How N. Rich Used Intent Data and High-Velocity ICP to Boost SDR Productivity by 320% (Interview with CEO Markus Stahlberg)

Introduction to N. Rich and Talk Overview

Markus Stahlberg

00:01My name is Markus. I'm the CEO and Co Founder of Enrich. And Enrich is, as Jeff told, it's an account based marketing or nowadays we call it account based experience platform. It basically means that we help customers of like several size categories to automate their revenue generation and then also provide kind of become more data driven related to the revenue, operation revenue like processes, sales and marketing and so forth. And today the topic is how we

00:37used ICP and Indian data to boost SDR productivity by 849%. So that's quite a nice figure, and I'm sure everybody would be happy to see that kind of increase. And so in the presentation, I'll be sharing several examples. It's either from our internal experience or from our customers. So we have customers like a bit less than half of our customers are from The U. S, and the rest are from Europe, and from different categories like from

01:09seed stage all the way to enterprise. So we have a lot of data and insights into like how different companies approach ICP, how they use intent data and so forth. Yes, so let's get started. So there are basically three sections here today. So I'll start by talking about high velocity ICP, what it is and like how to identify it and so forth. Then talk a bit about intent data and how it relates relates to buyer journey.

01:38And then finally, giving you a couple of concrete case examples or playbooks related to these two concepts.

What Is High-Velocity ICP

Markus Stahlberg

01:46Okay. So let's start with the high velocity ICP. I'll start with a tweet from Jason Lemkin at Saster. So I think Nathan is not here, so I can use this one. So what he said there, I'll focus on the below one here. So just how expensive the incremental customer gets beyond your core highest velocity ICP. And this high velocity ICP is a concept that I'm sure not everybody is familiar with. I think everybody knows what ICP

02:18is, but let me ask like how many of you who operate in these kind of positions like have a defined ICP? If you can raise your hands.

02:29Some. So that's good. So the question there is like what is the ICP like, how was it defined? And let's first start by looking at what the high velocity ICP means. So here's an example from a client of ours and a screenshot from our product. So what we do is we basically differentiate between the high velocity ICP and non ICP. And what the high velocity ICP means is that it's an optimal combination of the deal size,

03:06the win rate and the sales cycle. So it's basically the cohort of your opportunities that turn into revenue fastest. That's essentially what it means. And if you look at the non ICP there and the high velocity ICP, you can see a big difference in almost all of those figures. And if you think about normal revenue teams, you wouldn't have an idea like you could go randomly targeting either of these, whereas obviously it would make sense to

03:37more sense to focus on the high velocity ICP.

ICP Across Different Growth Stages

Markus Stahlberg

03:43Okay, let's go forward, not backward. So then if we look at what ICP means and what kind of ICP you can actually have in different growth stages, this is an important question because it's not one size fits all. So for the early stage, you don't really have that much data available about your opportunities, you don't have so many clients. So it's more about trial and error. It's more about just like trying to figure out, get those

04:12first twenty, thirty, 40 customers. And after that, once you get to that point, then you can start actually using the data to identify like what direction should you be going with your ICP. So using the opportunity data and then you can go to the basically like a more account based approach, and you can start basically focusing on a specific type of companies within the ICP. And then once you reach scale or even enterprise, then it becomes

04:43a mix of these two. So when you launch new products, you essentially start from the early stage, you start from this pray and pray and start iterating and defining it again. And then some of your products might be in this like middle category already. But the idea is that the ICP is a constant process, so you should never think about it in a way that we define our ICP now and then let it go for a

05:09year or two years or whatever. So it should be constantly updated. This is a very important thing.

Common ICP Definition Mistakes

Markus Stahlberg

05:16Okay, then so what does the ICP look like? So we get different answers from different customers. Normally, everybody has an ICP. That's a typical answer that if you ask, do you have an ICP? They'll say yes. But then when we ask further, like, what is your ICP like? Quite commonly, we get a different answer from every person or no answer at all. People just can't define it. It's just like we have an ICP, but you don't

05:44know what it is. So this is quite common, especially in smaller companies. Then this gut feel ICP, think this is the most common one, which is like that everybody is telling you that the sales have defined it, but nobody can really exactly tell you why, where did it come from. So it's kind of sales knows what they are talking about. Sales has this data, they have the experience and they have defined it, but it's not really

06:07defined in a data driven way. This is like a quite bad situation to be in because you can't really trust that it's true, even though it could be true, but it's you are really taking a chance there. And the third option is then to go with the more dynamic and data driven ICP, which is based the opportunity velocity. Then it's clearly like more it will be more data driven. Okay, then I won't go this through in

How to Build a Data-Driven Sales Velocity ICP

Markus Stahlberg

06:39detail, but the idea is that with this process you can define your own sales velocity ICP. So there are basically three stages here. So you start by segmenting your current opportunity data based on firmographics or like different activity data that you have available. This depends business. So you might have specific business related metrics or like then just use general thermographics. Then you calculate the sales velocity based on that. You use the formula that I defined there.

07:12So it's basically win rate multiplied by average deal size divided by the average sales cycle. And then identify what is the highest velocity segment out of these, and then you will create a target addressable market using look alikes. So similar accounts with similar profiles, and then you have your Salesforce, the ICP. And this process should be repeated at least quarterly. So that's important, so it should never stay static.

Intent Data and the Buyer Journey

Markus Stahlberg

07:42All right, then going to the next section of presentation, this is basically like about the intent data, like what do you do after you have your ICP defined. So a very common mistake we see is that ICP is mistaken to be intent data, and then on the other hand that intent data is mistaken to be ICP. So it's important that you need both of these. So ICP is not going to tell you whether the account is

08:14ready to talk to your sales, whether they are ready to buy. It just tells you that this is an ideal customer after they are ready to buy. And then on the other hand, intent data. Intent data tells you that this account is ready to talk to your sales. They are ready to engage. They are potentially ready to buy. But it doesn't tell you is it a good opportunity or not. Like it could be a really lousy

08:35opportunity. So you need both of these at the same time in order to optimize your sales process and marketing process as well. Okay, so here we go actually in a bit more detail into how you can utilize the intent data. So I don't really like this tactical approach to intent data, which I see often. That's you just use tools like Bombara and then let your sales team utilize this. In an ideal situation, you actually use the

Five Stages of Buyer Intent

Markus Stahlberg

09:05intent data to define what is the current buying journey stage of the customer. And here it's been defined or divided into four stages, five stages. So we have cold accounts that have no intent at all. Then in markets, it's accounts that are researching this area, this category or your competition. Engaged means that they are starting to get engaged with your content. Hot means that they are really engaged and now you should start talking to them, are

09:32soon going to make their decision. And then you have pipeline where you actually have the account in the CRM.

09:39And then on the rows here, you have like what kind of content should be used. This is just the best practice. So like how we see that is the most efficient approach. So you have top of the funnel, middle of the funnel, and bottom of the funnel content. And you might be thinking like, why do you have in some stages you have several different type of content that you should be using? And the reason to this

10:02is that there are buying committees involved. So you don't just have one person making the decision, but you have different people within the organization who are in different stages of the buying process. So for instance, in the in market, we recommend targeting the champion. So targeting one specific persona who will start researching you and who will kind of start to introduce you your solution as part of their buying process. And then when they are engaged, then

10:28you know that, okay, now they already are researching us. You Then want to ensure that everybody in the buying committee are aware of your solution. So some of them are early, are top of the funnel, some of them are middle, and some of them are bottom. So this way you kind of combine this content strategy in a way that you ensure that the entire buy committee is engaged. And then, of course, you take the appropriate next

10:53step. So with the sales side, sales development side, you should go with the hot, not anything else. So this is a big mistake if you start addressing or targeting cold accounts or in market accounts or even engaged accounts. It should be only those hot accounts that the SDRs and the sales team is prioritizing. And this way you'll get the ideal results. Okay. So here is this is a more detailed description of each of the stages, so

11:18I won't go this through in more detail, but you'll get it in the slides. And then this related to that, so it's basically this is more for marketing, like how to scale your content distribution or campaign approach in these different stages. So it's called Sing, Shout. Is like always on, sing is like this middle sized campaign, and shout is then like a big short term campaign. So yes, this is the framework that we recommend using like

GTM Playbooks Introduction

Markus Stahlberg

11:54when you start thinking like what to do in each of these stages of the buyer journey. All right. Then going to the last section, so the GTM playbooks. So we'll start by the question we had in the beginning of the presentation. And as you may have guessed, the two actions here that were used are using the high velocity ICP only, and then on the other hand, using intent data. So these charts illustrate a real life case

SDR Productivity Results from ICP and Intent Data

Markus Stahlberg

12:27from a customer of ours in terms of like how much pipeline was generated by a single SDR activity when they focused on low velocity, medium velocity and high velocity ICP. So the difference is huge, it's almost 10 times bigger result that the SDRs got when they used intent data and high velocity ICP. So this is really like something that I really recommend experimenting with. And on the other hand, also on the AE side, the results are

12:58similar, not quite that big, but it's 434% increase in terms of the revenue that is affected by the single AE activity.

13:09Really good results you can get, and it's kind of logical when you start focusing on the high velocity ICP, you will get better results. Then we have a marketing specific, more like a tactical playbook here. So this helped us to increase the conversions by 50% or so on our in terms of our marketing efforts. And this playbook is in simple terms, it's to use your competitors'weaknesses as your strengths. So you research G2, Capterra, different review

Competitor-Weakness Playbook Using Review Sites

Markus Stahlberg

13:47sites and find out like what are those bigger complaints or main complaints that you are getting from those like or those competitors are getting. And then you turn those into your own strengths. But in order for this to work, you will need to find accounts that are researching your competition, So you'll need intent data. So you'll use intent data, you can use it on search, so competitive keywords when they are researching. So we I can tell

14:13you, we use Bombara here. And there are those things that like people were saying about Bombara. Then when people are searching Bombara on Google, our ads pop up and they will be addressing exactly the same concerns that people are having generally. You can use ABM advertising by targeting these specific accounts with the intent on a third party intent topic. LinkedIn can be used there. Outbound SDR outreach can be used there. And also like the sales you

14:42can include it to the sales process. So this is it's really tactical and not a major thing, but it's something that's definitely I'd recommend to try.

14:51And in terms of like how we recommend executing this is that you make it holistic. So it's not only the ad copy, but also the scripts and playbooks for the AE, so that they are clear, they understand like what is the difference, like why your product is better and what sucks with your competitor's product. And then if you have any case studies available from your customers for testimonials, that's the best way to enforce reinforce this idea

Rolling Out ICP Internally and Getting Sales Buy-In

Markus Stahlberg

15:19that somebody gives bad reviews and you can get good reviews exactly of that same thing. All right, then to the last section here, so how to roll this ICP out. So like depending on your role, of course, like if you are CEO, then it's going to be quite easy to roll it out. But if you are a CMO or like Marketing Director, it might be a bit more difficult, especially to get sales buy in to the

15:49ICP. That's not easy ever. So here is again, we have data from one more of our customers. You can see the blue there is the opportunities created from ICP high velocity ICP and then red ones, those that were generated from non ICP. So the question is like, what's happening there? Like why are they not focusing on the ICP? And the reason the simple reason is that it's difficult. It's much more difficult to generate pipeline from ICP

16:17compared to the non ICP. So SDRs, naturally, their tendency is to go towards those kinds of accounts. And this goes all the way back to the how do you incentivize the SDRs. If it's from the meetings, then this is what will happen. If it's from revenue, then potentially they will realize that it makes sense to focus on these high velocity ICP accounts rather than the non ICP. So you can see there the win rate difference. So

16:4227% versus 7%, average deal size is 10x, which kind of there's no point to focus on the non ICP. So what we recommend to do, this is also like an Excel sheet that is included in the package. And here, like what we did was that we basically replaced 10% of the non ICP only 10% of the non ICP with the ICP, and that yields €6,200,000 in additional revenue. So you are not kind of replacing the whole

Revenue Impact of Replacing Non-ICP with ICP

Markus Stahlberg

17:13thing, you are not changing everything. It could be one, two, three SDRs who are actually starting to do this. Then after you have that kind of results to show, then it will be very easy to convince everybody that, you know, let's just focus on the ICP. All right, good. So to sum up, so we talked about the high velocity ICP, what it is, how to recognize it, what is the how to use intent data to define

17:36the different stages of the buyer journey and then went through these three playbooks. So I hope you have enjoyed it. Happy to connect if you want. There are my details. And yes, happy to help if you need anything. So thank you very much.