This article is for anyone who has ever done manual cold outreach or built their own prospect lists.

Identifying your ideal target companies and then coming up with a customized, relevant message can be tedious and time consuming. The alternative of blasting out an identical message to hundreds or thousands of leads will save you a lot of time, but it isn't going to produce nearly the same results.

We wanted a solution that would use events (or triggers) to indicate if a company is a good fit. Then we can speak to that event in our copy. Basically, a way to make contextual, authentic outreach, automated.

Enter, Data Signals.

Table of Contents

  1. What are Data Signals?
  2. Why should you care?
  3. Job Postings
  4. Recently Hired
  5. Demographics
  6. Funding
  7. Conclusion

What are Data Signals?

We define a Data Signal as a specific event or trigger that "signals" that a company or person is in the market for what we're selling. The goal is to identify leads based on their stage, pain points, and needs, not just their job title.

For example, posting a job opening for a Creative Director indicates the need for creative help. Or, hiring a bunch of new contract workers indicates a pain point of managing lots of 1099's.

With this approach, campaigns become highly targeted and customized, and will convert at a much higher rate than generic campaigns.

Why should you care?

Using data signals will generate a 5% improvement in the positive response rate of a campaign conducted over Email and LinkedIn.

We reach out to roughly 1000 leads per month, and expect response rates anywhere from 10-35% depending on the targeting (company size, seniority, etc.). So, building campaigns around specific signals or events means 5-15 additional meetings per month!

Let's break down some examples of real campaigns and their results. Keep in mind that all our contact data is verified within the last 30 days, filtered and manually scrubbed before we use it...so our starting point for "generic" campaigns is still  better than most.

Job Postings

Contact companies that have an active job posting for specific positions or roles. This indicates they have a need and budget for help in a specific area that your solution can address.

Job Postings signal vs. title based outreach

  • Staffing Agency reaching out to companies with technical job postings - 14.2% positive response rate versus 10.7%
  • Hello Outreach (that's us) reaching out to companies with SDR job postings - 23.9% positive response rate versus 19.3%

Recently Hired

Contact decision makers that have started a new job within the last few months. These Recently Hired decision makers are more likely to work with outside venders to get up and running quickly.

Recently Hired in the last year vs. been there over a year

  • Marketing Agency reaching out to head of marketing - 19.3% positive response rate versus 13.9%
  • Hello Outreach reaching out to heads of sales - 19% positive response rate versus 16.3%

Demographics

Contact companies that have a specific workforce demographic (who is on their payroll), which can tell you if your solution/product is relevant to their needs.

Demographics SEO team members

  • SEO Data Provider reaching out to heads of marketing - 18.8% positive response rate versus 13.2% positive response rate

Funding

Funding events work well to identify companies that are looking to scale and spend money on recruiting, marketing, and sales solutions.

Recently funded vs. generic startup

  • VC Firm reaching out to founders - 25.6% positive response rate versus 21.5%

Conclusion

Whether you plan to communicate through email, LinkedIn, or snail mail...Data Signals are the foundation for authentic, highly-relevant campaigns that generate 5% more positive responses than generic campaigns.

If you're interested in learning more about how to take your contact data and turn it into a real LinkedIn campaign, check out this article: https://blog.hellooutreach.com/linkedin-outreach/.