InsideSales.com Dreamforce ‘14 Success Story

By  Thomas  Oldroyd,  Senior  Director  of  Marke9ng  for  InsideSales.com,  Leo  

Dirr,  PR  Journalist  for  InsideSales.com    &  Laura  Wilensky  ,  Manager,  Partner  

Marke9ng  for  Salesforce  

“We’ve been exhibiting at Dreamforce for seven years, and every year the conference gets bigger and better” InsideSales.com CEO Dave Elkington

How did they pull it off? With math and hustle, not magic. Using its own sales acceleration technology, InsideSales.com immediately followed up with its 7,981 Dreamforce leads to quickly expand its sales pipeline. And now its energetic team has agreed to share its secret sauce.   “We’ve been exhibiting at Dreamforce for seven years, and every year the conference gets bigger and better,” InsideSales.com CEO Dave Elkington said. “This was our most successful year ever. Dreamforce generates incredible revenue growth for sponsors like us.”

InsideSales.com has been perfecting its Dreamforce playbook for the past seven years. Ken Krogue, the company’s president, shared his trade show marketing secrets in two Forbes articles, which you can read here and here.   The InsideSales.com Dreamforce strategy revolves around people, processes and technology with a laser focus on capturing leads and converting them into customers as quickly as possible.

InsideSales.com Captures 7,981 Unique Leads at Dreamforce 2014

#1 The Right Event Team Is Crucial: Choose Wisely

“Our goal is to connect with as many prospects as possible and show them how they can increase sales by as much 30 percent in as few as 90 days,” said Mick Hollison, Chief Marketing Officer at InsideSales.com.

Some vendors hire contractors to staff events. InsideSales.com bucked this trend by bringing an army of young, aggressive salespeople to do demos, scan badges, set appointments, and escort qualified prospects from its booths to its meeting rooms for deeper dives.   A contingent of 20 executives and a strong supporting cast rounded out the company’s Dreamforce armada totaling 81 employees.

“This year, the response was nothing short of phenomenal, particularly among large enterprise companies who turn to InsideSales.com for its game-changing technology and proven expertise in creating high-performance sales teams.”

InsideSales.com didn’t view Dreamforce as just a four-day event in San Francisco. Its business development reps launched an ambitious calling campaign four weeks before the show to pre-schedule appointments and demos, dangling drones and other cool swag as incentives.

#2 Practice Makes Perfect: You Get What You Give

During the conference, InsideSales.com promoted its presentations in the partner pavilion and breakout rooms. Employees passed out fliers to boost attendance at its sessions on the power of predictive analytics and the future of sales. “One executive of another tech company actually called his team together and busted their chops for not hustling like InsideSales.com does,” said Thomas Oldroyd, Senior Director of Marketing.

They also organized a virtual event at Dreamforce for sales teams across the country who couldn’t make it to San Francisco. InsideSales.com invited the brightest minds in sales, including Jill Konrath, author of “Agile Selling”, Trish Bertuzzi, president of The Bridge Group, and Anthony Iannarino, executive sales coach, to share their secrets in its meeting rooms and broadcast their presentations live over the Internet.   The marketing team provided air cover with airport signs, billboards and 500 taxi-top ads featuring the famous InsideSales.com cheetah. This creative branding built up strong buzz across the campus.

#3 Use Technology: InsideSales.com Sales Acceleration Platform

“Our secret sauce has always been immediate response,” Hollison said. “We could never contact our thousands of Dreamforce leads quickly enough without the InsideSales.com sales acceleration platform. This breakthrough technology enables us to follow up immediately, which means we fill the sales pipeline and close deals faster.”   InsideSales.com tossed leads back to headquarters and scored them -- in real time -- during the show. Its team in Provo, Utah, quickly began calling and emailing these new contacts using PowerDialer™ for Salesforce to further qualify them and schedule appointments.   The company’s research, which has appeared in the Harvard Business Review and other high-profile publications, shows that if you call a lead within five minutes, it increases your chances of contacting that lead by 100 times.   Another important finding hinges on persistency. InsideSales.com has discovered that if it makes six call attempts before giving up on each lead, it can capture 90 percent of the value from its leads. Its technology empowers its sales team to be pleasantly persistent.   InsideSales.com created a handy infographic that provides a nice summary of its Dreamforce playbook. We are proud to say that with all our efforts we were able to close 10 deals in 4 weeks post Dreamforce. Click here to view the infographic now.  

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