Case Study: People Element | Growing HR SaaS Company Discovers the Value of Fractional Executives

“Marketing is now one of our strengths. Our Fractional CMO, William Collins, built the team, a process, a system, vendors, and a world that I could trust, have confidence in, and be proud of.”

Chris Coberly, CEO and Co-owner, People Element

People-focused organizations use People Element’s employee survey platform to engage and inspire their teams. Seeking to boost its new SaaS product and an ailing marketing function, company leadership engaged Chief Outsiders Fractional CMO, William Collins, to develop and implement a strategic marketing growth plan, with infrastructure, lead-gen engine, and department built from scratch. Adding a Fractional Sales Executive later, the company now enjoys 25% YoY revenue growth with a predictable, measurable growth engine.

Background

Transition to HR SaaS

Since 1988, People Element has worked with HR teams on employee development, engagement, and retention. The company uses online surveys to understand how employees feel and what could be changed to improve outcomes.

When the company started, it provided only services. About four years ago, leadership decided to move into HR Tech, a growing competitive landscape with many new entrants. They focused on small to mid-sized companies without large HR teams.

Creating an application based on client needs, they solve client problems uniquely in an easy-to-use way. “The HR staff can use the application the first day without a team to figure it all out,” related Chris Coberly, CEO.

Where Money Went to Die

People Element then looked to solve two big problems.

“We'd never been good at marketing,” explained Coberly. “In fact, marketing was where money went to die. We made changes but just didn't have the internal expertise to take it to the next level.”

Leadership also needed to build a revenue generation engine that was predictable and repeatable. “I needed to know what I was going to get out of the other end. None of us are marketers. So, we knew we needed help.”

Looking for Outside Marketing Expertise

The company had looked at several options with some success, including outside agencies. “They helped with some things, but other things not at all,” Coberly continued. “We couldn't find anyone who understood our business.”

Eventually, Coberly found Chief Outsiders through a web search. “Marketing was our weakest spot,” he reported, “and I wondered if we could get somebody with expertise that we could afford.”

Marketing Assessment

Upon examination, Chief Outsiders became the obvious solution. “They had the expertise that we needed, but also could work within our company, understand our market and desired approach, and were affordable,” he stated. “So, we had someone from Chief Outsiders come in to do an assessment.”

The assessment covered five areas and recommended that they bring in a Chief Outsiders Fractional CMO. Among the problems uncovered, their CFO ran marketing with an ill-equipped marketing manager. They also lacked a strategy and used just a single channel. Emails were not opened, and their tech stack lacked integration.

Growth Strategy

Deeper Dive

Chief Outsiders then introduced William Collins as an option to be People Element’s Fractional CMO. “It was a good fit,” related Coberly. “His personality and approach matched our company's culture, and it became an easy decision to move forward.”

To begin, Collins performed a deeper dive to understand the why behind the items identified in the assessment. He then laid out a playbook with key initiatives to build both their department and their demand gen engine from scratch.

Scoping the fractional CMO engagement as five overlapping workstreams, his Recommended Engagement Approach included:

1. Develop and implement a strategic marketing growth plan.
2. Design and implement marketing infrastructure to support growth initiatives.
3. Design and launch Top of Funnel (TOFU) campaigns to develop pipeline to drive growth.

Into the Weeds

Moving forward, Coberly acknowledged, “We needed someone who could not just create a strategy, but who could be in the weeds, making sure that we built a good strategic plan. So, we brought William in as much more than a consultant. That was the best decision we made.”

Conducting a digital marketing competitive analysis on 10 key competitors, Collins identified additional challenges. “He worked hard to get to know us and owned the strategy,” explained Coberly. “He reported to me and attended our leadership team meetings.”

Challenges

The HRIS market was moving fast with well-funded competitors, expanding offerings, and heavy investment in product development, brand, and customer acquisition. Hence:

• The company needed to demonstrate further growth to seek outside investor funding.
• They needed to build brand awareness and differentiate the SaaS solution.
• Investments in marketing must deliver measurable results.

Company executives desired quick execution of the marketing program, while building the internal marketing competencies to scale over the longer term.

Marketing Strategy Plan

Working closely with the executive team, Collins developed a marketing strategy with the following elements:

• Create a reliable and repeatable marketing process for delivering qualified leads to sales to meet financial targets.
• Strategic Pillars: Differentiation, compelling content, high performing website, expanded market, execute with urgency and excellence.
• Pursue the Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) and Personas for the small business offering.
• Adopt new messaging, positioning, and value propositions.
• Create compelling Content for blogs, social media, webinars, success stories, podcasts, whitepapers, and speaking engagements with cadence and a planning calendar.

“Instead of just talking about product feature functions, we focused on the organizational impact of improving engagement scores,” related Collins, “And we recast the message and positioning to be more client centered.”

Implementing a variety of digital and traditional tactics, including an updated website, the company moved to HubSpot and integrated it with Salesforce which increased email open rates from 3% to 30%.

Taking the Time to Mature

Collins worked with People Element for three years.

“I couldn't tell he was fractional,” reported Coberly, “and that was invaluable. He was always available, as much if not more than my internal people.”

“The CEO knew that People Element didn't have the right people and programs in place,” added Collins. “And he was willing to invest with the patience to let things marinate and mature. It was a great partnership.”

Building Marketing and Sales

Collins hired and trained the marketing team, including one who could take over for him. “She's a rockstar,” related Coberly. “He found her, hired, and mentored her. His knowledge of building a team, selecting the right tools, and building out our funnel paid off.”

“Once I experienced fractional leadership with our marketing side, sales became the next option for us. We've been working with Brett for about 15 months now. The immediate respect he got from our sales team was clear and obvious.”

“The option of fractional leaders has been amazing,” added Coberly. “I don't ever feel like I’m begging them to put in more time. They're available, come to meetings, get the things they need to own, then take care of them at the same speed as the rest of my leadership team.”

Results

25% Annual Revenue Growth

With a redesigned pipeline, new definition of a lead, and a lead-gen program built from scratch, People Element improved qualified leads by 40%. This translated to 25% annual revenue growth reflected in the bottom line.

“Since 2020, we've more than doubled our revenue and tripled our number of clients,” confirmed Coberly.

Collins pointed to two other significant results:

1. Better brand awareness and brand experience across the client base, and
2. Issues uncovered in the sales process that we're preventing optimum growth.

A Perfect Solution

Coberly now recommends Chief Outsiders unasked.

“It works for me, I'm passionate, and I want to talk about it,” he explained. “If you lack expertise but can't afford that kind of full-time person, Chief Outsiders is the perfect solution.”

“Bringing in William, and ultimately Brett allowed People Element to fix our biggest weaknesses, the ones that give you anxiety,” concluded Coberly. “Marketing didn't work, and we couldn't solve it. I love it now because we've overcome that challenge and sales are good!”

Empowered to Act

Collins added his perspective. “You don't have to be a $20 million organization to afford or invest in our services and see results,” he explained. “You must have a strategy, and it takes time to implement and see the results of that strategy.”

“Finally, the real problem may not be the one you think it is. Bringing in a battle-tested CMO or CSO enables you to uncover the critical issues and empowers you to act.”