Kazoo transforms its demand generation strategy with Company Surge®
January 11, 2021
Kazoo, a market leader in employee performance management software, has recently learned just how much Intent data can be critical to increasing demand generation and reclaiming marketing ROI. Combining the predictive attributes of 6sense’s Account Engagement Platform with Bombora’s Company Surge® Intent data, they were able to capture accounts with the highest propensity to purchase and optimize their ability to scale in the long-term.
An engaged, communicative employee experience is at the heart of any performant organization. Kazoo’s employee experience platform is built to achieve that and more. A complete solution designed to create a connected, high-performing culture. It’s a no brainer that businesses looking to modernize outdated approaches to performance management and unlock a richer view of employee engagement would benefit from learning more about their platform’s features. However, while this presents a substantial market opportunity to capitalize on, limited marketing resources have encouraged Kazoo’s sales and marketing leaders to focus investment and outreach on its highest priority accounts.
Understanding the inability to scale
Kazoo had an existing proprietary fit model that used business size and industry attributes exclusively to determine account prioritization. Combined with Company Surge® Intent data, outbound SDRs saw a significant increase in prospect reply rates. However, the fit model failed to increase conversion rates for high scoring accounts compared to lower scoring accounts. As Kazoo began collecting more data points impacting fit, the organization started to question whether this framework would work for long-term scalability and had the predictive capabilities to learn more about what their prospects needed to make a decision in favor of their product.
Taking performance to the next level with 6sense and Bombora
That’s when 6sense’s Account Engagement Platform became the right choice for developing a more predictive, Account-based Marketing (ABM) stack, powered by Bombora’s Company Surge®.
Used by brands like Dell, Snowflake, and Zendesk, 6sense’s AI platform uses historic intent signals to reconstruct the account-based buyer journey, enabling Kazoo to identify and engage prospects approaching the end of the sales cycle. Bombora’s Company Surge® data is a normalized score showing content consumption spikes against a baseline of normal consumption, scored weekly to show trend analysis. Kazoo validated that Company Surge® identified and increased the number of previously unknown, in-market businesses compared to 6sense’s buying stage fit model alone. It found that by combining the buying stage fit model with Bombora’s data, there was a significant jump in demand generation with businesses identified in the consideration and late-stage purchase decisions.
Through a combinative approach of both solutions, Kazoo is able to:
- Access deeper insights about who are their top prospects and where are they in the buying journey
- Target prospect key needs with personalized content and outreach
- Gain a 360 view into accounts most likely convert in the late-stage and brand consideration stage of the sales funnel.
“If you think about the concept of a Company Surge® score, it’s not surprising that the activity we’re seeing above the baseline is more predictive. We selected Bombora because we felt really good about the approach, the data sources, the richness of the data, and how easy they were to do business with,”
-Casey Carey, CMO at Kazoo.
Pivoting to a predictive and Intent-based go-to-market approach
Currently, Kazoo is early in the process of rolling out the new model across its marketing and sales channels, including Marketo, LinkedIn, programmatic advertising, and outbound SDR sales motions. This pivot is a key strategy for the HR service provider in building a more robust competitive advantage in-market. They hope by leveraging both solutions, they can easily understand what prospects need to know and accelerate demand generation. With this in mind, Carey is confident that Kazoo has built a technology and data foundation that will drive engagement across the buyers’ journey, and proven results in the form of B2B account growth.