DataGuard: 330% increase in MQLs in under six months

The challenge

In early 2020, there wasn't much of a marketing team at DataGuard—only a few members. They lacked the senior leadership needed to direct strategic initiatives and accelerate growth, and they needed to hire several different positions for a fully-fledged marketing function. The problem was they didn’t have the people, time, resources, or expertise to onboard and train a team. So, in May 2020, DataGuard hired Kalungi to stand-in, build the foundation, and hire an internal marketing team. 

DataGuard was looking for the speed, skill, and scalability to bring its marketing up to speed with the company’s growth needs. They required a solution to not only execute on daily marketing tasks but also the leadership and foundation to build their own team. They had three options:

1. Scale their own internal team with already scarce resources
2. Only hire a fractional CMO
3. Or only hire agency services 

In reality, they needed to find a way to do it all and meet their growth objectives. 

“We are quite a young company, so we had a lot of things that we wanted to improve in order to keep up with our fast-paced growth, and that was the reason why we hired Kalungi,” said Kivanc Semen, Founder and CEO. “When they joined, the marketing team was really small and the fundamentals were not there 100%. From messaging to the process to the tools—they were all missing. We needed a fast solution, and we needed a new approach.” 

Objectives 

• Increase Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs)
• Create new demand generation channels –Organic, Paid Social, Direct, ABM
• Upgrade marketing technology infrastructure (Hubspot)
• Launch a new website
• Build and hire an in-house team
• Hire a marketing leader  

The solution

DataGuard needed an ‘instant-on’ team to act on short-term wins and long-term goals–that’s when Kalungi’s outsourced marketing team took ownership of their marketing function. Backed by a proven playbook of best practices, Kalungi had the speed and skill to lay the foundation for DataGuard’s marketing function while helping them scale and build their in-house team along the way.  

“The uniqueness of Kalungi comes especially from this hybrid approach, combining marketing leadership and management capabilities with agency services,” said Kivanc Semen, Founder and CEO. “They had everything we needed, and it was really helpful for us.”

SPEED

DataGuard needed a solid foundation for marketing, which included hiring and training an in-house marketing team and driving growth in under 6 months. 

“I'm really impressed with the speed and how things were set up,” said Ines Quella, DataGuard’s new Head of Marketing. “Having the Kalungi team build up the marketing function  in parallel to setting up the internal team before phasing out is a really unique approach.”

“The team set-up and tech stack were also nearly perfect when I joined. Kalungi brought not only the marketing but the whole appearance of DataGuard to the next level. From building up the foundation and fundamentals for growth to a great brand perception, it was all set up by Kalungi.”   

SKILL

After successfully implementing a new marketing tech stack and migrating over to Hubspot, it was time to get to work and hire a team. DataGuard’s in-house marketing team gained training from experienced marketers, expanded into new online channels, and increased MQLs exponentially thanks to Kalungi’s best practices and a proven B2B SaaS marketing playbook. 

“Kalungi is a plug-and-play marketing team with flexible workers who can easily swoop in and fill any position in marketing. The team is super experienced—they have senior experience—and they’re a HubSpot partner. All of that is really the blueprint of building blocks needed for a strong marketing strategy,” explained Helena Kleine, Growth Copywriter.  

“Kalungi didn't just hire me and show me exactly where I'm going––they empowered me to find my own way. I think this is what makes Kalungi special. I learned a lot about HubSpot, lead nurturing, and generating MQLs in a B2B environment from Kalungi,” added Moritz Drews, Growth Marketing Manager. “I think the bigger part that Kalungi brings to the table is helping you find yourself and the path you want to take and then empowering you to level up and continue growing.”

SCALE

DataGuard didn’t want a typical agency to step in and fill certain marketing functions; they wanted an external team to help them scale for long-term growth. 

“What's different about Kalungi is that they come in with the mission to really change something in each company, to build a marketing team from scratch in six to 12 months and empower each member so that they can continue to drive results,” said Moritz. “I think if they can do that, they've accomplished their mission.”

The results

“Kalungi moved in like a helicopter. They were here, set up everything correctly, and now they’re transitioning out. They really helped us, and the result is just fantastic,” commented Andreas Rubsam, Head of Privacy (SMB).

DataGuard was able to meet all of its marketing and growth objectives and more. In fact, the marketing team was even the only team that achieved 120% of their OKRs, the highest of all teams in the entire organization. 

After laying the foundation, building up a marketing function, and hiring and training a new team, Kalungi and DataGuard were able to achieve:

• 330% increase in MQLs
• $4.M qualified pipeline
• 581% increase in organic traffic 
• 607% increase in first-page search engine results
• 9 new team members hired and trained, including one new marketing leader
• 1 new market launched  

“I don't think this would have been possible at DataGuard without Kalungi’s support. They helped build the whole team and really empowered us to reach that,” said Moritz. 

DataGuard has seen continuous improvements in all of these numbers. In fact, sales reps are now closing deals within hours, something DataGuard had never seen before. This is because high-quality prospects are coming in more educated about what DataGuard does, how the offering is structured, etc., all thanks to marketing. 

“The quality is better, and DataGuard is ready now to continue to build on what Kalungi helped us build and improve it further,” said Hirtz. 

Set up for success

After implementing a new marketing tech stack and expanding into online channels, Kalungi laid the foundation for DataGuard’s long-term growth. Additionally, DataGuard’s new in-house team had been taught and trained on best practices for marketing, including a marketing leader, the last piece of the puzzle. 

“We have everything we need. Stijn, Alex, and Kalungi really set the vision for growth marketing at DataGuard. They had a vision for the teams’ roles, they defined product marketing, our personas, our ICP—there's so much work already done in setting these things up and it’s really amazing. It’s such a big effort that helps mine and DataGuard's future success,” said Ines.

“I strongly believe that our team is set up for success. With the team and a new head of marketing, we are ready to be on our own. I think it was perfect getting an external team to help us build this,” added Kivanc. “We are still going to use agency support in some sense, but I think it's cool to be on our own feet now. That's a great result.”