We’ve pretty much doubled our managed security services revenue in a year, mainly through the demand generation that we were able to put in place with BenchmarkONE.
I’ve been in cyber security consulting for about 30 years. 10 years ago, I decided to go out on my own and start my own business, InfusionPoints. InfusionPoints is a cyber security consulting firm that infuses security into business solutions to protect our clients’ consumer, employee, and partner information.
We’ve been able to grow organically through my existing Rolodex and referrals. Yet, as a small business with large aspirations, we wanted to take the next step and drive our business into a new area, managed security services. But in order to drive revenue and drive profits, we knew that we’d have to attract a different type of customer and touch people we’d never touched before.
That’s when I began my research into demand generation. I read all the books, did extensive research, and mapped out a plan on my whiteboard – which I still have up in my office. Today, we’re right on track for meeting and exceeding the goals we had set in building out our managed security services offering.
To implement our plan for demand generation, we needed a marketing automation solution that would allow us to gate material on our website and use campaigns to follow-up with leads.
We looked into a “Cadillac” solution that was feature rich, but at a price point that didn’t make sense for our small business – especially since we didn’t know what the true ROI of marketing automation would be for our business. We also looked at a free, DIY solution. However, it was overly complex and we decided we didn’t have the resources to implement it. BenchmarkONE proved to be the most attractive option – both easy for our team to pick up and learn as well as cost-effective. BenchmarkONE aligned perfectly to our purpose of capturing traffic on our website, using campaigns to turn those new leads into customers and tracking our success.
When it comes to attracting new clients, content is key. With new databreaches hitting the news every day, cyber security is a hot industry, and we were able to tap into that momentum as part of our demand gen efforts. We wrote blog posts around our target audience and created an in depth white paper that spoke to our target’s needs.
Once we had the right material in place, we tested LinkedIn, Facebook and Google Adwords to drive traffic to our website. Google Adwords ended up being the best channel for driving in-market consumers to our site, and BenchmarkONE forms are key to capturing that traffic and turning it into revenue for our firm. In fact, without the ability to gate our material and nurture those leads with BenchmarkONE, the traffic we generate through Adwords would be useless and our Adwords investment would be wasted.
With all of the right pieces in place, we put out our first campaign. About a week later, we had our first signed contract from that campaign and continued to sign contracts from that campaign. Since we’re able to send targeted campaigns to leads who fill out our BenchmarkONE forms, we’ve seen healthy click-through rates on our emails and our call-back ratios have been high. As we win new contracts, BenchmarkONE’s sales pipeline has been instrumental in helping us measure wins and measure values.
In fact, the first person to fill out the BenchmarkONE form on our site is now a customer. We were pretty blown away that there was this segment of people out there who were really clamoring for our offering and willing to give us their contact details. They had a need, and we had a service they could use. With BenchmarkONE, we were able to tie everything together.
Now, landing the work isn’t the problem. Now we’re focused on delivering on the contracts we’ve signed.
Simple to use, easy to integrate, and cost effective – BenchmarkONE’s ROI is high, and I’d recommend it to any small business needing to capture and convert leads through demand generation.