ROCI, a top lead generation agency that supports the growth of creative agencies, uses Cognism’s B2B data to:
- Consistently reach 8-15% click-through rates and 4-7% reply rates.
- Spend less time manually finding leads.
- Steadily book meetings on behalf of its customers.
- Create personalised outreach by leveraging event triggers.
Teams using: Sales
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The company
ROCI agency works with creative agencies to help them grow their business development. Company Founder, Frank Whiffen realised that a lot of agencies have a similar problem. Their main focus is on ‘the now’ and prioritising client work. This means that internal projects often get put on the back burner.
ROCI helps generate new leads for creative agencies so they can get on with what they do best. To get in front of the right prospects they use lead generation, email marketing and data. These tools help them to produce relevant, targeted and engaging campaigns.
The challenge
We interviewed Frank Whiffen, Founder of ROCI agency about his experience with Cognism.
ROCI was established in 2020. What prompted Frank to explore lead generation tools like Cognism to help grow his business?
“In order to scale, it was crucial I had a top-quality B2B contact database in place to source new leads for my clients. I stumbled across Cognism via social media and it came at the perfect time.”
Did Frank consider any other data providers to help with the selection?
“I’ve experienced many sales data tools in the past, having worked at marketing agencies for much of my career. So I’ve always been evaluating what solutions are out there to help speed up the sales prospecting process. In ROCI’s case, we needed automation combined with solid data to meet our objectives. Cognism ticked both of these boxes.”
Overall, how was the sales process?
“I was extremely impressed with our Account Executive at Cognism. He listened to our requirements of needing a world-class platform to provide high-quality data and sales automation in one place. Altogether, the experience was very professional, diligent and clear from start to finish.”
“It was evident that Cognism stood out against its competitors. I’m very glad we signed with Cognism!”
The solution
ROCI Agency has been a Cognism customer since 2020. Frank is the end-user of the platform as he uses the data source to find leads and manage email campaigns on behalf of his clients.
Frank explained his workflows with Cognism:
“Firstly, I use the Chrome Extension on an ad-hoc basis. It’s especially useful when searching for companies and finding specific contact details on LinkedIn.”
“I spend most of my time using the WebApp. The searches vary from client to client. As a whole, I build and generate the data based on the job titles, regions and industries relevant to the client’s ICP. I then run email campaigns for each individual client. I regularly A/B test the campaigns to understand what messaging works for particular segments.”
What features in the WebApp have been useful for Frank’s searches?
“I use the funding and job join triggers the most as they indicate a positive growth trajectory for the business.”
“The technographic filter can be very influential for specific campaigns. Here’s an example: one of my clients is a website development agency and requested to target businesses that use JavaScript.”
“In the WebApp, I found a set of companies that use JavaScript related to their ICP, generated the data and created an email campaign. Within the email copy, I tailor the message to focus on that tech and used it as a point of relevance.”
“Overall, Cognism’s distinctive event triggers enable me to be more personalised in my outreach.”
What communication channels does Frank use to spark conversations with prospects?
“My role is to grow the customer's pipeline at the top of the sales funnel. I frequently use a four-step cadence over six weeks consisting of email, Vidyard and calling steps. Occasionally, I use a longer cadence to re-target leads over a significant period of time. Once I’ve supplied the clients with a sufficient amount of meetings, they then take ownership of the buyer relationship from that point onwards.”
He explained how Cognism’s highly-compliant GDPR database has been valuable.
“Not only is using Cognism’s leading compliant database encouraging when pitching to prospects. It’s also very reassuring for my clients. They have the confidence that the data I’m using to prospect for their business is not breaching GDPR guidelines, not impacting their brand.”
“Compliance is essential. If Cognism wasn’t compliant then it could land my clients and I in a lot of hot water.”
The results
What outcomes has the ROCI Agency seen since using Cognism?
“I assess my success with Cognism on email analytics which has a ripple effect on meetings booked. On average, the click-through rates are between 8-15% and reply rates are 5-7% with 40% receiving a positive response. Without Cognism’s accurate database, it would be virtually impossible to land in people’s inboxes and ignite conversations with potential buyers.”
“Overall, Cognism is the foundation to successful outreach. The aim is to keep my clients happy by filling their diaries with qualified new business meetings."
"Cognism not only provides the data source to achieve this but if my clients are happy with the service, they will renew. The benefits of Cognism are a win-win to both my clients and my business.”
We asked Frank to sum up his feelings about Cognism.
“Cognism does the legwork that you'd otherwise have to do manually. If time is precious and you want to spread the word about your business with world-class data, then Cognism is your go-to.”
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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