Client Story
Cranfield attract 300+ brand new subscribers with one simple new approach.
By David Battson 4 min read
Quick read story summary
Goals:
Attract brand new relevant people to subscribe to our Knowledge Hub please.
Special conditions:
Don't spend any additional budget or take up lots of our time.
Results:
300+ subscriptions.
383 hot leads & 43 event registrations.
Cranfield is a new breed of business school that has set out to change the landscape of executive education.
Whenever I spend time working on their campaigns, I feel like I’ve been immersed in inspiration.
Their purpose is clear, and the depth of their insight oozes intelligence and quality.
An hour’s browse around their material cleanses and elevates my mindset.
Cranfield recognise the importance of strong inbound marketing that allows them to share this content gold (elevating brand awareness) and engage with new audiences (generating enquiries), and Data HQ has been part of the team helping with that for a few years now.
Cranfield's main brief: “Find more brand new relevant & interested people that can be added to HubSpot for marketing.”
Their secondary brief: “Don’t spend any more budget please.”
As HubSpot users, Cranfield can only market their training to opted-in subscribers.
This is a good HubSpot policy, but it forces Cranfield to have a separate strategy to prospect with brand new people they haven’t met before.
Previously, Cranfield used our standard email marketing services for this purpose, but times are moving on fast and I recently persuaded them to trial Dynamo instead.
Dynamo is our lead nurturing platform that’s purpose built to turn cold data into prospects that look just like Cranfield’s best customers.
We’ve worked with Dave and the team at DataHQ for a number of years, and have been impressed by their deep knowledge and understanding of the data marketing arena. So when they demonstrated their new platform we were keen to give it go.
We switched Cranfield from email blasts to clever lead nurturing, adding nifty features that really delivered.
(And kept their time investment minimal).
Creatives and email journeys were built in the Dynamo platform in less than two weeks.
The primary campaign aim was to;
- create awareness amongst a large new audience,
- and encourage relevant and interested people to sign up to their Knowledge Hub.
The Cranfield Knowledge Hub is one of the best thought leadership resources I’ve ever seen and it’s completely free.
It features webinars, articles, reports, and infographics - delivered and written by experts and academics from their own Cranfield faculty alongside contributors from other business schools, corporations and organisations.
It offers something genuinely valuable to the recipients of an email campaign and I was intrigued to see how the audience would respond.
Within the first 12 months the lead nurturing campaign delivered 300+ new opted-in subscribers to the Cranfield Knowledge Hub.
The campaign started with an audience of 40,000 profiled people.
Month by month, our unique feature called “Always-on, Always-perfecting” had matched a further 255,000 prospects and added them into the campaign.
Dynamo gave Cranfield a 638% growth in audience at no additional cost – you simply don’t get this with standard email campaigns.
Over 300 people had opted-in to their Knowledge Hub via this channel at the time of writing and are now part of Cranfield’s regular HubSpot marketing plan.
It also delivered 373 hot leads, and 43 event registrations.
The move to Dynamo was cost neutral for us, and provided impressive results compared to previous campaigns.
Dynamo has delivered a consistent stream of new leads without the need for additional input.
It’s a powerful tool, supported by a dedicated team who are always looking for ways to maximise impact and add value.
4 reasons why Cranfield preferred Dynamo lead nurturing to standard email marketing?
- It improved their targeting by profiling the prospect data with propensity modelling so that it looks more like their best customers, which in turn led to more engagement and subscribers than had been achieved previously.
- It marketed to people as individuals and responded to their preferences so Cranfield could learn more about what a good prospect looks like, and be there at the right time for them.
- It helped them reach larger audiences for the same budget. Every week Dynamo assessed which prospects were most engaged and topped up the campaign with fresh data to match, inclusive in the cost. We call this unique feature “Always-On, Always-Perfecting”.
- They could expand their cold outreach program without interrupting their day jobs. It used automated journeys, supported by our own expert humans - so we did the heavy lifting for them.
I’ve written a few stories like this one recently.
The Suzy Lamplugh Trust experienced something very similar to Cranfield. You can take a look here:
https://datahq.co.uk/client-stories/suzy-lamplugh-trust-reach-far-bigger-audience-for-their-personal-safety-training
Dave Battson
Data HQ Operations Director
Connect with me on LinkedIn
About Cranfield Executive Development
Leadership for Good: Transformative executive education for a new era
Cranfield is a new breed of business school, sensitive to world events and operating at the unique intersection between industry and academia, redefining executive education for organisations and individuals with high quality, innovative, full-service corporate learning solutions that are transformative by design.
https://blog.som.cranfield.ac.uk/knowledge
About me, Dave Battson
I’m Dave, Operations Director at Data HQ. Sometimes more colloquially known by our team as The Oracle. At Data HQ, we’ve been giving Sales & Marketing more commercial oomph since 2001 and I’ve been behind the wheel for almost all that time. I’m a numbers man at heart and I love how the combination of analytics, propensity modelling and good data can help clients achieve their goals. I’m always available for a chat if you need a hand with your lead generation work
Connect with me on LinkedIn
Related case studies and ideas
The Suzy Lamplugh Trust
Suzy Lamplugh Trust reach far bigger audience for their personal safety training.
- 2 min read
- 1 min read
In Equilibrium
Training firm 'In Equilibrium' secures 60% conversion with quality telemarketing data.
- 1 min read
Stories come to life when our people use their own words.
Our stories and ideas direct to your inbox
Ready to give your sales & marketing more commercial oomph?
Chat with a real person on 01245 807 470.
Prefer us to contact you?
Enquire online