Smartsheet: Using Data, Insights, and Alignment to Maximize Win Rates

Since its founding in 2005, Smartsheet has become a trusted partner for growing businesses and enterprise brands alike, including over 80% of the Fortune 500. 

After achieving impressive growth through both strategic acquisitions and product-led strategies, Smartsheet set its sights on becoming the recognized leader in modern project and portfolio management (PPM), marketing and creative management, and strategic transformation initiatives.

To put those plans into action, Smartsheet is partnering with ZoomInfo to leverage advanced customer acquisition techniques fueled by best-in-class data, timely market signals, and tight alignment across go-to-market teams. 

Targeting Growth With Relevance, Personalization

Smartsheet empowers millions of users to plan and execute projects, processes, and programs of all shapes and sizes. With its user-friendly interface and powerful features, Smartsheet helps teams work smarter, faster, and more efficiently.

The company has long since proven that its solutions are a great fit for several key personas, which makes reaching well-qualified prospects with relevant messaging a cornerstone of Smartsheet’s growth plans. 

“Since our offerings are useful to many different businesses and teams across industry and function, relevance in marketing is key. Having that right personalization, and pairing it to the right person, is something we’re always trying to improve,” says Kassia Bennett, Director of Marketing Operations at Smartsheet.

“ZoomInfo is our one source of truth for account data, and even more so for contact data. There’s no other provider in the market that provides you with that level of detail.”

Thor Sanderson

Senior Manager of Sales Technology Enablement

Driving Alignment: Data Foundation, Actionable Signals

To execute against its ambitious growth plans, Smartsheet first had to nail its audience segmentation and targeting strategy. 

“Our segmentation strategy relies on having a deep understanding of the buying committee at each of our target accounts. We use firmographic, contact, and behavioral data to deliver a more personalized experience,” Bennett says.

If Smartsheet’s messaging and campaigns were to miss the mark, it could cost them precious time and money. By leveraging ZoomInfo’s data solutions, Smartsheet maintained a sharp focus and kept its efforts tightly aligned to customer needs.

Access to ZoomInfo’s top-rated intent data has enabled the marketing team to create more specific in-market segments based on buying signals aligned to key personas and solution categories. In addition, Smartsheet uses this data to guide account prioritization and plans to incorporate it into their lead scoring model and optimize their lead tiering structure over time.

Integrating these insights with Smartsheet’s Salesforce and Marketo instances has made it easier to connect the company’s internal processes and ensure they are infused with the most accurate data — all while reducing manual data processing. 

Smartsheet’s marketing team also lowered the barrier to entry for high-intent prospects using ZoomInfo’s FormComplete capability, which automatically enriches customer-facing form data, behind the scenes. As a result, Smartsheet captures more leads while still providing valuable information to their sales team.

“We achieved a 40%+ increase in form fills on every multi-field form where we added FormComplete,” Bennett says. “Our highest-volume demo form resulted in an 84% increase in MQLs sent to sales, a 26% increase in opportunity rate, and a 59% increase in win rate.”

Smartsheet also achieved a 3X increase in the average audience match rate using ZoomInfo Marketing for advertising campaigns, in a context where audience volume is incredibly important to achieve results.

Improvements on the marketing side carried over to the sales team. As marketing generated higher quality leads, reps were in a better position to build strategic client relationships. Access to the same robust database enabled Smartsheet to effectively nurture prospects at every stage of the funnel.  

“ZoomInfo is our one source of truth for account data, and even more so for contact data. There’s no other provider in the market that provides you with that level of detail,” says Thor Sanderson, a Senior Manager of Sales Technology Enablement at Smartsheet.

Smartsheet’s Plans for the Future

GTM plays aligned to core initiatives are becoming a key Smartsheet priority, across both marketing and sales. Adopting a multi-channel approach and leveraging automation wherever possible will also decrease the amount of time marketers and sales reps need to spend manually researching accounts.

“I want to remove as much friction from the prospecting and order process as possible, and ZoomInfo will be a key partner in that process,” Sanderson says.

In addition to driving team alignment, Smartsheet plans to continue using data to provide an exceptional customer experience. For example, the marketing team can turn intent signals from priority audiences into paid audiences and ensure that high-value prospects are added to a nurture stream at the right time.

“ZoomInfo is an incredible partner, always offering support and staying engaged in our business needs,” Bennett says. “They’ve connected me with the product team to make the right adjustments so our team can get as much value as possible from the platform. This is so helpful as we continue to hone the effective go-to-market motions in our strategy.”

A Data-Driven Path to Success

Smartsheet’s story highlights the power of sales and marketing alignment with accurate data. Partnering with ZoomInfo has not only helped Smartsheet improve existing processes, but also identify new opportunities for improvement across the company.

“Without ZoomInfo, it would be extremely difficult — if not impossible — to achieve our business objectives. Without it, we wouldn’t be able to understand the market, have the right contact data, and make meaningful connections,” Sanderson says.