How Revenued 2x'd MQL growth with influencer marketing

The Challenge: Find new growth opportunities

Revenued is a strong, profitable company that has operated for the last 12 years and served over 10,000 small businesses in the United States. 

Having already scaled paid marketing and SEO, Revenued sought to further expand its customer base by experimenting with new channels. 

However, as a privately owned company, maintaining profitability was key. 

Revenue approached Demand Conversion to strategically test new channels and increase the number of qualified leads coming in each month. 

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Data-Driven Process: ICP research

To construct a high-impact experimentation program, we needed to understand specific ideal customer profile (ICP) behaviors more deeply. 

Our research steps:

1. Qualitative: Targeted customer interviews and surveys, focusing on both current user base and business owners who fit Revenued’s ICP criteria.  
2. Quantitative: Segmenting ICP groups that had the highest LTV, robust retention, and CAC payback through analyzing user base data.

After speaking with Revenued’s ideal customers, we uncovered influencer marketing as a potential channel which could be developed and scaled to acquire high-quality leads.

Through our interviews, we identified the social media platforms Revenued’s ICP used and even specific examples of influencers they turned to for relevant advice. 

We also used interviews and surveys to refine our messaging and the way we were addressing tailored pain points.

This meant we had everything we needed to begin developing our influencer marketing strategy. 

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The Strategy: Become a known, liked, and trusted brand through influencer marketing

Although 85% of B2B mid-market and enterprise brands in the US have added influencer marketing into their mix, 53% struggle to identify, qualify and engage with the right influencers (2023 B2B Influencer Marketing Report). 

However, this wasn’t a problem for Revenued, as we’d already consulted with their ideal audience and identified the types of influencers and online communities they trusted for recommendations. 

We used this as our starting point and expanded our list by looking for similar creators. 

Over the course of 6 months, we took a methodical approach by testing:

• Channels. We knew our audience trusted Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, LinkedIn, podcasts, and newsletters. We formulated hypotheses about which would be more effective in driving acquisition and validated them with experimentation. 
• Content formats. Our research found that Revenued’s audience prefers to consume content in a range of formats. We tested short-form video, long-form video, audio, short text posts, and longer newsletter sponsorship placements. This allowed us to see which resonated the most with our ICP.
• Influencer size. We partnered with micro, medium, and mega influencers. This allowed us to see how effective each audience size was in terms of Cost of Acquisition (CAC) and conversion rate to qualified leads — and whether it was more strategic for us to work with micro or mega influencers (or a hybrid).  
• Industries. Using our list of most profitable industries, we tested to see which industries were the most responsive to influencer marketing, and which platforms and content formats were the most effective.
• Compensation structures. We trialed fixed payments and a hybrid commission model to determine how we could best create joint value for Revenued and those they partnered with – incentivizing influencers to create higher-impact campaigns across their platforms.  

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Some of our collaborations

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The ROI: 2x MQL growth QoQ

Influencer marketing has become a core part of Revenued’s marketing mix, driving 17% of total qualified leads (compared to 5% previously).

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When asked about their experience of working with us, here's what Revenued had to say:

‍“I found Michelle and her team to be very effective in honing in on the customer and identifying primary channels for driving growth. The insights they developed through a series of customer interviews were invaluable for shifting our brand focus. I recommend engaging especially where a sharp focus on customer behavior is needed.” - Solo Lax, CEO

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