From Skeptic to Believer: How Apollo Transformed My Business Approach

In the fast-paced world of B2B lead generation, the right tools can make all the difference. Recently, AMELA had the opportunity to explore and integrate Apollo into our business strategies. The experience has been nothing short of transformative, and in this blog, we’re excited to share our journey with Apollo.

What is Apollo?

Apollo is a comprehensive B2B lead generation platform that allows you to find, engage, and close deals with your ideal customers. With more than 275 million contact databases, 65+ million companies, and 60+ filters, you can easily find the right customers and connect them with Apollo’s engagement tools and features.

As a flexible B2B lead generation solution, Apollo is suited for every type of business, from start-up businesses to large ones. For example, Gong, a revenue intelligence platform has taken advantage of Apollo. In detail, Gong increased their qualified lead volume by 200% using Apollo’s precise targeting and automated email sequences.

Apollo’s Features You Should Notice

We know that Apollo’s website has pointed out all of its features. Though Apollo has a wide range of significant features, after a long time using Apollo,  in this blog, we just mention some of the most outstanding ones of Apollo. And we hope that this will help you a lot. So, let’s check it out!

Apollo’s Unparalleled Access to Data

Don’t you know that about 95% of emails from Apollo were sent accurately? What does that mean? High email deliverability rates will maximize your outreach impact and connect with the right customers. With a huge database including people who come from multinationals, and have various job titles, organizations can reach a large amount of potential customers. And this number will continue to rise. Why? According to the U.S. Census Bureau, more than 5 million new businesses are launched in 2023. This marks a 10% increase over 2022.

Furthermore, the leads’ quality, which is created based on more than 60 filters, is truly good. Apollo provides various kinds of filters, such as demographics, business activities, market segments, etc. For example, in demographic filters, Apollo allows you to filter leads based on job title, seniority, location, language, and more. It also enables you to search for leads based on business activities, such as:

• Employees
• Revenue
• Buying intent
• Various other criteria related to the current and future status of the business.

As you can see below, we apply 6 filters: employees, kind of industry, and buying. And Apollo shows us almost 150 companies that meet the criteria. 

Recently, Apollo just has lead scoring. I bet that you don’t know! Lead scoring is a tool in the filter site, it can create exact scoring models. Apollo provides businesses with the ability to create precise and customizable lead-scoring models, giving them full flexibility in defining criteria, weightings, and variables. This empowers companies to design scoring models that align with their unique business goals, target market, and sales process.

With Apollo.io, you can leverage a combination of product and marketing data from your CRM system, along with Apollo’s rich dataset comprising demographic, firmographic, and behavioral information. This comprehensive data allows you to build powerful scoring models that take into account a wide range of factors to assess lead quality and conversion potential.

Also, based on the pre-set filters, Apollo will integrate AI in order to calculate the match score between your business and target customers according to 4 scales below:

Apollo’s Streamlined Prospecting

Traditionally, prospecting involved manual research, data gathering, and outreach, which was time-consuming and often yielded limited results. Apollo’s streamlined prospecting solution has transformed this process by automating various aspects of prospecting, allowing businesses to reach their target audience more efficiently. 

With Apollo, businesses can access an extensive database of contact information, including emails and phone numbers, which can be easily integrated into their existing CRM systems. This streamlined access to accurate and up-to-date data eliminates the need for manual data entry and ensures that sales teams can focus on building meaningful connections with prospects.

Apollo’s AI Integration & A/B Testing

Unlike other B2B lead generation platforms, Apollo integrates AI that generates content based on your ICP. So how can Apollo work? By utilizing the ICP that had been set up before, the AI writing assistant is able to identify keywords and extract valuable signals. This enables it to create exceptionally tailored and hyper-personalized emails for each and every potential customer within your sales pipeline.

Moreover, Apollo’s A/B testing adds another layer of sophistication to the prospecting process. For those who don’t know, A/B testing, is also known as split testing. It involves comparing two versions of a marketing asset, such as an email template or a call script, to determine which one performs better.

You can create multiple versions of your outreach campaigns and test them against each other. By systematically varying elements such as subject lines, body content, and call-to-action (CTA) phrases, your organization can gather valuable insights into what resonates best with your target customers.

> Related: Sales Performance Increases 200% with Generative AI

Apollo’s CRM Enrichment

CRM enrichment is the second feature that we were seduced by Apollo. It offers CRM enrichment as part of its platform features. CRM enrichment refers to the process of enhancing and updating the data in a CRM system with fresh and accurate information. With Apollo’s CRM enrichment capabilities, organizations can ensure that their CRM data is up-to-date, accurate, and actionable.

• Data Enrichment: Apollo.io enriches your CRM data by providing additional information about your existing contacts and accounts. This includes details such as job titles, company information, social media profiles, and more. By enriching your data, you gain a deeper understanding of your customers and can tailor your sales and marketing efforts accordingly.
• Automatic Data Sync: Apollo.io offers automatic synchronization between its platform and your CRM system. This means that any updates or enrichments made in Apollo.io will be automatically reflected in your CRM, ensuring that you have the most current and accurate information available.

4 Apollo Pricing Plans

Currently, Apollo only provides 4 pricing plans: Free, basic, professional, and organization. Four pricing plans have their own benefits. Let’s check below!

We have used the Basic Pricing Plan. And from our point of view, it is suitable for organizations or companies that have medium and small sizes. Furthermore, if your email has a high domain point, the number of emails you can send per can is much higher. You can also add some more email accounts to your Apollo account to increase the number of emails that are sent. This can prevent you from being marked spam when you unfortunately use the number of emails sent beyond the limit or if you guys want to run 2 marketing campaigns at the same time.

Apollo vs Other Sales Intelligence and Engagement Platforms

While there are other lead generation platforms available in the market, Apollo has gained popularity for its unique offerings. Next, let’s compare Apollo with some other platforms to provide you with a broader perspective!

Mailchimp

Mailchimp is an industry-leading email marketing platform. It enables organizations to create, send, and track email campaigns. Like Apollo, Mailchimp also has some features such as email automation, audience segmentation, A/B testing, and detailed reporting. However, it does have some disadvantages compared to Apollo. 

• Pricing Plans: Mailchimp’s pricing plan can become a disadvantage for growing businesses. As your subscriber list increases, the cost of using Mailchimp also rises. As a result, this can make it less cost-effective for businesses with large mailing lists compared to Apollo.
• Limited CRM Capabilities: Mailchimp primarily focuses on email marketing and lacks some of the advanced CRM features that Apollo provides. In case your primary goal is comprehensive customer relationship management, Apollo might be a more suitable choice for your organization.

> Related: Top 10 Mobile App Development Mistakes You Must Avoid in 2024

Uplead

Uplead is a B2B lead generation platform that provides tools and services to help businesses find and connect with potential customers. But when compared to Apollo, it may have some disadvantages, such as:

• Small Database: Uplead’s database, while extensive, may be smaller compared to Apollo. So, this can impact the number of potential leads available for prospecting and may result in less diverse or comprehensive data for sales teams to work with. In addition, a smaller database could restrict the reach and scalability of lead generation efforts.
• Pricing Plans: Uplead’s pricing plans may not offer the same flexibility as Apollo. Depending on the specific needs and size of your organization, the available pricing plans may not align with your budget or growth requirements. 

Summary

To sum up, our experience with Apollo has been transformative. The platform’s comprehensive suite of tools has not only simplified AMELA’s day-to-day tasks but has also elevated the effectiveness of our sales and marketing initiatives. With Apollo, we’ve been able to unlock new levels of efficiency, enabling our business to thrive in a competitive market.

Besides, at AMELA, we provide outstanding IT outsourcing solutions and consulting. Contact us through the following information: 

• Hotline: (+84)904026070 
• Email: hello@amela.tech 
• Address: 5th Floor, Tower A, Keangnam Building, Urban Area new E6 Cau Giay, Pham Hung, Me Tri, Nam Tu Liem, Hanoi

Editor: AMELA Technology