Adarma creates a targeted sales strategy with LinkedIn Sales Solutions

Adarma is a UK-based cyber security leader delivering on the promise of cyber resilience. They sought to target organizations with CIOs or CSOs based in the UK, but ran into difficulties narrowing down the sheer amount of lead data they had access to.

Peter Carlisle, Chief Revenue Officer at Adarma, explains, “People would bring out spreadsheets of 5,000 to 10,000 customers – all valid sets of data. We could scrub the data manually, but that would take four to eight weeks. The challenge was to access the data in a way that made sure we were maximizing our time.”

Adarma uses LinkedIn Sales Insights (LSI) and LinkedIn Sales Navigator to define their target market and
find the right buyer circle members within those organizations.

The depth and breadth of business data available through LinkedIn products enables custom targeted
leads discovery, delivering the right contacts at the right companies. Carlisle explains, “Having a list of
companies that you want to talk to doesn't really help you unless you know who to go and talk to at
those companies. That's why we use Navigator with Insights – it bridges that gap.”

Through the use of LSI and Sales Navigator, the cross-functional team has been able to clearly define their target market and the data is no longer in a silo. “It connects everybody,” says Carlisle, “Because sales feels they are driving marketing efforts and marketing feels they are taking the actions sales is looking for, so there’s value in that.”

“I think we had a spreadsheet of 37,000 leads,” says Carlisle, “With LinkedIn Sales Solutions it's now organized into target prospect lists, with 35-50 customers on each. Each of these lists is in a target vertical with the right profile in growth mode, and the right executive structure that we can go and talk to today.”

This tailored strategy has allowed Adarma to engage in activities that build lasting business relationships. “If we're selling into the right target market,” Carlisle says, “Those customers will see the best of us and have the best experience, ultimately becoming advocates for us themselves.”

It can be difficult to get buy-in when introducing new software solutions. LinkedIn Sales Navigator and LSI’s intuitive UX allowed the team to see results in real-time. Carlisle shares, “Demonstrating that using LinkedIn solutions was easy and wasn't going to require a lot of training or a huge change in behavior enabled me to sell it to the organization.”

The tool also keeps the team flexible to adapt as business priorities shift. Carlisle notes, “I now can discover leads in an evolving way. Today I'm going to sell to these people, and then next month I might add these hundred. I always know who I’m selling to, even though that answer continually evolves.”

By using tools native to LinkedIn, you get the full advantage of having brand-forward interactions with prospective clients. Carlisle explains, "The things we say and the stories we share on LinkedIn increase our brand exposure. I fully understand the power of that brand opportunity. Navigator offers us a way to build on that."

Adarma also built on their employer brand, “We have collectively created a mood around the company on LinkedIn which other people have tapped into,” Carlisle adds. “As a result, I've had people get in touch with me saying, ‘Your company looks great! Can I come and work there?’“

“There was a company-wide problem that needed to be solved. Everybody in the organization – investors, leadership board, salespeople, marketing – was invested in understanding who our target market was. And we couldn’t answer that question because we didn't have a user-friendly tool that enabled us to actually do that.”

Peter Carlisle

Chief Revenue Officer (CRO)
Adarma
“Using Navigator with Insights bridges [the] gap between figuring out which companies you want to talk to, and knowing who at the companies to reach out to”

Peter Carlisle

Chief Revenue Officer (CRO)
Adarma