1

Executive summaryWhen Odyssey needed to find new opportunities in its increasingly complex industry, it did something it had never done before: partnered with a lead generation company. LeadCrunch ran Odyssey’s best customers through its artificial intelligence-powered predictive targeting engine to create a list of lookalike sales targets. LeadCrunch then syndicated Odyssey’s thought leadership content to this lookalike audience. What LeadCrunch delivered back to Odyssey were leads that were not only a good fit but were also engaged with Odyssey’s content. Odyssey was able to then take these marketing qualified leads that included accurate contact details and turn 44 percent into appointments for demos, a big boost over the industry average of 9 percent.

LeadCrunch also generated a list of lower-funnel prospects that Odyssey could nurture and eventually convert. When all was said and done, LeadCrunch helped Odyssey accelerate its pipeline process by over 34 percent, boosting revenues, as well as its list of lower-funnel prospects. LeadCrunch’s predictive targeting engine also provided deep customer insights, detailed personas, and critical engagement metrics. Today, Odyssey is well positioned to grow in the hotly contested logistics and transportation industry.

CASE STUDY

LeadCrunch helps Odyssey boost pipeline by 34%

About OdysseyOdyssey Logistics & Technology Corporation (Odyssey) is a global logistics provider with a freight network of $2 billion. Recognized worldwide for its deep expertise and advanced technology, the company provides best-in-class solutions using the industry’s most innovative strategies. Headquartered in Danbury, CT, Odyssey ranks high in Inbound Logistics Top 100 Third Party Logistics report and Gartner’s 2017 Magic Quadrant for Third Party Logistics North America report.

Odyssey serves the chemical, retail consumer, energy, food, medical, metals, industrial, and manufacturing industries. With operations in North America, Europe, and the Far East, Odyssey provides companies with intermodal, trucking, managed, and international transportation services. The company operates in all modes of transportation including TL/LTL trucking, ocean, rail, air, bulk transport, ISO tank, railcar, and tanker as well as food-grade product lines.

Odyssey provides solutions that cut costs, boost process efficiencies, and increase freight spend visibility. Its global logistics platform offers clients a management solution that supports the safe, reliable, and efficient delivery of products. While its WIN (web integrated network) solution offers a scalable technology solution with accelerated deployment and faster time to value. These solutions streamline and simplify logistics and transportation management.

Learn more: www.leadcrunch.com

2

The challengeSurviving in the $1.4 trillion logistics industry isn’t easy. Companies in the industry must battle fierce competition and numerous external challenges, like overcapacity, rate pressures, sluggish demand, and political doubt, if they want to grow and thrive. With expenditures declining for the first time since 2010 and logistics spending constraining economic growth, many logistics companies are finding it harder and harder to deal with the industry’s growing complexity and internal chaos.

Even long established leaders, like Odyssey, are feeling the pressure within the industry. Savvy companies like Odyssey stay leaders by finding new business opportunities. But Odyssey’s old method of doing so—which included following up on leads generated at trade shows and cold calling purchased lists no longer cut it. It was inefficient, cumbersome, and slow. Unhappy with the method, Odyssey tried something it had never tried before. It used a lead generation company.

Odyssey partnered with LeadCrunch to help it find new opportunities in the logistics industry.

After an internal review, Odyssey partnered with LeadCrunch to help it find new opportunities in the logistics industry. Since it was the first time that Odyssey had worked with an external demand gen company, it wasn’t sure what to expect. But LeadCrunch made it easy. “At first, we weren’t sure how the program worked, so we were rather hesitant to commit to it. But after speaking to a sales representative and researching its history, we felt confident LeadCrunch could deliver on its promises,” says Christopher Lavalle, Odyssey’s win business development leader.

LeadCrunch launches multi-step campaignPartnering with LeadCrunch paid off. It launched a multi-step guaranteed content engagement campaign that would uncover new opportunities for Odyssey. The strategy behind the campaign was simple: build an audience of prospects similar to Odyssey’s top customers, engage those prospects with thought leadership content, then verify engagement with real human interaction.

LeadCrunch would then help Odyssey by providing buyer journey and engagement data, as well as nurturing the leads to ultimately drive higher conversions. LeadCrunch kicked off Odyssey’s campaign by first generating a lookalike list of companies to target as new business opportunities. To create the lookalike list, LeadCrunch fed the names of 25 of Odyssey’s best customers into its predictive targeting engine. This proprietary lead gen tool is powered by artificial intelligence. The tool analyzed millions of data points across the digital footprints of Odyssey’s best customers and produced a holistic data model. It contained Odyssey’s best customer “DNA blueprint.” LeadCrunch leveraged the model to find highly relevant matches to Odyssey’s best customers, then created a hit list of key targets for Odyssey’s sales team to target. The list also contained prospective buyers at each company that Odyssey could engage with its thought leadership content and eventually sales outreach. Efficient and effective, the approach saved Odyssey time and money.

Outreach program boosts credibilityNext, LeadCrunch implemented an outreach program designed to increase Odyssey’s credibility with companies on the lookalike hit list. The program positioned Odyssey as the “go to” provider in the industry. The effort included syndicating thought leadership content with key strategic touchpoints. LeadCrunch also created a content hub on its thought leadership website to generate digital engagement through both organic SEO and email for Odyssey. This content hub provides informative, intelligent research on top technology topics. A key element of LeadCrunch’s engagement campaign was measuring precisely how

Learn more: www.leadcrunch.com

3

often and how long prospects engaged with Odyssey’s content. Unlike other lead gen companies, LeadCrunch provides complete visibility and transparency within the campaign, so Odyssey knew where its program stood at all times. In addition, LeadCrunch used human validation to verify content engagement. That helped Odyssey accurately assess the level of interest of buyers at all the key prospects. Odyssey’s sales team then reached out to prospects on the list armed with insights from LeadCrunch’s best practices program. This phase of LeadCrunch’s campaign helped the sales team convert the most relevant and engaged leads on the lookalike list using buyer and engagement data.

It also helped Odyssey determine lower-funnel prospects. The team then contacted prospects and scheduled demos. Odyssey closes 25–50 percent of prospects that receive demos. Those not interested in demos got a mix of content in a nurturing cadence based on proven best practices. This means they were provided 80 percent thought leadership content and 20 percent sales outreach emails. Thought leadership content included whitepapers, by-line articles, ebooks, and eguides as well as webinars, case studies, industry reports, and comparison guides. Odyssey’s sales team continues to follow up on these prospects with a goal of scheduling a demo.

The resultsPartnering with LeadCrunch paid off for Odyssey with a 30x ROI. The effort accelerated Odyssey’s pipeline appointment process by over 34 percent. Within 45 days of initiating LeadCrunch’s intelligent campaign, the company booked 44 percent of the leads from its target list to live demos — an unprecedented rate for the company and one well above the industry’s average of 9 percent. LeadCrunch’s campaign also provided Odyssey with a list of lower-funnel prospects, accompanied by deep customer insights, detailed personas, and critical engagement metrics. To drive continuous improvement, LeadCrunch feeds prospects that generate demos as well as sales back into its lookalike engine. This allows its clients like Odyssey to benefit from the AI. The predictive engine gets smarter and more targeted with each campaign, since it recursively learns from each prior campaign. The results of this learning are more precise leads and insights and, ultimately, lower acquisition costs. Thanks to LeadCrunch, Odyssey is well positioned to remain a leader in the logistics industry: “LeadCrunch delivered solid leads for us just as they said they would,” says Lavalle. “The people at LeadCrunch were great to work with throughout the process. They kept us informed and up to date on everything from start to finish so we could make sound decisions.” Today, Odyssey’s future looks bright.

Learn more: www.leadcrunch.com

4

About LeadCrunch

The problems we solveDespite technology advancements, even the best marketing teams get very low conversion rates throughout the funnel. Plus, most marketing teams must argue constantly to get revenue credit for marketing influenced leads. Conflicts with sales over lead volume and lead quality are never-ending.

These problems stem from B2B complexity. B2B buying behavior involves multiple stakeholders, evolving buying criteria, and an elongated consideration cycle. The sales and marketing tech stack has thus far only increased this complexity.

Our experience designWe think differently about how to find and grow lasting B2B relationships. Scaling relationship development with artificial intelligence (AI) necessitates a data model that describes the B2B ecosystem. The data must not be a snapshot in time but a network of ever-changing people, ideas, and companies. Mere firmographic models are too inaccurate and simplistic.

Scaling relationship development also means analyzing not just your hand-raisers, who convert infrequently, but your ideal customers. With such profiles, AI can predict who will buy and their buying capacity and buying longevity, not just who will respond.

Because the B2B ecosystem is constantly changing, your marketing model must learn continuously, too. The LeadCrunch always-on AI platform adapts to competitive threats, ideas that are changing market perceptions, and changes to your solution portfolio and business strategy. This continuous learning means tightly integrating content marketing with audience targeting, delivering a stream of proactive insights, and feeding outcomes back into the platform to improve targeting and insights.

Above all else, the design must simplify the complexity and make marketers the new maestros of shareholder value.

Our servicesWe make it easy to pilot our AI-driven B2B marketing system. No complicated tech stack integrations. No long-term commitments. Only pay for qualified leads who engage with your content. We can also nurture the leads with your content, identify additional personas within an account for your sales team to engage, or even engage and nurture those additional personas in each account. Each lead is multi-touch verified and guaranteed to meet your campaign criteria and contain valid data.

Learn more: www.leadcrunch.com