Harbor reaches clinical leaders at medical device companies on LinkedIn

Overview

Harbor builds AI for clinical research. Its buyers run clinical trials at medical device companies: VPs of Clinical Affairs, directors of Clinical Operations, and the people who manage regulatory and clinical work.

Albert Cai, founder and CEO, runs Harbor's LinkedIn outreach on PumpGTM from two accounts, his own and his chief of staff's.

The challenge

• A niche buyer. The right person is a clinical leader at a company about to run a study. Their LinkedIn profiles are hard to judge from the outside.
• Other tools got the leads wrong. Albert had tried Gojiberry before. The problem was qualification: an agent reading a profile could not tell who was a real fit.
• Public signals come too late. US trials must be registered on ClinicalTrials.gov, but by then the sponsor has often picked its software already.
• A long cycle. Deals run $20k to $50k a year and take a few months, so the job is to be known before the buyer is ready.

I've tried Gojiberry and stuff. Our profile is a little bit niche, and it's a little bit difficult for most agents to read a LinkedIn profile and be like, okay, this is qualified or not.

The solution

• Prospecting that understands the buyer. PumpGTM finds clinical operations and clinical affairs leaders at medical device companies and checks each profile against Harbor's buyer before anyone is contacted.
• Two senders, one workspace. Albert and his chief of staff each connected their LinkedIn once. Sending is split across both, each at a pace LinkedIn accepts.
• His own message. Albert kept his longer first message because it speaks to the buyer's real pain, and it gets replies.
• Email next. Clinical leaders get far less cold email than people in tech, so Harbor is adding email alongside LinkedIn.

The results

• 480 connection requests sent, 117 accepted. That is 24% of a niche, senior audience.
• 14 replies from 91 people messaged. 10 of those came in the last two weeks.
• Replies from the right titles. VPs of Clinical Affairs, a Head of US Clinical Affairs, directors and managers of Clinical Operations, at companies like Materna Medical, Blackrock Neurotech and Medtronic.
• Replies turning into calls. Albert says a few have become meetings. No signed deal yet, which fits a cycle of a few months.

In his words

The prospecting is kind of the big unlock for us, because there are a lot of LinkedIn automation services, right?

I think replies are turning into some calls, which is good. With our sales cycle it takes a few months anyways, so I'm pretty happy with how that part is going.

This is a slow, patience, just get your name out there kind of game for us. It's been valuable for that.

Why it fits

Harbor sells to a small, senior and specific audience. PumpGTM finds those people and judges each one against Harbor's buyer, then reaches them from real team accounts while Albert works the replies.