Generating 28,000 Contacts With Cognism’s Premium Intent Data

4 minute read
By: Emma Sands
Sales, B2B Data

One of the world’s largest staffing firms used Cognism’s intent data to:

Increase their B2B mailing list from 0 to 28,000 contacts
Identify prospects at the right time in their buying journey
Cut time prospecting and focus on closing new business

Website: www.kellyservices.com

Number of employees: Enterprise

Industry: Staffing & Recruiting

HQ: Michigan, USA

Teams using: Sales

Scroll 👇 to view the case study - or use the menu to skip to a section.

The company | The challenge | The solution | The results | Try Cognism’s sales intelligence solution

The company

Founded in 1946, Kelly Services is a global recruitment company with offices in North America, EMEA and APAC. Their teams place over one million people in jobs every year and 90 Fortune 100 companies trust them with their talent expertise.

The firm connects talent with great companies in fields including Science, Engineering, Office, Light Industrial, Education, and more. Its vision is to be the most creative, insightful, and agile talent company, committed to uniting vital talent with great organisations.

The challenge

Kelly Services has been a customer since 2019. We spoke to the UK Sales Enablement Lead about her experience with Cognism.

How did Kelly Services find out about Cognism?

“Our Sales Director was impressed by Cognism’s presence on various social channels. In addition to this, he received several cold emails from a Cognism sales rep. This sparked his interest in learning more about how Cognism could assist with generating new business.”

What challenges were Kelly Services experiencing prior to Cognism?

“We previously used Dun & Bradstreet for lead generation. We were mailing contacts from the chosen list but the emails were invalid. Ultimately, we were receiving 0 contacts in our mailing list and the ROI was not being met.”

“Our goal is to have a B2B presence and in order to achieve this we need to be hitting people's inboxes. This motivated us to look at other innovative lead generation tools in the market like Cognism.”

The solution

The interviewee manages three Business Development Managers (BDMs) in the UK and her team takes a vertical approach to their lead generation efforts. Each employee specialises in either the life sciences, engineering or renewables sector.

What is their target market?

“We target four levels of seniority in CxOs, Talent Acquisition, HR and individual departments depending on the size of the company. Our approach is to obtain a valid contact within each level of seniority.”

What is a typical daily workflow for the BDMs?

“They mainly use email and LinkedIn InMail as their core outreaching tools. They will also call up warm prospects. The team utilises the Cognism Chrome Extension daily to source core contacts for their specific segment.”

Kelly Services started using Cognism’s fully blended intent data, powered by Bombora in 2021 Q4. What daily challenges were the BDMs experiencing prior to using intent data?

“They were hitting prospects too late in the buying process. Ideally, they want to get in front of the curve and reach them before they make their hiring decisions.”

She told us more about why they decided to use fully blended intent data powered by Bombora to alleviate this issue.

“In 2022, our vision is to win big. Previously we were placing temporary staff hires, but this year our aim is to sell big recruitment solutions, such as RPOs and Master vendors. However, to get your foot in front of the right clients, you need to hit them at the right time in the buying process.”

“When our CSM showed us the intent service, we thought it was great. The data gives us the early hiring signals we need to know when companies are looking at other recruitment agencies. The intent piece came at the right time in order for us to meet our 2022 goals.”

She told us more about their workflows with intent data.

“I generate the data in the WebApp on behalf of the BDMs using the staffing and RPO intent topics. In the search, I can see what topics are surging alongside the surge number. Once I've refined the contacts according to their surge number, I sync the lists into our Bullhorn CRM and assign the contacts from each vertical to an individual BDM. The BDM will then contact the desired prospects within the surging accounts with a personalised message."

What KPIs do they have in place for Cognism’s intent data?

“At the very least, the BDMs are required to target 10 companies weekly from the surging accounts list, and within each company, they need to contact at least 5 contacts. We’ve set up a process where they can use Cognism and intent hand in hand. This significantly helps them save time.”

“Cognism’s intent data plays a key role in identifying these companies. Intent provides them with the ammunition to have a much more tailored, targeted approach.”

The results

Kelly Services have seen quantifiable success from Cognism’s premium data.

“In such a short time, our mailing list has grown from nothing to 28,000 contacts and a huge part of that is down to Cognism. We initially chose Cognism to grow our B2B mailing list and the expectations have been met.”

“Not only have we increased our brand awareness but we’re already in the final stages with a potential client since using intent data.”

What’s the biggest reason Kelly Services would recommend us?

“The platform is incredibly easy to use. After searching for prospects, the contacts are always fresh which is a common daily challenge in B2B sales. Not only is this a benefit but the support services are phenomenal. Whenever I reach out to our CSM, she will reply promptly with insightful and proactive suggestions.”

“Overall, the Sales Director and BDMs are really excited about intent data and our continuing partnership with Cognism. At the moment, we are only using Cognism for UK prospecting, but the service has been presented to international leadership. The feedback was positive and they are very excited about the success intent data will bring to the business on a larger scale.”