Building a lead-generating marketing capability from zero

Starting with strategy: Defining the company's ICP

When we started working with this tech services firm they didn't have a clearly defined ICP. They didn't have a clear idea of the kinds of leads they wanted to drive to their business. Up until the start of our engagement, most of their business had come through referrals. In fact, they'd grown their revenue to multiple millions through referrals and a few isolated outbound campaigns alone—a testament to the quality of the work and their personal reputations.

However, to start running lead generation campaigns, we'd need a clear ICP to go after. So, we worked with the Chief Commercial Officer to pick their most promising segment, properly define the ICP and start research into the sectors and personas we'd be advertising to.

Speed-to-value: Creating a proof of value

We interviewed subject matter experts within the business to write five articles, each published under the name of the corresponding interviewee. This helped us position them as thought leaders. We compiled the articles into a high-quality, editorial-style lead magnet, built a landing page, wrote and designed ads and launched. The company were keen to see results fast, so we extended their existing infrastructure—creating a content portal on a subdomain of their website. All-in-all, the process took around 4 weeks.

(Of course, we're neglecting to mention the scale of the work that went into each component part of the campaign!)

Result: 60 leads, 10 meetings booked

In 6 months, with only £650 per month ad spend across Google and LinkedIn, we achieved a total of 60 leads with 8 meetings booked. That means that we came in at £115 per lead—a very competitive cost for a business with an average deal size of over £150,000.