CIENCE Technologies

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m VP of sales and marketing at Give and Take. We’re a startup that makes knowledge collaboration software.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with CIENCE Technologies?

We needed more leads and appointments. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

CIENCE Technologies provides lead generation and appointment setting for us. Their research team finds names along the lines we ask for. We’ll give guidelines for the audiences we want to target, such as senior HR titles at companies with more than 10,000 employees. 

Their business development reps (BDRs) then set appointments for us to do demos. We work together for the scripting process. CIENCE Technologies writes four pitch emails at a time, and I’ll edit each draft to how I like them. 

While lead generation and research are their two main services, CIENCE Technologies also has written pitches, created a few landing pages, and provided strategy as needed.

What is the team composition?

Oksana (Customer Success Manager, CIENCE Technologies) is our main point of contact and account manager. We currently have one research person and one salesperson or BDR. We used to have two teams, but we don’t anymore because of cash flow issues on our end. 

How did you come to work with CIENCE Technologies?

I was looking for companies that do outsourced insight sales. I interviewed a couple of companies, but while searching around, I found CIENCE Technologies and that they are a HubSpot preferred partner. Since we work with HubSpot, that made me call them. I ended up choosing CIENCE Technologies over another firm that’s run by a colleague of mine. Their costs were lower and their approach was much more scientific. 

How much have you invested with them?

We currently spend $5,000 per month, but we used to spend $10,000 per month.

What is the status of this engagement?

The partnership started in April 2019 and is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

CIENCE Technologies does great work: their research team is particularly on point. We just hit 85 meetings. We were expecting 1–2 per week at least. On a good week, we get one appointment a day. They’ve surpassed our minimum metric by far.

They require a little bit of oversight; whenever we go after a new audience, we have to tweak some things to make it the way we want it. The writing hasn’t always been great either, but that doesn’t bother me so much. It saves me time if they start the process and I tweak from there. I’m very happy with them and would recommend their team.

How did CIENCE Technologies perform from a project management standpoint?

Oksana is fantastic: I have no complaints about her. She’ll always bring an issue to my attention before I even know about it. The salespeople we’ve worked with are really friendly. We have a call every week, and they use Google Data Studio reports to show me what works well, who’s responded, and other data points. They’re available and responsive whenever we need them. I was nervous about working with an outsourced team, but it feels very easy and natural to work with CIENCE Technologies. They’re like a part of my team. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their price blows everybody else out of the water. Plus, CIENCE Technologies’ name reflects what they do: they follow this super scientific formula for figuring out what works and what doesn’t. Organized and routinized, it seems like they’ve dealt with whatever problem we’re experiencing 100 times before. Any company can say that, but we really feel that with CIENCE Technologies. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

They could have better writers. Their writing has missed the mark sometimes. They also have a pretty short onboarding process where I fill out information about my business and they take it from there. I don’t know if they need more information or just lack high-quality writers.

Any advice for potential customers?

Be really responsive because CIENCE Technologies will be responsive. If any slowdowns occur, it’ll be on our end. Also, stay as involved as you would be if this were an internal team. The more you help them out and supervise them, the better results you’re going to see.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We’re a stock image company and provider that focuses on targeting marketing teams for e-commerce platforms. I work on the platform solutions team. We foster strategic partnerships with various companies whose users have a need for our assets on their website. For major CMS systems, people are able to license our images without event leaving the platform. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with CIENCE Technologies?

It’s a difficult process to determine a strong target account. Typically, we have to do manual website research to determine how their users would benefit from an API integration. We were looking for a vendor that can help take that legwork off of my team, so my team could focus on the actual outreach aspects of our roles.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They were able to take a list of all the accounts that we’ve reached out to in Salesforce and look for brand new accounts that were good fits for our company. Not only were they need accounts, but they had a true need for our services. 

I worked closely with their team to identify a good fit. We started by showing them links to blog posts from existing partners. That helped them determine how to define which companies would be good partners in the future. If the content was being created on the platform actively, that would be a solid match. They provided these fits to our CRM, so we could pitch them on API integrations. 

What is the team composition?

I worked with Sara (Enterprise Sales Executive, CIENCE Technologies) and Natalie (Research Development Captain, CIENCE Technologies) on searching for good account fits. 

How did you come to work with CIENCE Technologies?

I did a Google search and interviewed several companies. They were the first and only vendor that understood what we needed and was able to help us with the research aspect of the project. Others offered us data enrichment services, which we didn’t need. They were able to do what we needed. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent about $2,000 on the project.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started the project in October 2019, and our collaboration is ongoing. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

If we can close a handful of the accounts we were given, the engagement will be more than worth it. There were about 70 companies that were not good fits, so they retroactively replaced them with better options after we did a deeper dive into our target audience. 

I appreciate Sarah’s willingness to check in on us for updates. She clearly sees this as a longer-term relationship. That type of personalized service was really great for us. We bought 700 accounts from them. 

How did CIENCE Technologies perform from a project management standpoint?

The team handled the project very well. Sarah took over about halfway through the project, so I was really impressed with her ability to provide us with high-quality accounts. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their initial effort to thoroughly understand what we were asking for made them stand out from other vendors. They didn’t try to push additional services onto our team, and their team worked with us to accomplish our goals. The customization that they were willing to provide really set them apart from other vendors. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

Initially, we could’ve determined what would make a good fit earlier in the relationship. That would’ve helped us on the first pass. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They can adapt themselves to fit your needs. If you let them know what you’re looking for, they can deliver to your process. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the demand generation lead for an internet company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with CIENCE Technologies?

We were looking for ways to accelerate our lead gen program and give us more top-of-funnel leads to pursue.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

CIENCE Technologies used to provide outbound sales development. We’ve replaced that service with an internal staff, but we had a good experience with their team. They picked up where our previous internal sales development rep (SDR) left off. We provided them with a lot of content, but CIENCE Technologies was able to come up with responses in the moment. They then effectively transitioned the process to our current sales reps.

Currently, CIENCE Technologies researches contacts at companies that we’re targeting for business—finding new contacts or enriching contact information. They’re also doing projects to confirm or clean up data for us. We give them lists of companies related to our upcoming shows or the top companies in those industries, and then they find information on those firms. Once we have that information, our sales team reaches out.

What is the team composition?

I have two points of contact. Julia (Senior Lead Researcher, CIENCE Technologies) is our primary researcher. She leads a team behind the scenes. Her manager, Dima (Senior Team Captain, CIENCE Technologies), is on emails to observe. We also work with their billings departments.

How did you come to work with CIENCE Technologies?

Our company was already working with them when I joined the team, so I don’t have any insight into that.

How much have you invested with them?

We spend $8,000–$10,000 per year. They’re bringing us about the equivalent of a full-time, domestic lead-gen employee.

What is the status of this engagement?

I started working with them in April 2019, and the partnership is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

On average, they deliver about 100 great leads per week.

How did CIENCE Technologies perform from a project management standpoint?

Julia is great. She seems to be available 24/7 given how fast she always responds to my messages. She’s willing to have meetings with me within 48 hours of scheduling them. I can’t say enough good things about the whole CIENCE Technologies team.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I don’t have too much insight into other providers, but CIENCE Technologies is a nice hybrid of services. They can fill in data and think outside the box, but they also can churn out high-quality leads for us.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I have no real complaints. I’d love more insights into the research process—I don’t actually know how much staff are working against our account. It’d be interesting to learn more about the process.

Any advice for potential customers?

Make the most of your relationship by knowing what you want beforehand. Define your customer base and give CIENCE Technologies targeting goals to hit.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the marketing manager at a biotech service provider.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with CIENCE Technologies?

We wanted to gain more leads and exposure because we didn’t have the workforce to reach out actively.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We had an initial conversation with CIENCE Technologies. Their team provided a questionnaire that we filled out to the best of our knowledge. Based on that information, they built a template that we reviewed and approved. Their team accrued a lead list according to our target group. They reached out to those people multiple times and in different ways such as e-mail and cold calls. Then, they made appointments with us, which was their conversion. If data showed that changes would be effective, they made changes after asking for our approval.

What is the team composition?

I speak with Vladimir (Head of Service Delivery, CIENCE Technologies) and two other people on their team.

How did you come to work with CIENCE Technologies?

They sent us waves of e-mails asking us to consider their services. One of our team members said it was worth a look. We talked to them and CIENCE Technologies seemed like a good fit.

How much have you invested with them?

In one year, we spent a little above $50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in October 2018 and their work’s ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

We started with a conversion rate of 1–2 appointments per week. Once we fine-tuned the template and the workflow, we started to gather 8–9 minimum appointments per week.

How did CIENCE Technologies perform from a project management standpoint?

We have weekly meetings to talk about the past week’s performance. Whatever we have to say, their team listens. They’re flexible and responsive. CIENCE Technologies never provides a response beyond a couple of hours. Their team’s available, which is great.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their responsiveness and flexibility most impress us. CIENCE Technologies keeps up with the data and responds to our comments to make positive changes to the template and their strategy.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t think of anything for them to improve.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

CIENCE Technologies is worth a try. They’re flexible with contracts, offering monthly, three-month, six-month, and yearly options. Their team’s open to whatever you’re comfortable with.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Our company helps brands to succeed with their Direct-to-consumer sales channel by providing an end-to-end ecommerce solution and operating partnership.

As the CMO of the company, I'm responsible for the lead generation initiatives including sourcing, qualification and nurturing of accounts that match our ICP.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire CIENCE Technologies?

We hired Cience to help us with the market research and scoring of our sourced accounts.

What were your goals for this project?

The goals of the project was to constitute a database of qualified accounts to fuel our sales & marketing team or outbound and inbound tactics.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

Reviewed several partners to whom we could outsource the process of researching data on businesses. Cience was proved to be very flexible and approachable.

Describe the project in detail.

Cience agents are being provided with different sources of companies to review. On a weekly basis, Cience reports back to us the list of all accounts reviewed and qualified. Weekly meetings are used to discuss the focus of the coming weeks and adapt the process/criteria if necessary.

What was the team composition?

1 agent, then 2 agents + a account manager

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Drastically increased our CRM with non qualified and qualified accounts alongside firmographics, technographics, market data and trends for easy lead scoring.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Generally speaking, rather effective.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They have a high level of flexibility and are willing to help and adapt to our needs and availability.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Some errors in the enrichment of data that were fixed.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the president and owner of a company that manufactures plastic injection molds. We’ve been in business for about three years and have around 22 employees.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with CIENCE Technologies?

We had seen significant growth in our first three years. Despite doubling our sales year after year, we exhausted all of our contacts. We hired CIENCE Technologies to expand and diversify our customer base.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

At the start of the engagement, I filled out a questionnaire. After that, their team started researching growth opportunities that would end up being part of the campaign. The team at CIENCE Technologies performed cold calling and crafted a three-month email campaign for the business.

What is the team composition?

We work with a project manager and four other members of their team.

How did you come to work with CIENCE Technologies?

While I researched companies online, I was also approached by a few. I believe CIENCE Technologies was one of them. I narrowed my search down to three and received proposals from each. I felt the most confident in continuing my project with CIENCE Technologies.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested around $15,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

I first engaged with CIENCE Technologies over a year ago but didn’t feel the timing was right. About three months ago, we started moving forward with the campaign.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

The campaign is still ongoing, finishing up in about a week. I measure the number of opportunities we’ve established through the campaign. I’m also in the process of further engaging with those companies and actively quoting new programs for them. I decided that if I ended up with three new customers that gave me consistent business, then this would be a success.

How did CIENCE Technologies perform from a project management standpoint?

From a project management standpoint, they were great. My experience with CIENCE Technologies was extremely professional. Meetings were once a week. Their systematic approach made it all easy for me.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We’ve hadn’t worked with anyone else for this service, but one of the things that swayed me was their accuracy during the proposal phase. The research that their team brought back hit all of the marks. I felt comfortable working with them after seeing that list.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I’m happy with the process.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Anyone that was in my position would benefit from their service. I recommend working with CIENCE Technologies for a great experience.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of a tech company that sells a SaaS product.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with CIENCE Technologies?

Through technology, we’re trying to help employees with their benefits, but we needed to get our name out there.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The team conducted cold calls and emails in a lead generation effort, helping us set up appointments for interested clients. As part of that process, they built the script, allowing me to do final edits to assure our message correctly came across. Otherwise, it was clear that they knew how to structure the script. From there, they conducted research to find ideal contacts to call, and the team got right to it. 

What is the team composition?

We worked with a project manager, lead generation representative, a research specialist, and a scriptwriter. 

How did you come to work with CIENCE Technologies?

We found them on an online ratings and reviews website and noticed that they had served many happy clients in the past.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent under $10,000 on their services.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started the project in mid-August 2019, and the engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

Within three months of working with them, they’ve been able to set up 55 meetings with interested customers through their efforts. About half of them are high-quality leads. While we haven’t closed anything yet, we’re expecting Q1 of 2020 to be the opportune time to execute. At the start of our relationship, our main goal waws to increase awareness of our product and brand, which they’ve definitely helped us achieve.  

How did CIENCE Technologies perform from a project management standpoint?

CIENCE Technologies put 100% effort into project management. They were professional, detailed, and dedicated to producing high-quality work.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re much more cost-effective than other vendors we considered. They immediately take responsibility for their work, trying to move the project forward. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

The cold calls were less effective than their email work. It may be helpful if they could address that discrepancy in their script. Still, their results have been solid.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Invest a decent amount of time in helping them ramp up to be most successful. It’s important that they understand the product and the pitch. In these situations, it has to be both a financial and time investment in your partners. Their team will be very responsive to your efforts.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the Chief Revenue Officer of Marketplace Valet, a company that provides marketplace account management, sales, and fulfillment services for mid to large size brands and ecommerce companies.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire CIENCE Technologies?

We hired CIENCE for their B2B outbound lead generation services. Our ideal customer profile are multi million dollar brands selling consumer products.

Often it can be difficult to track down the right decision maker at such companies as the responsibility for decisions related to marketplace sales and services may cross several departments.

So we needed a service provider that could readily identify qualified prospects and set meetings with the right decision makers.

What were your goals for this project?

The goal is to set meetings with qualified prospects meeting the established criteria for my ideal customer profile. Additionally, this effort was to save our company and sales staff the time and resources typically invested into scouting and prospecting.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

After thorough research into several companies providing these types of services, I decided to go with CIENCE because of their great online reviews and what I perceived to be a reasonable price for all of the services provided.

Describe the project in detail.

For the purposes of lead generation and outreach, we wanted to do business with CIENCE for a 4 month period leading up to Q4. This is the ideal time frame for brands and ecommerce companies looking to gear up for the holiday, and thus an ideal time for setting meetings that could actually convert into paying clients.

My role was to oversee CIENCE weekly results, coordinate with Marivic to improve campaign metrics, and show up for the scheduled sales appointments. CIENCE was responsible for gathering and filtering data for outreach each week, email marketing, outbound phone calls, and linkedin messaging.

In addition, CIENCE developed a customized landing page for our campaigns, and set us up with a hubspot CRM account to manage prospecting.

What was the team composition?

CIENCE is a full service provider, and it certainly felt that way from the very beginning. I don't think I had a single weekly call with them that didn't include at least 4 team members.

Specifically, I want to give Marivic Josue praise as she was my campaign project manager, ensuring that all my requirements and requests were met. In addition to her role, there were folks that handled email content righting, email deliverability testing, prospect research, landing page development, and metrics analysis.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

In the first month, the team was able to schedule 2 meetings, including a massive publicly traded household electronics company. This really set the tone for the rest of the project, as this was exactly the type of lead that I was hoping to get in touch with. And I can confirm that the key decision makers were all on the line, and everyone clearly understood why the call was scheduled.

I mention this because I have used "other" lead generation services in the past that "schedule meetings" with your qualified leads just to find that I end up on the phone with folks that have no idea why they are on a call with you, vaguely remember ever scheduling anything at all, or don't know at all why I was calling in the first place.

I never had that experience with any of the meetings scheduled by CIENCE. Each passing month of the campaign generated a greater number of scheduled meetings. I would attribute this to the multi touch point efforts from CIENCE and the number of follow ups.

Ultimately the results that any business actually cares about are leads that turned into revenue. For our company our sales cycle can easily take 6 months, so I don't expect a quick close. However, I can say that I have sent proposals to several of the brands that held meetings with me, and I do expect at least one of these accounts to close before year end.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The reason that I chose to outsource in the first place was to save me the time of prospecting and managing that process. You will choose to outsource to a company such as CIENCE if you really want to be hands off in the process and simply show up to scheduled appointments. All communications and requests come in an organized fashion, directed by your account manager (Marivic in my case).

Summaries, recordings, and next steps are all included after each weekly meeting and posted into your secure client specific Basecamp account. So its easy to reference what the team is up to and what has occurred thus far.

So again, for the duration of the campaign, I was able to shift my focus to other business strategy initiatives at my company, while CIENCE took on the burdon of lead generation and prospecting for me. Compete and coordinated appointments were scheduled by your SDR, mine was Harley. She would handle any scheduling conflicts, working around both mine and the prospects calendars.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

What stood out the most to me was the number of team members attached to my campaign. CIENCE Technologies has certainly built a machine around the lead generation process. That's clearly what allows them to scale with clients.

Are there any areas for improvement?

I think that all of the outbound email efforts were the most effective part of the service. Unfortunately the outbound calls didn't work out. This could be just a sign of the times, with many folks preferring electronic communications vs answering a phone call, or perhaps it stems from a level of difficultly in clearly delivering the pitch to a brand over the phone the same why that I would.

Often there are nuances and particulars that I could easily cover in the conversation (after years of being in the weeds) that can be hard for anybody to quickly pick up and convey over a first phone call with a real prospect.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Instapage makes software that helps advertisers increase conversions through a combination of landing page optimization and testing. As the head of business development, I lead all business development efforts and technology partners while also managing our sales channels.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with CIENCE Technologies?

When I joined the startup team about a year and a half ago, we were struggling to scale up our marketing efforts. Our goal was to find a way to create a substantial pipeline of potential agencies and partners that we could eventually recruit to drive sales. CIENCE Technologies was brought in specifically for lead generation and appointment setting.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

CIENCE Technologies has become an extension of our outbound sales team. They’ve taken over the entire process of target scoping, lead scrubbing, and conducting outreach via email and phone campaigns to generate appointments. We have a dedicated researcher who helps us compile lists of top targets based on whatever requirements we give. Each line item on these lists has a proposed point of contact with all relevant information—email, phone number, LinkedIn, and website. 

CIENCE Technologies primary output is appointment generation. They manage the entire processing of setting up meetings. For example, we gave them the full list of attendees from a conference that we participated in, and they went through and booked meetings with the ones that matched our ICP. They managed all of our calendars, including rescheduling requests and cancellations.

The team is also responsible for updating our Salesforce database, either directly or through spreadsheets. We’re able to give them large sets of leads, and they’ll qualify them to figure out which companies fit our criteria based on our ideal customer profile (ICP).

They use internal automation tools to reach out to prospects on our behalf. They use various channels—email, phone, and LinkedIn for the most part—and have in-house copywriters who craft the messages. We did have to onboard the team at the beginning, but now they can rely on their own templates. 

They have our pitch decks, as well as some internal messaging and best practices, but they’re very self-sufficient. I’ll review their transcripts and such and make edits as needed. They also test various subject lines and copy to see which works best. 

What is the team composition?

Angela (Head of Accounts, CIENCE Technologies) is our primary business point of contact. She manages contract renewals and other administrative tasks. Angela manages all of their accounts, but we also have a day-to-day sales development manager who’s dedicated to our project. 

With those two team members, as well as our dedicated researcher, we have a team of three individuals working for us. John (CEO, CIENCE Technologies) is also involved, and I can bring him in at any time.

How did you come to work with CIENCE Technologies?

We met at the HubSpot inbound conference. They reached out to me and set up an appointment with their CEO. I went and had coffee with them, and they pitched me on their services. It was perfect timing because I had just joined Instapage and was looking for a way to scale my team without hiring internal team members.

It seemed like an excellent opportunity to test out a new pipeline augmentation method. We created a pilot plan with three tests for them to show how they generate leads. I ended up extending that three-month trial period, and then eventually offered them a contract.

How much have you invested with them?

My business unit spends $4,000 per month, which is just under $50,000 per year. There’s another business unit at Instapage that pays an equal amount.

What is the status of this engagement?

The trial period began in September 2018. I’ve been working with them for over a year now, and the partnership is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

The quality of work is fantastic, and their work ethic is second to none. CIENCE is an offshore team, but they’re available during US hours. We have weekly meetings based on my schedule, and whenever I give them a task, it’s typically done by the following morning. They’re also quick to answer questions at any time.

Compared to an internal team of sales development representatives (SDR), CIENCE is much more effective. They produce four times the outreach volume at a third of the cost. I’ve seen months where they’ve sent almost 6,000 emails, which is a crazy amount. Not only are they sending these emails, but they’re also converting them into appointments, and their conversion rates are at least two or three times higher than our internal SDRs.

How did CIENCE Technologies perform from a project management standpoint?

I’m super impressed with their approach. I’m the one who decided to extend our relationship after the trial period, and it’s because they managed the process so well. They’re flexible with requirements and always very responsive. Like I mentioned earlier, we have two business units that have independent contracts with them. That alone is a testament to the excellent work they do.

Our business point of contact is well-versed in the details of our contract. She’s great at maintaining our professional relationship. The CEO is behind the scenes, but we typically connect during quarterly or mid-year reviews. I can also escalate to him when I need to have more high-level conversations.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They deliver results, and they feel like a part of our team. We’ve had the same project manager throughout the engagement, and she understands our pitches and our ICP very well at this point. She’s able to answer emails and handle problems without my support because she knows our product inside and out.

We communicate with the team pretty regularly on Slack, and they very much operate as if they were internal, rather than a third-party entity. They’re also professional and collaborative, which sets them apart from other offshore service providers. Some vendors expect a ton of hand-holding, but CIENCE is proactive enough to get things done without our guidance.

CIENCE is also innovative. They test various subject lines and copy for email templates to see which ones work the best. They’ll also give me feedback about how the testing went, with specific metrics showing which templates performed well.

I’ve been working with them over a year now, and our working cadence is well established. They also understand our targets. We’re at a stage now where we can let them know about an upcoming event and trust that they’ll handle everything, whether it be templates, an event playbook, or just appointment setting.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They’ve improved a lot since we started working together. CIENCE is very methodical, and all of their data is easily accessible through a Google dashboard. I don’t even have to ask; I can look at the status of each campaign on my own time. 

The dashboard shows everything, from overall performance to reply rates, conversation rates, and appointment cycle times. We started using the dashboard within the past three or four months. As long as that remains, I don’t think there are any improvements to make.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

CIENCE is a great fit if you’re trying to drive a part of your sales pipeline or test our new messaging very quickly for a small price. They’re a good alternative for companies who are looking to invest in services rather than hiring and onboarding internal people. 

They can also complement your sales development team. CIENCE will do the grunt work to allow your in-house team to focus on pitching and closing deals. They can take care of the operational overhead that your internal team probably doesn’t like to do, even though it’s necessary.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm VP Sales & Mktg., responsible for all topline, revenue-producing activities and resources. This includes strategy, targets, marketing, sales.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire CIENCE Technologies?

All. We started in chemicals - selling catalysts. Cience executed top-of-funnel work - globally - and brought us about 25 qualified leads in 4 months. Since then we have branched out to other sectors, such as fuel cells, and medical devices.

What were your goals for this project?

1. Lower CAC/ROI-per lead. Industry benchmark is very high #.
2. "Show Up" at scale.
3. Understand Funnel/Pipeline Conversion Rates All 3 were achieved. Excellent numbers and return on the Project.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

Cienc did a good job standing out from the crowd. I was deluged with agencies asking for services after we received our seed funding. I know how hard the work is. Cience gave me 250 free leads (to impress me with their research tools), and asked for a pilot, which is what I really needed (not the research). I engaged with the Pilot and they knocked it out of the Park.

Describe the project in detail.

The Project has grown in scope to add multiple technologies. We've shifted our model from a longer sales cycle to selling shorter term R&D Projects to higher-qualified customers.

This shift resulted in a much harder sales model, which Cience has stepped up for. Cience delivers about 1 qualified lead per week, making our CAC abuot $1,000. The value of winning a Customer is huge and long-term.

What was the team composition?

Cience has impressed me with the depth and breadth of the team they put on ThruPore. There is a full-time Sales Dev. Rep., a top notch Market Researcher, a great Project Manager, and part-time Content writers and web-landing-page developers.

We did a Campaign involving Case Studies on a new Landing Page, with the ability to purchase our Products. We are excited to see if that tactic produces serious revenue for our very-high-tech sale.

Did I mention that a fully populated CRM comes with this work? The value of this data base tool alone that we now have is significant.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

The highlights:

• Increased Company reputation, size & scope (we showed up, we saw immediate and ongoing website hits tied to campaigns)
• Cost per Lead (CPL) = $1,000 (10x better than industry benchmark)
• Immediate feedback on new Product Ideas
• Known conversion rates
• Pure output: ~50 Meetings (Qualified Leads), 14000 emails across 800 companies.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Great. We have a very small team, a key driver for considering an agency. We worked great together, and I was able to spend more time on strategy and new product development. Ciecne did the very hard email outreach "showing up", following up, and working to secure meetings.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Incredible value. I didn't want a "list". I didn't want market research. I didn't want an inbound content marketer. I needed the ENTIRE PROCESS—research companies, research exec. targets, do the outreach, do the follow-up, do the communications, update the CRM, manage admin/funnel. On a global basis.

Are there any areas for improvement?

I really can't think of any. I said at the beginning of the Project .... "Shame on me if I can't keep this Team busier than a 1-arm paper-hanger."