Great Lakes Food & Beverage Campaign Strategy

Overview

This article documents the targeting strategy and execution plan for Asymmetric's first vertical-specific outbound campaign. The campaign focuses on Food & Beverage companies experiencing growth stagnation in the Great Lakes region. The industry was selected in part because of Mark Hope's background as a Coca-Cola division president, which provides inherent credibility when engaging prospects.

This campaign is the first application of the broader ^[1] being developed to replace generic list-based outreach.

Target Criteria

Company Filters

Iowa is included to complete the geographic crescent from Illinois to Minnesota, even though it is not technically a Great Lakes state.

Stagnation Qualification Signals

After the initial company list is built in Clay, each company is scored on the following signals. Companies with multiple stagnation indicators are prioritized.

List-Building Workflow

Step 1 — Build the Company List in Clay

1. Create a new Clay company table.
2. Filter by: Industry = Food & Beverage, Revenue = $10M–$50M, States = MI, IN, IL, IA, WI, MN.
3. Test first: Process only the first 10 rows for each new column before running the full list.

Step 2 — Enrich for Stagnation Signals

Add waterfall columns for each signal listed above. Suggested Clay fields:
- Revenue Growth (6mo) / Revenue Growth (12mo)
- Headcount Growth
- Job Openings Count
- Latest Funding Date
- Recent News (AI prompt — edit to surface negative news)

Step 3 — Calculate Stagnation Score

Assign point values to each signal (e.g., declining 12-month revenue = 15 pts, no funding in 12 months = 10 pts). Scoring is easiest to calculate in Excel or Google Sheets, then imported back as a column.

• Add a Stagnation Score custom field in HubSpot.
• Prioritize outreach starting with the highest-scoring companies.

Step 4 — Contact Enrichment

Once the company list is finalized, run a separate Clay people table to find contacts at those companies.

Target titles: CEO, President, Founder, Owner, VP of Sales, VP of Marketing (VP-level and above)

Required contact fields:
- Phone number
- Email address
- LinkedIn profile URL

Step 5 — Push to HubSpot

Use the Clay → HubSpot native integration (already connected) to sync records, or export CSV and import manually as a fallback.

Outreach Sequence

A 20-day multi-touch sequence is used to build familiarity and "weaken resistance" before a prospect agrees to a meeting.

Pre-Call Preparation

Before initiating any outreach on a contact, spend 2–3 minutes reviewing their LinkedIn profile:
- Where did they go to school?
- What prior companies have they worked at?
- What have they posted about recently?

This provides personalizers for the call, voicemail, and first email.

Sequence Structure

After the full sequence with no response, move the contact to the nurturing list.

Nurturing

• Contacts in nurture receive a drip of 10–15 emails over time.
• Re-entry trigger: Any engagement (white paper download, website visit, email click) moves the contact back into the active outreach queue.
• Contacts who complete the nurture sequence with zero engagement are written off.

Messaging Approach

The primary pitch is built around the stagnation problem:
- Lead with the specific signals observed (revenue trend, headcount, etc.).
- If the prospect disputes the data, pivot to a general conversation about growth challenges.
- Goal of the first call: qualify interest and set a meeting with Mark.

Fallback offer: Send a white paper on causes, symptoms, and solutions for growth stagnation in Food & Beverage.

Mark is developing the full messaging document, including pain points, offer framing, objection handling, and HubSpot sequence templates.

Ownership & Action Items

Related

• ^[2]
• ^[3]
• ^[4]
• ^[5]