THE BACKGROUND
On behalf of Eneco GroenGebouw, we wanted to test a sustainability proposition among sports clubs in the Netherlands. We had three clear starting points: we wanted to communicate in a relevant and personalized way, be able to scale quickly, and stay cost-efficient in our outreach.
The biggest challenge wasn’t the proposition itself, but defining the target audience. When you approach “sports clubs” through traditional channels like LinkedIn or Company.info, you end up with a broad and fragmented list of organizations: football clubs, swimming clubs, tennis clubs, indoor sports centers, and all kinds of other sports organizations.
This diversity makes it almost impossible to create a homogeneous group where a single storyline is relevant to everyone at once.
THE IDEA
Instead of starting broad, we deliberately chose focus. We decided to select a single niche and approach it fully and systematically. The choice fell on: hockey clubs.
This meant we went looking for specific data on these hockey clubs, wrote a story specifically for hockey clubs, and chose an avid hockey player as the sender of the outreach to make the story even more personal.
THE PROCESS
The process started with data collection. Via Hockey.nl, we gathered all hockey clubs in the Netherlands. Using Clay, we scraped, enriched, and supplemented this data with relevant contact information.
We then developed a specific sustainability story for hockey clubs. Instead of a generic message about sports facilities, we explicitly tied into their pitches, clubhouses, energy consumption, and club structure. And we gave the story a personal touch by including a personal passage from our own dedicated hockey player.
For the outreach, we used Lemlist to run a large volume of 1-on-1 email outreach in a short amount of time. We split the story into 3 different emails to create multiple touchpoints, which allowed us to achieve a higher response rate.
Every email was automatically personalized by processing the relevant club’s logo into a visual “sustainability scoreboard.” This way, we combined scale and automation with personalization and relevance.
THE RESULT
Within a few weeks, we reached the entire target audience within this niche, with well above-average results in terms of reach, response, and follow-up conversations. (We won’t share the exact numbers here, but feel free to give us a call about it 😉
The niche approach proved effective and scalable. The model can be replicated for other sports categories, and therefore for other clearly defined markets (such as tennis, football & golf).
This GTM approach shows that, especially by using Clay & Lemlist, you’re more than ever able to run fun and creative sales campaigns in a way that doesn’t take much time.
Selecting 267 hockey clubs, gathering contact data, and collecting club logos via Clay made it possible to run automated personalization at scale through Lemlist.
