Overview
Zellar is an all-in-one sustainability platform for SMEs. Founded in 2019, the company's product allows business owners to fast track their sustainability efforts, save money and track and share their progress towards net-zero objectives.
As Zero Emissions deadlines approach, businesses are lost, do not know where to start or how they can achieve their Net Zero goals. There is also a large gap in the SME market in terms of knowledge and tracking solutions that help businesses asses the impact of changes in their emissions, as well as costs.
A common misconception is that achieving Net Zero will cost a lot of money, but the truth is that becoming more sustainable can be incredibly cost efficient, and in fact helps businesses to save money. There is therefore a strong need for Zellar's offering in the SaaS space.
Challenges
I began working on Zellar's product growth strategy in August 2022. There were two key issues that the business needed to tackle:
- The product had achieved some growth and adoption thanks to specific regional partnerships, but they were struggling to scale to a larger customer base, and the existing marketing strategy was not working as there were deep gaps in the value proposition, communicationss and channel mix. Lead generation was therefore falling through, and the leads that were generated were not being nurtured through to conversion.
- Customers who did join the platform felt lost, and were churning rapidly as the product did not have an effective onboarding experience. The CRM and customer engagement experience was also lacking, and businesses were not being properly informed using email and in-product notifications.
Approach
Value Proposition
One of the objectives at zellar was finding the problem/solution fit. A value proposition is the core of a business, shaping the brand, messaging, and product development priorities. I worked as part of a cross-functional team working to distinguish the brand from competitors and craft messaging that resonates with the target audience, pinpointing and amplifying exactly what makes Zellar uniquely compelling.
Using the paid ads as a testing board, and taking a deep dive into data and analytics, I flexed my copywriting muscles, working with the marketing team to develop hypotheses regarding the audience and message, rapidly designing experiments to test these hypotheses, and using the data to inform further tests.
Lead Generation
With Zellar's existing lead generation strategy not working, I began by conducting an audit of the existing channels and campaigns, as well as what was happening to leads, and how they were nurtured. This included looking at the existing Zellar website, and the forms that customers had to fill in order to express their interest. This led to a CRO audit of the full funnel, in order to optimise the lead journey. I wireframed new designs, and wrote copy that clarified the value proposition, conducting multivariate tests to optimise the page using data-led strategies.
Zellar's lead-gen strategy was also not structured, and there were no lead capture campaigns in place. After leveling up the website, my focus turned towards creating lead generation campaigns, with a focus on content marketing landing pages. Guidebooks and forms were put behind emailgates in order to generate leads that were highly interested, while also keeping the friction low.
Lead Nurturing
As a next step, I turned my attention towards the CRM and sales process, conducting a full funnel audit, and finding gaps in engagement with new leads, including lack of communications, and unclear value proposition. Some leads were also not being contacted in time by the sales team due to data capture issues.
Paid Media
While the business had been running paid media campaigns focused on activating their regional sponsorships, there was no structured, nation-wide paid media strategy aimed at acquiring customers or generating leads. We therefore took advantage of the new content marketing approach to enhance the paid media campaign. The new content that had been developed was adapted to paid media campaigns, and I worked to build paid campaigns, landing pages and conversion funnels.
As the account manager, I developed the paid media strategy, including targeting and budget allocation, and optimised the campaign on an ongoing basis, generating thousands of leads at costs a fraction of what the business had previously been spending.
Activation & Retention
A key part of my involvement at Zellar was driving retention and activation through product marketing initiatives. While I used data insights to inform the product team of gaps and issues with the product that were hampering activation and retention, I also took charge of the CRM and CEM activities, launching email campaigns, building automated journeys, customer segments and audience groups as well as trigger-based messages with the ultimate objective of improving customer activation and retention.
Results
As a result of my strategy and involvement along with a cross-functional growth, product and marketing team over 6 months, Zellar's business achieved a complete step change, including:
- 10x user base
- >50% decreas in CPL
- >80% increae in Lead conversions
- >40% increase in customer activation
