SaaSMQL Case Study - Rapid7

Hey Ryan, how are you?

Hey Franco, I'm good, how are you?

Very good, thank you. So I'm here with Ryan Gazdaka, who is the Growth Marketing Manager at Rapid7. So Ryan, we We've been working together now for over 2 years, so I'm glad to have you here to kind of share your experience. Can you tell us why we started working together with SAS MQL and kind of what were you trying to achieve as a goal and what prompted the partnership basically between what was back then Insights and now Rapid7 and SaaS MQL.

Yeah, you bet. So we did start working together when I was a growth marketing manager at Insights around 2 years ago. And then we did get acquired by Rapid7. But when I was with Insights and still with Rapid7 going through the acquisition, I was leading our ABM strategy and, you know, having SaaS MQL and direct mail as a program in general, was pretty integral to our ABM strategy. The biggest reason that we signed on was I thought of it as a really good differentiator to have, you know, our target audience, like most of us are probably just sitting behind a computer a lot. And I just thought, you know, having a tangible piece of paper in addition to the other things that they get would just make a way for us to stick out. And then additionally making sure that collateral actually gets read just because there's a lot of case studies out there and this is just a way to make sure it gets in front of them in a unique way.

Awesome. And so what was kind of like, how was this campaign positioned across all the other things that you guys were doing at Insights from an ABM perspective?

We, we built it into our flow so that way when a net new person came in, we knew that we could nurture them in a certain way. Because I don't think, you know, from a direct mail strategy, when someone reads the case study or requests a demo, you should send this right away. I think that needs to be nurtured a little bit so they can understand who the company is, what we do, and how they fit into their landscape. But then when that time is right and they do get that package, I think it is just a really good way to get the foot in the door. And I don't have the exact numbers in front of me, but I do know that we've had this long relationship because it has been one of our best marketing programs, and not only in terms of scheduling the meetings, but also in terms of the ROI that we get too.

And obviously, like I mentioned at the beginning, we started working together over 2 years ago when you guys were still Insights, then you were acquired with a very successful acquisition by Rapid7. And so, and we continue working together in a larger company. So how did the program change after the acquisition? Because I remember we had a lot of value when we were Insights as a startup, but how did it change in a larger company?

Yeah, there's just a lot more people to talk to so they can understand the process and how it works and why we've been doing it and how we've been having so much success with it. But I'd say even more than that, like going from a company that was worth a few hundred million to a company that's publicly traded and worth a few billion was a, was a big transition. And having your team on board was great because they've always been super responsive. And, you know, working with a big company, there's just like more legal that gets involved. So just having like different surveys to fill out and making sure that things are done the right way and the processes are done the right way. Your team was super responsive, really quick to get back to us and helped out a lot.

Awesome. And one other question I have for you is, you know, obviously we run a lot of different campaigns in this 2+ years. Is there one in particular, one concept of direct mail ABM that we put together that worked better than others so that you, you know, it was more memorable than others that you liked in particular?

Yeah, we did try different, a few different things as far as like what to put in the box. I've always been a big fan of like the cookies and coffee. I think it's cool that they're kind of locally sourced. Too. So that's neat.

Yeah, we play with this like kind of local gourmet kind of experience for the prospect. But I know seeing a lot of the responses that you guys were receiving that, you know, they really appreciate kind of starting the relationship, that kind of outreach, right? Versus sending just an email like you were saying at the beginning or, you know, a cold call even worse or LinkedIn message. Starting the relationship, the engagement with something tangible, but also that they appreciate is a much better way.

Yeah, and especially for us too, working with people in cybersecurity, sometimes they're like a little hesitant to give out information. And we did start a relationship when people were pretty much exclusively working from home. So it was kind of cool to have them, you know, build that trust with us so that we could send something to their home versus an office.

Yeah, yeah, we were still in late 2020. So I was, you know, the pandemic was in full capacity. In fact, we, you know, we had great results even in a period where we had to navigate all of the, you know, the hassle of people being in hybrid mode or in lockdown.

Yeah, especially when we were targeting larger companies too. I mean, sometimes the package gets held up like at the front desk, you know? So just having it delivered right to that person is always great as well.

Yeah, absolutely. And so obviously, you know, a lot of companies do ABM and you guys have SDR doing a lot of outbound and everything. So why you decided to partner with us versus kind of trying to do that in-house between marketing and sales?

Yeah, I mean, you guys just made it super easy just to send in a list of people that we were targeting, and you guys basically just took care of the rest. We worked together on a good cadence to put people into as far as like what to say and when to say it. But then as far as like shipping the boxes and tracking them, you know, frankly, there's a lot of like time and effort that goes into that. So having your team do that besides doing that in-house was really a simple decision for us to make.

Awesome. Yeah, one thing I saw made a very big difference is once we built into a program, right, it was, there was a cadence set and sequences and flows put together that, you know, the programs could be scaled based on what results or goals you had for the following quarter or for the following months. So it became pretty easy to forecast even with all the data that we have with you how to, how to plan the next month, how many, how many accounts to target and all of that.

Yeah, yeah, we definitely had a good flow going for sure. And, uh, I like writing as well, so just like working with your team on writing the emails and what to say, and, and I guess more importantly when to say it in the cadence, was it— was a huge help.

Yeah, there's a lot of learnings I was in these 2 years of what something to tweak, uh, what works, uh, you know, how many emails we send, what we say before and after we target them with the package and all of that. Yeah, it's something I think, yeah, now the program is definitely very strong compared to when we started even 2 years ago when we have to learn these things. So my last question for you is obviously, would you recommend working with us to start or scale ABM program to another SaaS or cloud company?

Yeah, absolutely. I think that if someone wants to take an ABM approach and include direct mail as a part of that, Like I said, I think it's a great differentiator. You guys take a lot of the brunt work and make it easy. So definitely would recommend you guys to anyone who wants to try this strategy.

Fantastic. Thank you very much, Ryan. I really appreciate you taking the time and speaking with me today.

You bet. Happy to do it.