy and manage technology. By transforming API code into low-code building blocks, their clients are empowered to automate, secure, and transform all of their business’ digital processes.
Challenge: Unreliable data hurting sales and reputation
Pliant came to RevenueBase with what is unfortunately not an uncommon story. As an early-stage startup, the company needed ways to generate prospects, and took to email marketing as their primary method of outbound marketing. Like many companies before them (and many companies that still do) Pliant used ZoomInfo as their data partner and utilized it to gather data to send cold email outreach through HubSpot.
The results weren’t just bad. They were catastrophic. Zoominfo’s outdated and inaccurate data not only returned a high bounce rate and low open rate, but it caused HubSpot to flag their account and Google to shut down their domain due to the high bounce rate of Zoominfo emails sent.
Their partnership with Zoominfo wasn’t working. Worse, it was hurting their company’s email sender reputation. Around the same time, Vess Bakalov, CEO of Pliant, brought on a new VP of Marketing. The newly designated VP immediately moved the organization off Zoominfo and on to Infotelligent, hoping the data there would be cleaner, and implemented some best practices around cold outreach and outbound marketing.
While their outbound results improved slightly, it wasn’t enough. Pliant was also still getting penalized by HubSpot and Google because of outdated and inaccurate data. So they went back to market in search of a more reliable database vendor, one who could help them increase delivery and engagement and actually generate opportunities.
Solution: A refined Ideal Customer Profile at the center of quality, always-fresh prospect data
After assessing multiple vendors, Pliant chose RevenueBase. Given their history with prior data vendors, they were a little skeptical that RevenueBase would actually deliver the quality of data promised, but after reading other customer success stories, they decided to give us a shot. Our first step in building Pliant’s customized B2B contact database was to conduct our proprietary ‘Revenue Archetype’ Workshop. During the workshop, our team worked with Pliant to understand their Ideal Customer Profile (ICP), including several custom insights that aren’t available with existing data providers. As an early-stage startup, Bakalov said, “When you’re a company our size, you’re running a million miles an hour, and you rarely have time to pause… so it was an incredibly helpful exercise to bring sales and marketing together to align and define our ICP.”
Once RevenueBase had a clear view of Pliant’s ICP, the team was able to deliver a highly customized, accurate database that included all B2B prospects within Pliant’s Total Addressable Market (TAM). A few of the custom insights and filters provided to Pliant included whether their target accounts use Kubernetes, Terraform, Service Now, NS1, Cherwell, and more.
Within their custom database, Pliant now has access to:
Success by the Numbers:
The quality of data RevenueBase was able to provide to Pliant was leagues above anything they’d experienced before. Not only is no longer Pliant being penalized by HubSpot and Google, but more importantly, in the last 6 months, Pliant’s outbound marketing efforts have seen the following results:
The RevenueBase Difference
Even more than the results themselves, it’s the level of partnership Pliant experienced in working with RevenueBase that Bakalov found so impressive. “If you want a high-quality data partner with the level of user experience that you’ve come to expect out of cutting-edge technology companies, that’s what RevenueBase has over other data partners,” Bakalov said. “The other vendors feel like outdated list-brokers.” Our proprietary ‘Revenue Archetype’ workshop forced their organization to slow down and really consider and identify their target audience to a depth no other data partner ever had. Bakalov went so far as to call RevenueBase the Cadillac of data vendors. “It’s in the experience,” Bakalov said. “Except, [RevenueBase] really isn’t that much more expensive.”
Being a growing and evolving startup, Bakalov mentions they’re still learning about their own product and how it’s applicable across industries. As Pliant grows and adjusts their market strategy, RevenueBase will adjust with them, expanding or refocusing their TAM while improving the team’s email deliverability, open rates, and opportunity generation.
