Cutr (YC batch 2022) is the leading online B2B marketplace for on-demand wood manufacturing services. Founded in Amsterdam, Cutr’s vision is to make wood manufacturing—the only carbon-negative material—more accessible and viable by connecting companies with expert manufacturers. The company offers both a B2B marketplace and a B2B SaaS proposition.
Cutr is one of the rare companies genuinely redefining a category. New categories bring opportunities and the chance to lead the market—but also unique challenges.
For Cutr, the challenge was clear: much of their market's demand wasn't easily accessible online. As industry pioneers, there was no established buyer’s journey or digital trail to follow.
How do you market a digital platform in a space with low search volume, minimal online engagement, and no established content? This was the puzzle Cutr’s marketing team had to solve. Their audience was online, but the industry relied heavily on offline relationships and traditional sales.
From auditing their website, to optimizing existing Google Ads campaigns, to building a programmatic SEO play—we pulled several different growth levers to help reach new audiences and generate more opportunities.
In the end, by far the most successful initiative we kicked off was a targeted marketing-assisted outbound play focused on leveraging marketing efforts to warm up a list of target ICPs and enable Cutr’s outbound sales efforts.
A wide range of companies can make use of wood manufacturing services.
All were viable customers for Cutr, with strong interest across the board. But with so many potential ICPs, the risk of spreading ourselves too thin was real. Each ICP had different needs, buyer journeys, and required targeted messaging, collateral, and campaigns.
Initially, we recommended focusing on just one ICP. While everyone agreed focus was crucial, the reality is that few companies can afford to turn away business – especially when they have ambitious growth goals.
The solution? Prioritizing the ICPs.
Each quarter, we’d target one ICP, build and validate the marketing playbook, and then adapt it for the next ICP and quarter.
We held two ICP sessions to dive into the numbers and leverage the sales team’s insights. The goal was to evaluate each potential ICP, refine Cutr’s positioning, and identify which one had the greatest potential to be a consistently replicable use case.
With the ICPs refined and prioritized, it was clear that we needed to target each of them with dedicated collateral tailored to their specific needs and use cases.
The main deliverable was a personalized landing page for each ICP.
For each landing page, we tapped into the positioning and messaging outcomes from our previous sessions to create a more targeted approach that appealed to each ICP’s pain points and how Cutr could solve them.
For example, we targeted interior builders by focusing on how Cutr’s sub-contracting services enable them to scale their business without needing to hire more people or purchase more machinery.
Landing page example:
Previously, customer testimonials, marketing resources, and messaging for Cutr’s separate services—its SaaS solution and marketplace—were mixed together, which made it harder for potential buyers to engage with value propositions and social proof that matched their use-case, diluting their impact.
Focusing on the marketplace side, we made sure the collateral and messaging were tailored to each industry and ICP, reducing friction and enabling a more targeted digital buyer journey that appreciated the nuances of this niche industry.
The niche industry Cutr operated in presented a unique challenge when trying to generate demand from the ICPs. The online buyer footprint was effectively invisible, leaving minimal existing demand to capture through high-intent search ads.
The only “effective” strategy that had worked previously for Cutr was outbound sales through email and cold calling, but it was taking 9-12 calls on average before a lead booked a meeting.
Our assumption was that a lack of awareness for Cutr's brand and unique proposition would lead to a low engagement rate. That’s why we needed to build mindshare by doubling down on the hidden touchpoints across the “dark funnel” before reaching out to them, using our “marketing-assisted” outbound approach.
First, we used a highly targeted list of leads curated by sales and the head of growth to pinpoint companies with the greatest potential for success, i.e. interior builders and interior design firms.
With the right messaging and collateral in place, we created hyper-focused LinkedIn ads that weren’t just about building brand awareness, but also honing in on the pain points and needs specific to this niche industry.
These ads primed the outbound leads before sales reached out to them, and this approach proved to be a big success.
CTRs ranged from 3-7%, massively outperforming B2B industry benchmarks for brand awareness campaigns, with strong metrics across penetration, frequency, and impressions.
To further nurture these leads, we layered on additional touchpoints, including thought leadership content (LI posts, podcasts, etc.) that established Cutr and its senior figures as credible industry experts.
Recognizing this was an offline-dominated industry, we also sent sample wooden parts with different finishes in the mail, serving as a natural conversation starter for outbound calls
The result? A scalable outbound approach that has reduced the average cold calls from 9-12 to just 4-5, resulting in 40-50 qualified meetings per month.
By deeply understanding this niche market and its nuances, we avoided generic marketing tactics applied by marketing agencies in the past without success and instead built a scalable, ICP-focused model that continues to drive their ongoing success.
After proving the model works, we committed to our promise of becoming “obsolete” and left Cutr and its Head of Growth to scale the approach without us, priming them for sustainable future growth.
