Backstage sales team relied heavily on traditional sales strategies only, finding leads via cold-calling and fairs, which was slow, inconsistent and event based, and highly dependent on momentum.
While they had a clear picture of their ideal customer profile (ICP), reaching the right decision-makers at scale was a bottleneck as this is a time consuming exercise. Turning leads into deals isn't the problem, their product market fit has been established already.
They know who to reach out to when searching for the right people, but doing it on a large scale was a more challenging exercise. From trade fairs to connecting to the right stakeholders and converting clients that need developers, the challenge was sitting in hitting the right people, at the right time, in high volumes.
The key problems included:
Low volume of qualified leads, due to manual searching and event based finding.
Time-consuming manual research for each prospect.
No automated outreach system that operates based on AI segments.
Without a scalable system, even the best sales pitches couldn’t reach enough of the right people, limiting pipeline growth and slowing expansion into new markets.
To get grip on the right ICP, we've started an exercise together with leadership on what their ICP actually looks like and what resources would show signals of buying intent.
After finding qualified leads, we converted these into our scoring engine and based on signals and scores decide when and what to reach out to these individual prospects.
One of the more aggressive forms but effective forms of outreach are our email campaigns. Based on the lists we split them into 2 folders: mass outreach, tailored outreach.
When people are accepting the LinkedIn invite, they are put in the tailored folder. When people aren't replying to LinkedIn invitations they go into the mass outreach bucket. These buckets convert, mix and match when the lead actually scores a high confidence on possible close and won.
Step 1 – Data Mapping & ICP Definition
We began by refining the ICP criteria: industry, company size, technology stack, hiring signals, and decision-maker roles. This step ensured that every lead sourced matched Backstage IT’s high-value customer profile. Based on this, we identified the right tooling to take these insights from their leads and convert them in possible clients.
Step 2 – AI-Powered Lead Sourcing
We deployed a scraping and enrichment engine that captured website visitors, and creating ICP curated lists based on values we scraped from contact databases.
Based on these leads, we forward these with the right information scraped from for example LinkedIn and websites into a large database of potential leads to reach out to. All stakeholders are curated on the decision-making powers they have and are forwarded into a tailor made AI driven Sales Agent process.
One of the key AI solutions we've implemented is the hiring check. We scout the web for companies with open vacancies of developers. We know they have an urgent need and push them to the tailored outbound list explained below.
Step 3 – Multi-Channel Outreach Engine
Once qualified, leads were fed into an automated outreach sequence covering both LinkedIn and cold email. These outreach sequences are focused on converting the lead into a tailor made process that focused on contact and conversion.
Step 4 – Deliverability Optimization
We implemented a smart inbox rotation system that kept cold outreach messages out of spam folders, achieving a 98% inbox placement rate.
We built a fully autonomous lead-generation and outreach system for Backstage IT.
It sources ICP-qualified leads from multiple live data streams and requirements like hiring and more, enriches them with up-to-date business intelligence, and instantly initiates tailored outreach across LinkedIn and email.
The solution doesn’t just save time, it fundamentally changes the pace of sales.
We are now able to reach out to the best leads, based on intent and based on showing buying signals online. Instead of days of manual research per lead, the system finds tens of thousands of high-fit prospects in minutes, automatically starting conversations that convert.
Beyond the numbers, the impact was strategic and helps Backstage IT to be on top of the ball, and convert clients that show signals faster then the competition.
The team can now focus purely on relationship-building and closing deals, while the system handled the heavy lifting of sourcing, qualifying, and initiating contact. The Sales Engine is capable of self-learning what works and distributing it's capacity.
Within weeks of deployment, Backstage IT’s sales team had access to a lead pipeline that was previously unimaginable in volume and quality.
Key Results
of messages successfully reached the inbox
open rate on AI-personalized messages.
of all leads replied
