5th Kind: Multiplying Demand Gen for a Venture-Backed SaaS Startup

Introduction

5th Kind is a SaaS provider in the media and entertainment space. The company counts among its clients industry giants like Marvel, Warner Bros., and Epic Games. After raising a round of private capital, 5th Kind needed to accelerate its lead generation and go-to-market efforts. In partnering with Execo, 5th Kind found a partner that immersed itself deeply in their business, truly understood their customers – and delivered bespoke marketing campaigns that delivered an over 5x increase in lead generation in less than 6 months.

"The Execo team scaled up quickly, immersed themselves in our business, and in a matter of months, took us from zero to a consistent stream of high-fit leads. Their ability to quickly understand our business, our market, and our customers was incredible."

— Larry Lien, Chief Operating Officer

Problem

5th Kind had built a strong base of customers in the media and entertainment industry. Its Digital Asset Management (DAM) software was used by industry leaders ranging from Marvel to Universal. Upon raising a round of private capital, 5th Kind had built a sales team, and was looking for marketing support to build brand awareness, drive leads, and build demand for its product.

However, the media and entertainment industry is full of complex lingo and unique trends. Being able to earn trust with 5th Kind's ideal customers–like VFX leaders and movie and TV show producers–requires communicating in the right language.

5th Kind needed to find a partner who could not only quickly come up to speed and drive results in weeks, not months – but also a partner who would immerse itself in 5th Kind's business and industry, to speak with confidence and precision to its discerning customers.

Solution

Execo applied a streamlined version of its proprietary Execo Framework to quickly learn the ins-and-outs of 5th Kind's business, so that our team could come up to speed in a matter of weeks.

The Execo team led the 5th Kind team through a series of workshops, to identify top industry trends around which 5th Kind could credibly become a leader in the space. The team ultimately settled on the concept of virtual production, a modern approach to film production that uses real-time technologies to leverage in-camera visualization and visual effects.

We then developed a custom marketing plan involving monthly campaigns, focused on relevant "virtual production" content, that would drive traffic and convert that traffic into leads.

Within one month of partnering with 5th Kind, we launched our first campaign, an online assessment related to a firm's readiness for virtual production. In the following months, Execo delivered dozens of authoritative blog posts and long-form written assets, promoted those using both organic and PPC channels, and drove significant results for 5th Kind.