Revenue.io powers high-performing teams with real-time guidance. By surfacing and recommending what works best, Revenue.io enables hundreds of customers like Amazon, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, and Nutanix to deliver predictable results and optimize their revenue operation.

We spoke with Jesse West, Director of Lifecycle Marketing, who is responsible for providing prospects with content and workflows that resonate as they continue along their journey to becoming a customer. He draws on over 10 years of B2B marketing experience in shortening sales cycles and maximizing customer lifetime value.

Jesse shared why Revenue.io chose Qualified, their use case and learnings, and advice to those just starting their conversational marketing journey.

Here are some highlights from our conversation.

What challenges were you experiencing prior to using Qualified?

Jesse: With the previous platform, I thought that it was built in such a way that was really more dependent on people coming to us. It didn't give our reps the flexibility to proactively engage with someone who maybe wouldn't have otherwise engaged with the chatbot. I think that was something that Qualified did that our other vendor just didn't do.

As far as KPIs go, we were really trying to drive close, MQLs, Qualified opportunities, and revenue, nothing that out of the ordinary, but it was really powerful and apparent right away the effect that proactive engagement had on those KPIs.

Why did you choose Qualified?

Jesse: After the first 10 minutes of seeing the demo of Qualified, I had already in my mind decided that I wanted to switch to Qualified. One of the reasons why I wanted to switch to Qualified was your Salesforce integration is the best in the industry from what I can tell. It is built much like Revenue.io's purpose-built for Salesforce customers. So I love that. I love the deep functionality of Salesforce, but more than anything else, I saw the potential for proactive engagement. And I loved the idea that these leads that were on our site, it's like a fair hunting ground.

So we think of people coming to our site as inbound but there's almost an outbound component with proactive engagement, where our inbound SDR could suddenly become hunters in a sense, and actually go after the best leads that were on our site and tailor those conversations really well to exactly where they were on the site, what they're looking at, and have a lot more intelligent conversations based on that context.

What results have you achieved since using Qualified?

Jesse: During our first quarter using Qualified, we saw significant progress in our ability to engage with target accounts when they visited our website. We actually saw a 190% increase in sales qualified opportunities coming through Qualified after a single quarter than we did during the previous quarter with our other vendor.

Can you tell us more about your use cases?

Jesse: We're using Qualified to provide our prospects with contextual messaging on product pages. We're also using it on our demo page and our pricing page to use the idea of skipping the form, which is really cool. Instead of having someone go through the whole thing and fill out a form, Qualified just lets them get the demo process started or the process of getting pricing right away. Something that is really helpful for my role that Qualified is really great for is allowing us to recognize when existing customers are on our website and we're able to get them very different messaging that lets them actually get support, or get a demo of a new product that they don't already have, or set up a meeting with their CSM.

I've actually had customers reach out and say that they loved being greeted. They loved that they were recognized as a customer when they were on our site. Another use case that I think is really cool is that it also integrates with our ABM technology. When we have a segment that we've identified using that ABM technology, it can be recognized in Qualified and we can adjust our messaging, or we can make sure that our SDRs get alerted to know that someone who is part of this ABM campaign or someone who has shown intent or whatever, so that they can do a better job of focusing and prioritizing the right conversations and the right prospects.

What's one of the most valuable features of the Qualified platform for you and your team?

Jesse: I think that the most valuable feature is proactive engagement. I know I'm sounding like I'm beating a dead horse here, but proactive engagement is huge. And being able to see the context while they are engaging is really great as well. I love the idea of being able to separate leads into those streams based on different rules and stuff. That has been really cool.

I also love the shortcuts, they’re really helpful. I know this isn't a feature of your platform, but I think one of the most impressive things about Qualified, in general, is how amazing your customer success and support teams are. It is really the best support I have ever received from a technology vendor. And I've used lots of technology vendors. I've just been blown away.

What are some key learnings that you've had from implementing conversational marketing?

Jesse: I think a lot of it is about alignment and making sure that our sales and success teams understand the value that they can get from understanding buyer behavior on the website and the context of those visits and how they should engage. I think educating teams about the capabilities of conversational marketing and providing a roadmap is essential for success. Part of that is making sure that the SDRs really understand how to tailor those messages rather than just doing the same old, “Hey, real human here,” over and over again. If you reach out to a million people you're going to get some quotes, sure, of course.

‍But beyond that, you can get those opportunities a lot quicker I think if you really tailor the messaging. And I think that it's been no surprise to me that our SDRs who are the most successful are the ones who are game to put in that extra little bit of effort to personalize the messaging where it makes sense.

What is the biggest surprise that you've had in your conversational marketing journey?

Jesse: There have been deals that have come initially that have converted through Qualified that would have never been on our team's radar. We would have never targeted these companies in a million years. In fact, one of our deals was with an online cooking school that they came in through the Qualified chatbot. And we didn't know that was an industry we should be targeting at all. And that ended up turning into one of our biggest deals of the year. That was really cool!

What is some advice that you would give to someone just starting their conversational marketing journey?

‍Jesse: I think it's important to look at what all of your competitors are doing, who are using conversational marketing. And right now, almost everyone is using some form of conversational marketing. Look at something and see, “I think they're doing this wrong. I think that there's a better way of doing this.” Even before I implemented Qualified, that was my approach. I think it's important to see exactly how you can optimize those journeys.

If you don't know where to start, see what other people are doing and see what you want to personalize to work for your brand and see what you think isn't working at all. Because that itself might inspire something that you could do.

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Jesse, thank you for your time. We’re excited to see what Revenue.io does with Signals. Want to learn more about their Qualified strategy? Check out the Revenue.io case study.