An interview with Koen De Witte, Managing Director & Founder of LeadFabric
We sit down with Koen De Witte, Managing Director & Founder of LeadFabric. Since 2008 LeadFabric has been a pioneer in aligning the sales and marketing operations of their clients with the needs to their buyer audiences.
What problem does LeadFabric solve for its clients?
Our expertise lies in assisting clients in maximizing their revenue through the optimization of their GTM (Go-to-Market) strategy, ensuring functional alignment between sales and marketing, implementing effective demand generation techniques, and devising robust sales acceleration strategies.
As the Managing Director and Founder, what are your main responsibilities at LeadFabric?
I am focused on refining our own Go-to-Market (GTM) strategy and strengthening LeadFabric's positioning against global system integrators, global media agencies, and local marketing agencies. Concurrently, I adeptly manage a highly international team and actively pursue the ongoing development of our organization.
How do you lead your team to manage and improve the sales process for better revenue and the customer experience in LeadFabric?
We try to practice what we preach by leveraging synergies and optimizing conversion rates between our marketing reputation and demand generation efforts. This approach enables us to effectively reach a broad audience within our Ideal Customer Profile (ICP), with the goal of generating responses that our Sales Development Representatives (SDRs) utilize to initiate contact and cultivate qualified opportunities. Additionally, both our SDR team and field sales teams strategically target pre-defined accounts within our ICP, leveraging a comprehensive dataset that encompasses behavioral insights from first-party and third-party data sources including intent data.
At ColdFire, when we look at our clients' revenue-related strategies, they vary greatly. Some have found a single, scalable client acquisition process while others thrive on a mix of top-of-funnel strategies. How would you summarize the high-level revenue-related strategy of LeadFabric, and what key elements contribute to its success?
We do both. While we utilize traditional targeting and conversion strategies for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs), our approach extends beyond merely pursuing individual prospects or leads. The differentiating factor lies in our commitment to understanding the dynamics and composition of the buying group. By engaging with the various stakeholders within the group, our marketing and Sales Development Representatives (SDRs) aim to identify and pass on qualified opportunities, rather than mere leads, to our sales team. In addition, we also employ Account-Based Marketing (ABM) tactics and strategies to effectively target and engage predefined accounts.
What strategies have you implemented at LeadFabric or past companies that you feel are often overlooked by CEOs which you believe are unique and effective?
Many CEOs in the EMEA mid-market, especially those whose performance numbers do not get published every quarter, often delegate the responsibility of marketing and sales strategy and excellence to their sales and marketing leaders. It is peculiar because these functions are the ones that truly drive the company's engine. Surveys conducted to explore the areas of interest for these CEOs reveal that they are more focused on financial performance and HR aspects, in addition to the "big themes" that carry a high level of hype, such as AI, climate change, and sustainability. While it is important to consider these topics, it is essential to maintain a balanced approach and not overlook the immediate opportunities in pursuit of future objectives. I actively play a role in ensuring that our Go-to-Market (GTM) strategy remains dynamic and relevant, rather than being a stagnant blueprint that gathers dust on the shelf. We continuously refine it based on the outcomes of our marketing and sales efforts. Additionally, we define and maintain our Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) to ensure that our targeting aligns with our evolving business objectives.
Has your management team experimented with some kind of cold outbound strategy (like cold email)? If yes what was the general outcome and if no, why not?
We do 'some sort' of cold outbound. But not random. We check the ICP match, we leverage existing data, especially intent data we source from intent data providers and we use intelligent sales engagement solutions like Outreach to manage these outbound sequences at scale.
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