How CIENCE Powered an Outbound Campaign for BetterHelp

Sales Development

BetterHelp Case Study

Key Takeaways

  • It is always a good idea to test the campaign on a smaller scale before tackling larger organizations head-on. 
  • Communication between partners and regular feedback enhances the success of an outbound campaign.

  • When internal marketing activities are in sync with outsourcing, it creates a synergy between teams that brings greater results.

About BetterHelp

BetterHelp is one of the world's largest online psychological counseling service. It helps millions of people across the globe face life's challenges and improve their mental health. The service is available to private clients, but BetterHelp's primary focus is B2B. The company offers a pay-per-usage package as a benefit for employees. 

On BetterHelp's online platform, every user can connect with one of 30,000 licensed therapists. Size matters in this case, as it directly affects the ability to match, the quality of the match, and the diverse options available to members. 

BetterHelp's therapists specialize in various topics, fields, and methodologies. They speak sixty languages and represent diverse demographics. The platform connects with users in two-hundred countries. 

To assure that everyone gets a successful match, BetterHelp allows users to switch counselors at any point of the journey. In addition, BetterHelp offers customization to their B2B clients. It also created a co-branded, mini-site platform, utilized when inviting employees to the service.

BetterHelp has been successfully selling its services to businesses with employee benefits and private clients worldwide. The platform has already changed the lives of millions of people by providing accessible professional support.

Anna-Vesely
Anna Vesely
Sales and Sales Operations Manager
Industry
Internet
Website
betterhelp.com

The Story of BetterHelp

BetterHelp’s main service provides counseling in four formats: asynchronous messaging, live chat, phone, and video. There are also "groupinars," anonymous, interactive group session webinars that are topic-based, accessible to all members, and conducted weekly. Every user can choose the most suitable format or use any combination of the modalities. 

BetterHelp also provides services to the communities in need of psychological support. Recently, the company provided a month of free therapy to people who contacted the Cancer Support Community call center. BetterHelp partnered with ProjectNICU, dedicated to supporting families with children in neonatal intensive care units and the medical professionals who care for them. 

BetterHelp's team saw an opportunity to bring even more positive change into the world. After singer Ariana Grande and tennis champion Venus Williams donated over $10 million worth of free therapy to their fans, the president of BetterHelp, Alon Matas, was inspired to scale this model by launching a new product, BetterHelp for Organizations.

BetterHelp for Organizations targets membership-based organizations. The unique offer is a month of free therapy to the members of specific organizations and a discounted price going forward.

With this product, BetterHelp was entering a new market, which required applying strategies, targeting a new prospect, building a new client base, and investing additional efforts. This was when BetterHelp's team started to look for an outsourcing company.

BetterHelp partnered with CIENCE almost immediately. "I contacted several companies, including CIENCE," said Anna Vesely, sales operations manager at BetterHelp. "They were rated highly on G2, and I was ensured they were the right fit for us during our call." In this call, both companies saw great potential in working together. 

BetterHelp's team knew precisely what they expected from this partnership. "What made BetterHelp a good fit is that they already had some maturity from the top of the funnel and were looking to get to the next level of evolution," said Michael Rouse, sales executive at CIENCE. "They wanted to bring an outside partner to find best practices in their space."

Challenges & Scope

BetterHelp for Organizations was a new product that the company introduced to the market. The main challenge would be correct targeting and a new strategy for providing a predictable and regular flow of new appointments.

Challenges

BetterHelp had a significant number of employees but they were mainly therapists. The operational, sales, and marketing teams were not that large. That is why, when launching BetterHelp for Organizations, it looked for additional support from an outsourced lead generation company to cover these areas.

BetterHelp was getting some new prospects with the internal team, but the challenge was to increase the meeting set rate, do mass outreach, and implement more strategic outbound messaging.

Need

To launch a new product, BetterHelp needed to generate a predictable flow of leads and build a new client base. While the company had already been successfully selling to businesses, it now needed to reach large member-based organizations. 

The targeted organizations consisted of non-profits and charities, fraternities and sororities, trade associations and unions, alumni associations, and Pan-Hellenic organizations.

Opportunity

In partnering with CIENCE, BetterHelp saw the opportunity to get the extra support its sales and marketing teams needed. “We were already doing some prospecting, but we wanted to increase our efforts to schedule more discovery and demo calls,” said Anna Vesely. “So we hired CIENCE to help us with our efforts."

 

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Why CIENCE?

CIENCE was a good fit for BetterHelp's needs. CIENCE led a solid campaign for the new product and targeted the right prospects while working collaboratively with BetterHelp's team. 

"We wanted to be the extension for BetterHelp's sales team," said Michael Rouse. "It was important to target the prospects they wanted to work with and build an outreach campaign and strategy around that." 

Another attractive feature of CIENCE was the focus on the predictability of results. CIENCE's team decided to test the campaign on the small organizations first. 

"Our philosophy is to provide predictable results," said Rouse. "The objective is to find engagement, get to the point of predictability, and then scale from there."

CIENCE's efforts went along with the activities of BetterHelp's internal team. Its lead generation efforts were in sync with the internally produced brand awareness campaign. 

"BetterHelp had launched some phenomenal commercials," said Heather Rowedda, sales development manager at CIENCE. "Their internally made campaigns gave us much support."

Results

The partnership between CIENCE and BetterHelp was from March to May 2022. The campaign successfully reached its goal of generating an ongoing flow of new prospects. 

After adjusting the messaging and ensuring everything was in place, CIENCE was able to pitch the product to BetterHelp's ideal prospects: large organizations.

The CIENCE-powered campaign brought BetterHelp more than thirty appointments with desirable prospects. 

They had a successful 22% open rate and 11% reply rate, with an estimated 90% of these appointments coming from the email channel.

The results of this partnership went above generating revenue and building new clientele. "We aligned with a company with an honorable mission, and we were able to focus on the larger impact beyond just profits," said Michael Rouse. "It was valuable for our team to explore how we can drive actions in our client's marketing deeper than that."

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Partnership Success

In their partnership, BetterHelp and CIENCE created a powerful synergy that allowed for a successful campaign and positive strategic outcomes. CIENCE's team became the extension of BetterHelp's sales team. 

BetterHelp benefited from having CIENCE as an external part of their sales team that added competency. "They were very experienced in the type of campaign we ran, and the number of resources they provided for support was firm," said Anna Vesely. 

By trusting CIENCE's expertise, BetterHelp's team achieved success through this partnership. "In CIENCE, we are the most successful when our clients are supporting us, giving us gentle feedback and guidance, but at the same time, they are respectful to our experience and expertise," said Heather Rowedda. "With BetterHelp, we were working collaboratively."

This collaborative partnership was possible because of the efficient communication between CIENCE and BetterHelp's teams. "CIENCE performed really well,” said Vesely. “They were on top of everything and were always responsive. CIENCE's main strength was their wonderful and robust communication." 

The teams had weekly meetings so BetterHelp could maintain direct and frequent conversations with the project management team to ensure everyone was on the same page.

CIENCE's team effectively used these meetings to track progress and correct the flow. "CIENCE listened to feedback well, immediately iterating on our feedback and adjusting the project accordingly," said Vesely. 

CIENCE's approach to servicing its client flourished: "We wanted to see them succeed, and we really put ourselves in their shoes," said Rowedda. "We serviced them as if we were part of their team."

CIENCE's team was inspired by BetterHelp's mission and greatly motivated by contributing to BetterHelp's growth. "We poured our heart and soul into our client’s solutions and campaigns," said Rowedda. "There are solutions that change business, there are solutions that change processes, but this is a solution that changes lives."