Sysdig drives greater engagement and faster conversions at a lower cost with hyper-targeted lead generation strategy

Challenge

•   Sysdig is driving the secure DevOps movement, empowering organizations to confidently secure containers, Kubernetes and cloud services. The company needed to engage a distinct audience that is often difficult to reach due to its relatively small population and the specificity of its roles and titles in an emerging category.
•   “We’re not really targeting the software engineer. We’re targeting the cloud and security architects and DevOps leaders,” says Maya Best, a Digital Marketing Specialist at Sysdig. However, “there’s not a lot of DevOps and cloud people because it’s just such a new industry.”
•   In addition to promoting its solutions, Sysdig wanted to position itself as a trusted resource and advisor for cloud security architects along their business’ journey from legacy systems to cloud-based workflows, “whether they’re just getting started or ready to move into production,” says Maya.

Solution

•   As part of its overall strategy of leveraging LinkedIn’s ABM tools and Lead Gen Forms to identify and connect with high-intent accounts, Sysdig created a promotional campaign for simplified onboarding of their SecureDevOps Platform. “It’s a groundbreaking capability within our industry and something that we really wanted to garner interest around among our audience,” according to Maya.
•   The Sysdig Team decided to launch a live virtual announcement event and used LinkedIn Conversation Ads to drive awareness among LinkedIn members in its highly specific target market. The ad gave a short summary of the event content and included a giveaway offer of a free T-shirt with registration.

Results

•   The Conversation Ads campaign generated a few hundred registrations in 10 days at less than a $50 cost per lead — the lowest cost Sysdig had ever incurred for a program through LinkedIn. “Typically we see a prospecting CPL with static images of around a hundred dollars,” says Maya.
•   In addition, the lead gen forms associated with the ads showed completion rates greater than 70% depending on job titles. “We even saw >90% completion in some cases, which is the most we’ve ever seen at that type of volume,” Maya notes.

Authenticity drives greater engagement

•   Sysdig created friendly and educational messaging for the Conversation Ads, and used an actual employee at the company as the sender, which helped build more authentic connections with targeted prospects. To optimize this tactic, Sysdig conducted A/B testing on the efficacy of different job titles and roles for the sender, which showed that the more relevant they were to the recipients’ roles, the greater the engagement.
•   “I think when people get approached, especially the DevOps and security architects, it’s important for them to understand it’s coming from a peer,” said Shanta Kohli, Vice President of Demand Generation at Sysdig, adding that her team members are focused on positioning themselves as trusted advisors.

Replacing trade shows

•   LinkedIn Marketing Solutions also helped Sysdig replace the void left by in-person trade shows, a key element of the company’s marketing strategy before the coronavirus pandemic. Previously, the company had used LinkedIn mainly to share content such as e-books and white papers on a piecemeal basis.
•   “COVID really has made us evaluate our channel mix and how we’re pivoting to reach our prospects,” Maya explains. “We needed to integrate virtual events with lead generation to create an experience that simulates that of a trade show.” By taking full advantage of the range of LinkedIn tools, the company was able to quickly transition to digital engagement and lead-gen strategies that produced results.

Dramatic increase in conversion speed

•   The Sysdig team also noted a significant increase in the speed of conversions as a result of their LinkedIn outreach activities compared to other channels.