How Clearbit Generated $30,000 in MRR with Its First Microsite

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Matt Sornson wasn’t a fan of most B2B marketing content. He thought company blogs had become littered with impractical, overly broad, and largely irrelevant articles that delivered little value to readers. To establish Clearbit as an influential leader in B2B tech sales, he knew he needed to try something different.

As Head of Growth, Matt had noticed how many of Clearbit’s customers used data in innovative ways, specifically to improve their sales processes. Whenever he shared these stories with prospects, they seemed impressed and eager to hear more. That gave him an idea.

He decided to scale up those conversations and create a standalone sales strategy microsite. In it, he’d reveal not just the data-driven tactics sales leaders were using, but also precisely how they executed them. The project, which Matt later titled Data-Driven Sales, would become one of Clearbit’s most successful marketing campaigns, netting $30,000 in MRR in its first two quarters.

In this article, you’ll learn how Matt:

• Defined his ideal audience and used it to validate content ideas
• Recruited subject matter experts and ran a ghostwriting program
• Attracted readers and generated leads for Clearbit

Step 1: Define your audience

As Matt began brainstorming article ideas for the microsite, something else occurred to him: he knew what kind of content he didn’t want to produce—boring, derivative articles with no new or original insights—but he was unsure what his audience actually wanted to read.

Sales was a broad sector with many topics to choose from. Recruitment, retention, and remuneration were all viable chapters. So, too, were enablement, operations, and prospecting. Exploring any topic without confirming his readers’ interest felt like a gamble—one Matt wasn’t willing to take.

He launched a customer research project, searching Clearbit’s client list for “look-alike” customers, or companies that best matched its ideal customer profile (ICP): sophisticated sales leaders at B2B tech firms. When he found someone who matched the ICP closely, he reached out and asked to speak with them.

Hi Luke,

(Insert your standard “Hope you’re doing well” greeting.)

We’re working on a new series of stories that aim to solve our customers’ most pressing problems. In order to figure out how to offer the most value and write something you actually want to read, we’re asking a couple of our favorite customers for help.

Do you have 20 minutes in the next week or two to jump on a quick call and tell us a bit about what you’d like to read?

Once he got someone on the phone, Matt asked them what sales challenges kept them up at night. He quizzed them on their learning goals for the quarter. He asked about which content formats they liked best and what sort of tone resonated with them. By the end of 20 such conversations, he understood exactly what his audience wanted to read—and, perhaps more importantly, what they didn’t.

Many ideas from Matt’s initial brainstorming session elicited little excitement from interviewees. For example, he originally wanted to write an article on using data to optimize email templates, but many people said they weren’t interested in the topic.

His conversations acted as litmus tests for articles. If people balked at an idea, Matt struck it from the microsite’s list of viable article headings. Conversely, if people instantly engaged with a topic, he knew the idea was good, and he moved it to a draft table of contents.

But his research project didn’t just validate or reject existing ideas. Interviewees also suggested new article topics, ones Matt had never considered. For example, one person suggested exploring how sales leaders could use data to improve their coaching performance. Another recommended a chapter on sales compensation models. Both suggestions eventually made it into the final microsite.

At the end of his research, Matt had a finalized table of contents with 10 topics he knew would resonate with readers.

Step 2: Recruit your experts

Data-Driven Sales’ table of contents was broad and eclectic, covering SaaS product pricing, compensation, sales coaching, and more. While Clearbit had enough internal subject matter experts (SMEs) to author each chapter, Matt wanted to leverage the expertise of his customers. He knew that people tend to trust their peers more than marketers. So, he resolved to recruit external thought leaders to author each chapter.

Calling on his extended professional network, Matt built a three-person shortlist for each topic. Writing a 2,000-word strategic teardown, he reasoned, was not an insignificant request, especially for the time-poor senior sales leaders he was targeting. Having a couple of backups meant Matt wouldn’t have to scrap a chapter when someone said no.

Here’s one of the stock email templates he used to attract authors:

Hey Dave,

I'm working on a Data-Driven Sales project with the Clearbit team that will feature writing from Tom Tunguz, Kyle Poyar, and some other big names in SaaS. Think Intercom style design + Tom Tunguz style data.

One of the chapters we're working on is Sales Materials (organizing decks, case studies, etc and then getting data back to marketing to improve them). Since Percolate is helping solve some of those problems I thought I'd reach out to see if you or someone on your team would be interested in collaborating.  

Our goal with this project is 75,000 new email subscribers, huge traffic, and an amazing piece of content. In other words, we want to make it worth the time for everyone. And we've got the talent and initial audience reach in place to make that happen. /pitch :)

Let me know if you're interested.

Matt’s pitch contained a few important hooks:

• Social proof: He name dropped a handful of thought leaders who had already committed to the microsite. That demonstrated the project’s credibility and authority; Data-Driven Sales wasn’t another piece of derivative content, it was a collaboration between some of the world’s best sales leaders.
• Specific, not generic: Thought leaders receive a lot of requests for interviews and comments—some interesting, others not so much. Matt made it clear that he understood each leader’s specialization (forecasting, coaching, hiring) and he asked them to contribute on that specific subject.
• Reach metrics: Executives’ calendars are battlegrounds. To secure enough time for briefings and interviews, Matt needed to answer the question: What’s in it for them? He analyzed Clearbit’s previous marketing campaigns and estimated the impact of Data-Driven Sales: 75,000 new subscribers, huge traffic, and amazing content. Sharing that data quantified the pay-off for interviewees and made the offer more attractive.

To reduce friction and make things as easy as possible for authors, Matt hired a writer to interview each expert and then ghostwrite the chapter in their voice. From the author’s perspective, their entire involvement would be little more than an hour.

His approach paid off. Peakon CRO Neil Ryland agreed to author a chapter on sales forecasting. David Skok, a VC at Matrix Partners, signed up for a chapter on sales compensation. One “yes” at a time, Matt attached names to his table of contents, until every chapter had an expert.

Step 3: Attract your readers

With a finalized table of contents, Matt started work on the microsite, transforming his written content into a multi-page standalone website that lived outside of Clearbit’s main site.

Had Matt dropped all 10 chapters at once, he may have generated some initial interest, but it likely would have been short-lived. After readers had read through the book once, it’s unlikely they would have returned in the future—and that’s not the long-term return he wanted.

Instead, Matt published one article every two weeks, promoting each new piece through Clearbit’s standard content promotion channels: email, social, and retargeting ads.

Tempted by future chapter titles, hundreds of people subscribed in the first week. Each subsequent release attracted more readers, building on the project’s prior success.

And that was just the tip of Matt’s promotion strategy.

Just as he knew his readers would trust the book more if it was authored by external experts, he suspected the same would be true when it came time to promote it. To supplement Clearbit’s own content promotion strategy, Matt leveraged each contributor’s personal platforms to drive more readers to the microsite.

A couple of days before he published a chapter, he reached out to its bylined author. He thanked them for their work, shared the release date, and requested they promote the chapter to their network.

Here’s one of the emails he used:

Hey Neil,

Wanted to thank you again for your work on this chapter! Turned out really well and the early feedback has been all positive.

https://clearbit.com/books/data-driven-sales/sales-forecasting

I'll be promoting throughout this week on social as well as through our newsletter tomorrow. I would also love to see the chapter featured in your next newsletter. Is that something we can make happen?

The requests performed well. Most of Data-Driven Sales’ bylined authors promoted their chapter at least once. Some authors, such as Neil Ryland, shared their own chapters and others multiple times, keeping Clearbit’s content in front of a sizable audience.

After a couple of weeks, with the microsite gaining traction, Matt looked to double down on his success, tapping evangelists, investors, and friends of Clearbit to share the project and amplify its reach.

As he suspected, the industry heavyweights were happy to promote the project. Hiten Shah, an advisor to Clearbit, was one such advocate, promoting the microsite to his 200,000-strong Twitter following.

Turning views into revenue

Data-Driven Sales’ success snowballed, as it quickly became one of Clearbit’s most popular pieces of content. Through two quarters, it attracted tens of thousands of readers and generated $30,000 per month in recurring revenue. Interest in the microsite didn’t spike and die, either.

Matt’s careful promotion strategy created a strong platform for the project, ensuring that new readers continue finding the microsite. Even today, long after its initial publication, Data-Driven Sales is still attracting new readers and generating new leads for Clearbit.