Opportunity

Greenhouse had gained a position in the market as a leader in talent acquisition technology among small and mid-size businesses, and it was time to move even further up-market.

“At one point, I was at a roundtable breakfast meeting with about ten small business CEOs. Every one of them was using Greenhouse,” said Greenhouse CEO Daniel Chait. “It just confirmed what I thought to be the case: we needed to move up-market and expand our enterprise customer base.”

VP of Marketing & Strategy Maia Josebachvili agreed and was confident in Greenhouse’s ability to do so, but the company’s rapid growth meant she was already leading several time-consuming, high-value strategic initiatives and needed outside support to develop the right enterprise marketing strategy.

“I knew of Owl as a smart firm that could tackle strategic marketing projects,” said Josebachvili. “The challenge I posed to them was this: develop a strategy for expanding our enterprise customer base, and make sure we leveraging account-based marketing tactics to do so.”

Approach

Owl approached Greenhouse’s situation with a wide lens view, taking the following steps to ensure long-term success with enterprise customer acquisition: [p]

  1. Analysis of Greenhouse’s business. Owl started by gathering and examining a broad range of information. In addition to having discussions with the Greenhouse teams at the company’s New York headquarters and its offices in San Francisco, Owl analyzed Greenhouse’s recent business results, competitive position, broader business goals and sales and marketing organizations.
  2. Strategy and goal-setting. After gathering and digesting a range of information, Owl worked with stakeholders to develop clear goals that were measurable, impactful, and financially viable for Greenhouse. Given the goals, Owl worked with Greenhouse to identify three big moves Greenhouse should invest in to grow its enterprise business.
  3. Tactical planning. With goals established, the next step was to develop a tactical marketing plan that included clear activity milestones, pipeline targets and roles and responsibilities. Different promotional channels, including advertising, lead nurturing, events and content marketing were incorporated in the plan. Implementation guidance. Once it was clear what Greenhouse needed to begin executing on, Owl helped develop creative assets for Greenhouse, set up technical infrastructure, and socialize Greenhouse’s account-based marketing strategy.

"In just a couple of months, they managed to work on strategy, tactics, creative and technology. It really saved us time, developed our thinking, and let us hit the ground running in the new year."

- Maia Josebachvili

Recommendations

In the process of forming Greenhouse’s strategy for expanding its enterprise customer base, Owl provided a range of recommendations:

  • To set Greenhouse up for long-term success, Owl recommended adjustments to some elements of Greenhouse’s overall go-to-market strategy, including its lead scoring model, lead lifecycle model and targeting criteria. Owl advised Greenhouse to first focus on a few closely connected set of personas that were essential to their sale before expanding to other audiences.
  • Given the focus of the plan on an enterprise HR audience, Owl collaborated with Greenhouse to center the tactical plan on account-based marketing initiatives–both offline and online–and advised on the technology needed to support such an approach.
  • For ongoing improvements and longer-term success, Owl proposed an iterative planning approach that would allow for quick adjustments Greenhouse’s marketing campaigns yielded results.
  • To align teams and ensure marketing and sales were on track to achieve their enterprise revenue targets, Owl recommended developing a cross-functional ABM team that would meet regularly to review results and adjust tactics as needed.
  • Finally, Owl delivered a series of recommendations and considerations for how to mature Greenhouse’s enterprise marketing strategy over time.

Results

By taking a look at the business overall and considering high-level goals and strategies alongside operational and tactical requires, Greenhouse:

  • Began marketing to enterprise prospects more quickly. Sales and marketing leadership was able to focus on a strong end to their calendar year while Owl helped set them up for addressing a new segment of the market right at the start of the year.
  • Developed a greater level of confidence in its ability to acquire enterprise customers. Greenhouse hadn’t focused so strongly on enterprise customers in the past, and a clear strategy and plan made the path to success much more apparent.

“The quality of Owl’s work was exceptional,” said Lauren Ryan, Sr. Director of Growth Marketing at Greenhouse. “I was consistently impressed at the caliber of thought that went into their work and the strength of their deliverables. It was really smart work.”

“Owl left us with an outstanding head-start in our enterprise marketing efforts,” said Maia Josebachvili. “In just a couple of months, they managed to work on strategy, tactics, creative and technology. It really saved us time, developed our thinking, let us hit the ground running in the new year.”