Find out how Huggg transformed from a B2C to B2B business and used our globally-compliant prospecting solution to:
- Build an entirely new database
- Source 500 quality leads
- Generate 22% of new sign-ups and 18% of paying customers in a week
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The company
Bristol-based Huggg is a microgifting company that takes a new approach to rewarding employees and customers.
Huggg is a microgifting platform which enables companies to surprise and delight their customers and reward their teams. With a network of over 1,000 nationwide partner locations, companies use Huggg to acquire, reward and incentivise customers with coffee, cake, cinema tickets and more.
We spoke with Becky Smith, a B2B Strategist looking after Huggg’s lead generation initiatives.
The challenge
Formerly positioned as a B2C company. In 2019, Huggg decided to shift its business focus to the B2B space. Huggg did not have a suitable B2B database. Becky explained:
“When we moved to the B2B space, we didn’t have many contacts in our database that were suitable. We knew we needed to grow the database and reach people through outbound marketing.”
For Huggg, efficiency was very important so they wanted to try to grow the database using a prospecting solution like Cognism.
“I’ve always wanted to try a solution like Cognism. At the beginning, we didn’t know if an outbound campaign would work for our business, but we tried Cognism and it worked really well, so very soon it became an integral part of our marketing.”
The solution
Becky told us she enjoys using our B2B lead generation tool and found it to be very user-friendly, especially compared to other platforms.
“Cognism is a huge time saver. I’ve had plenty of other jobs before joining Huggg, where I was either doing the research myself or we used third party data providers. Doing manual research was painful and took a lot of time to find the right data.”
Becky had high praise for our company research tool, which helped with finding the right target audience for outbound campaigns.
“I use the persona search functions to drill down and create different campaign lists. I input specific search criteria like company type, industry, job title, size, revenue and so on, and the tool provides me with a list of contacts who match that criteria. It’s great, I love that functionality.”
Huggg used Cognism to test different target audiences and markets.
“In the beginning we needed to run lots of tests on the use case, messaging and target. Cognsim was a really useful tool to enable us to do different tests and analyse results.”
Huggg is a Hubspot user, so we asked Becky if and how they use Cognism’s Hubspot integration.
“I generally prefer keeping the sales contact list separate. It’s useful that we don’t have to move all the leads we find using Cognism to Hubspot. We initially reach out via Cognism’s email automation tool, and we usually move only the leads who have engaged in any way. Whenever I need to import leads to Hubspot, I find it very easy to do so.”
Becky admired our Customer Success team too!
“They’re a fantastic group to work with. Always very quick to communicate and resolve issues. They keep you informed about new functions, and what you could do to really improve while using the tool. Cognism is a shining example of how to do customer success.”
The results
Huggg saw results from the beginning with Cognism, but their Christmas campaign really stood out as a success.
“The Christmas campaign was just amazing. In the first week of the campaign, we saw that 22% of the people who signed on to our platform were as a result of Cognism outreach, along with 18% of paying customers.”
“As soon as these new customers started buying and sending things, the word about Huggg spread. Cognism was a great kick-starter for our campaign and accelerated a lot of our registrations and referrals.”
Speaking about other campaigns run with Cognism, Becky says:
“We’ve generally had good campaigns with Cognism, with good read rates and good results. We’ve never been in a situation where I’ve thought it’s not worth it.”
We asked Becky for her final thoughts on Cognism:
“I’d recommend Cognism for lead generation when you need to grow your database - if you don’t have the data and you want to reach out to a new audience. And also if you want to test your target market.”
She also gave us a tip for business owners in the rewards industry, who want to give Cognism a try:
“Keep an open mind about what resonates with your audience and find a hook, and react quickly to the results you’re seeing - that certainly worked for us.”
Try Cognism’s sales intelligence solution
Over 1,000 revenue teams around the world trust Cognism to:
✅ Build qualified B2B contact databases
✅ Plan and launch their outbound campaigns
✅ Power up their social selling
✅ Meet and beat their revenue targets
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