The Souled Store: A Brand In Action Since June 2013
The Souled Store is a homegrown Indian brand selling quirky pop-culture merchandise. It was founded in June 2013 and now has more than 4 million happy customers. TSS designs, manufactures, and retails apparel products with designs ranging from TV shows, movies, and cartoon characters that you are probably die-hard fans of.
Innovated by Harsh Lal, Vedang Patel, Aditya Sharma, and Rohin Samtaney, The Souled Store is based in Mumbai. It is currently India’s biggest fan merchandise destination. They are the official, licensed merchandisers for cartoons (Scooby-Doo, Cartoon Network, etc.), TV shows (F.R.I.E.N.D.S, The Big Bang Theory), big-budget movies (Marvel, Harry Potter, Batman, Superman, etc.), and IPL teams.
Nitin Bajaj, Founder & CEO of EasyLeadz – the B2B contact data provider, invited Harsh Lal on the Masters of Sales podcast to shed some light on how The Souled Storeis driving growth consistently. Harsh Lal, Co-Founder & Director of TSS, heads Licensing (150+ partnerships), Marketplaces, Retail, and Legal in his company.
Moreover, he holds more than 9 years of experience in business growth, client acquisition, key account management, and the development of new channels of sales.
Harsh Lal: A Versatile Entrepreneur
Prior to The Souled Store, Harsh had no plans to build a brand like this. But, he was consistently doing a bunch of things until he found something he really liked. He took up science in his junior college and then pursued his graduation in Law. He also did internships in advertising and journalism.
Further, he spent 6 months as a tattoo artist and worked as a full-time associate at a law firm. One thing that pushed him to keep trying different things was to find something which he really liked so that he could put his heart & soul into it.
What Encouraged The Souled Store?
Harsh and his friends-cum-Co-founders, were bored with what they were doing in their day jobs. Actually, one lawyer and three engineers working with a financial services firm were dissatisfied with how life was going. So, that’s the point where they all decided to do something interesting and innovated The Souled Store in 2013.
One thing all of them have in common is that they all are fans of cricket, movies, and TV shows. But back in 2012, they realized that when you wanted to buy a T-shirt, whether it’s your favorite Superman, Batman, or F.R.I.E.N.D.S, you had two options. The first option was to buy a low-quality fake T-shirt off the street for 200-300 rupees.
And the other option was to buy the original one for 2000 rupees from the US. People order it and get it shipped to India, paying all of those additional shipping fees when that T-shirt was probably manufactured in or around India. So, they realized that it was a decision between a 300-rupee T-shirt or a 2000-rupee one.
In fact, for most of the country, it’s not even a decision, no matter how big a fan you are. This was the major problem that they saw and felt that there was a need for good quality merchandise with great designs. That’s the whole idea of TSS.
One-Line Reason Behind The Souled Store
According to Harsh, the one-line reason why he and his other three friends started The Souled Store is that it was precisely to make sure that they had great designs, great products, and great prices for fans.
One Thing That Helped TSS To Scale Up
All the successes that The Souled Store had over the last 9 years were due to its culture of collaboration. In fact, TSS has officially been certified as a “Great Place To Work“. The team of ‘souled’ entrepreneurs focuses very strongly on making sure that people are having a good time at work, and people look forward to coming back to work.
The real reason behind this is when people are not in a great frame of mind, they always look for shortcuts. And that’s not what The Souled Store wants. So, having a great work culture helps TSS a lot in scaling up consistently.
Brand And Licensing
The Souled Store has partnered with more than 150 licensors across movies, TV shows, cartoons, and brand collaborations. Interestingly, the portfolio of TSS is only going to grow bigger and bigger.
Talking about cracking the initial licensing deals, in 2014 or 2015, when they got their second license for F.R.I.E.N.D.S, it was before it became popular again on television, and then they started having reruns and reruns. As the brand, TSS did not simply copy and paste logos on their merchandise. It added certain surprise elements in their designs and redesigns everything from the scratch, which even the licensors appreciated.
These things helped them initially to get licenses. Since then, they never had a problem getting a license because their partners have been just as excited as them at the collaboration.
What Should Be The USP For An Apparel Brand?
According to Harsh, “If your only USP as a brand is that you’re cheaper than your competitor, then it is not strong enough, because nothing stops your competitors from coming with a larger round of funding and simply undercutting you. So, if your customers are only loyal to your price points, then they’re not loyal to your brand. And it’s a very dangerous game to play”.
Key Learnings From This Masters Of Sales Podcast:
(1) The core philosophy of The Souled Store is “Love What You Do and Follow Your Soul” which actually works almost everywhere.
(2) How the brand TSS sets itself apart from other brands.
(3) Omni-channel is only to enhance the customer experience.
(4) It’s important to understand why your customers put out negative feedback on social media.
See below for on-demand access to the podcast!
Click here for the List of Fashion Companies in India.
7 Best E-Commerce Marketing Techniques You Can Apply To Your Store Now
This article reveals some of the top e-commerce marketing tips that online shop owners can apply on their counter to generate more sales and boost ROI.
India has the largest population among all the countries. At 1.37 billion, it’s one of the most inhabited places in the world, second only to China. Still, of its billion-plus people, internet penetration is quite low, coming in at 41 percent of the total population, roughly 500 million of the 1.37 billion in the country.
Despite the low internet penetration, e-commerce development in India is still massive, thanks to the overall population size. It was worth US$ 48.5billion as of 2018 and is expected to quadruple to reach US$ 200 billion by 2026.
India has an Internet user base of about 504 million as of May 2020, about 40% of the population. This number is expected to be 627 million by the end of 2019. Despite being the second-largest user base in the world, only behind China (650 million, 48% of the population), the penetration of e-commerce is low compared to markets like the United States (266 million, 84%), or France (54 M, 81%), but is growing, adding around 6 million new entrants every month. The industry consensus is that growth is at an inflection point. (Source Wikipedia)
It’s also worth noting that internet and smartphone adoption in India is growing rapidly. This adoption of smartphones also shows trends toward mobile commerce as a preference for the vast number of Indians who own a smartphone.
The e-commerce industry has become so popular that we can now even order groceries or vegetables online. Sometimes you have to compromise a bit in quality but the stores like Flipkart, Amazon, and grofers deliver the best quality at your doorstep.
After the Pandemic hit the market in 2020, every store has become an online business, I mean isn’t it amazing. Every store accepts online payments with the help of apps like Google pay, amazon pay, Paytm, UPI, and many more. Cashless economy!
If we talk about the perspective of digital marketers then you have to pull your socks up, to sustain in the market you have to think outside the box or you can say you have to keep updating your marketing strategies. E-commerce also needs to focus on its promotions and for that marketing companies must have a list of e-commerce companies database.
SEO( search engine optimization) for eCommerce in marketing
Directories are now old fashion thing to rank, SEO has taken overall. Making a website is not enough if you want to sell your product or services then you must follow the protocols of google.
It doesn’t matter whether you have a large or small business, a bootstrapped startup, or a Fortune 500 firm — you need to focus on the SEO for your eCommerce business to maximize the profit.
When you are visible in the search engines, you can attract more potential customers. Ignoring SEO is more like taking risks and giving a chance to your competitors to grab your customers, which you obviously don’t want to happen.
Once you have optimized your website according to the guidelines, you need not worry. SEO offers you long-term benefits and it is not an optional thing to choose.
PPC ( Pay-Per-Click)
If you are running an eCommerce business then you must have heard about this term, PPC is a paid advertising marketing technique that will greatly increase your traffic. Make sure to choose the right type of keyword for your business, otherwise, you will end up spending lots of money with less impact as a comparison to the traffic you are expecting to gain.
In PPC you have to keep in mind before bidding those are-
-Right Keyword
-Competition on that keyword
-Traffic on that keyword
You can use Google ads for creating a different set of ads according to your requirements
Social Marketing
More than 3.8 billion of the population uses social media every day, on average people spend half of their day on social media. It will be a win-win situation for you to interact and gain customers’ trust because that is the most important thing in any business whether it is eCommerce or any other sort of business.
Start making informative posts or videos, use proper hashtags and captions to make look more interesting for your audience. You can promote your product or services on Facebook, Instagram, or youtube.
Content is the king
Trust me it not just the saying but it’s true- “Content is the king”, a right type of content on the right platform can boom your sales in just no time. If you are working on the eCommerce business then remember the fact focus on the quality and regularity of content will help you in boosting your ranking.
“As you go about creating new customer engagement programs and direct marketing packages for your brand, look for opportunities to give rather than to get. Whoever makes the first kind gesture, as studies show, tends to gain the most.” – Jeanette McMurtry
Try to come up with a new type of content every single time it keeps your old customers engaged and will also invite new customers to read.
Your job is not done here! after posting great content start sending notifications so that they don’t miss any of your blogs. Add a signup form on your eCommerce website, and encourage visitors to add their email addresses to receive updates.
Create a presence on multiple platforms
Making your presence on multiple platforms is one of the great ideas for increasing your brand value and awareness. You don’t want to miss out on a chance to impress your customers, for that create profiles on the platforms where you think you can find a genuine audience. This will keep you one step ahead of you your competitors.
Reviews increase trust
Create a review page on your products or services you are offering, this will help you in making your clients satisfied after using your services and will give you a chance to improve any of your products or service with their feedback. It looks good visually too and grabs the attention of clients.
You, Will, Be Able To Order A Tesla ( MODEL 3) On Your iPhone in 2021
You, Will, Be Able To Order A Tesla ( MODEL 3) On Your iPhone in 2021
Leave it to Elon Musk to turn on-demand car service into something of a luxury. Starting this summer, Tesla customers will be able to order an upcoming Model 3 from an iPhone or an Android app. By the end of 2021, every new Tesla vehicle will be equipped with 4G LTE connectivity, meaning that customers will be able to remotely access their cars from anywhere they can get cellular data.
Tesla has been the subject of various claims and debates, emerging from the assertions and the leadership of CEO Elon Musk, charges of informant reprisal, affirmed laborer rights infringement, and supposedly uncertain and hazardous specialized issues with their items.
About Tesla
According to Musk, the purpose of Tesla is to help expedite the move to sustainable transport and energy, obtained through electric vehicles and solar power. Tesla positioned as the world’s smash hit module and battery electric traveler vehicle producer in 2019, with a piece of the overall industry of 17% of the module portion and 23% of the battery-electric fragment. Tesla worldwide vehicle deals were 499,550 units in 2020, a 35.8% expansion over the past year. In 2020, the organization outperformed the 1 million characteristics of electric vehicles produced. The Model 3 positions as the world’s unequaled top of the line module electric vehicle, with more than 500,000 delivered.
Through its auxiliary SolarCity, Tesla creates and is a significant installer of sun-powered photovoltaic frameworks in the United States. Tesla is likewise one of the biggest worldwide providers of battery energy stockpiling frameworks, from home-scale to lattice scale. Tesla introduced the absolute biggest battery stockpiling plants on the planet and provided 1.65 GWh of battery stockpiling in 2019.
Tesla has been the subject of various claims and contentions, emerging from the assertions and the direction of CEO Elon Musk, charges of informant reprisal, affirmed specialist rights infringement, and purportedly uncertain and hazardous specialized issues with their items.
Business Strategy
Tesla’s item discharge technique is to imitate normal mechanical item life cycles and at first objective, well-off purchasers, and afterward, move into bigger business sectors at lower value focuses. The battery and electric drivetrain innovation for each model are created and incompletely paid for through the deals of prior models. The Roadster was low-volume and estimated at $109,000. Model S and Model X objective the more extensive extravagance market. Model 3 and the Model Y are focused on a higher-volume fragment. This system is basic in the innovation business.
Robotic manufacturing of the Model S at the Tesla Factory in Fremont, California
Tesla does not advertise. The companies aim to educate customers through its showrooms and sells its vehicles online rather than through a conventional dealer network. Tesla has showrooms in malls and other high-traffic areas. Musk believes existing dealerships have a conflict of interest and will not promote electric cars from Tesla or any manufacturer, because they make more money servicing than selling cars, and electric cars have lower servicing costs. Tesla is the first automaker in the United States that sells cars directly to consumers; all others use independently owned dealerships.
A bit about the world’s richest person- Elon Musk
After becoming the world’s richest person Elon Musk is attempting to reform transportation both on Earth, through electric vehicle creator Tesla – and in space, utilizing rocket maker SpaceX.
He claims 21% of Tesla yet has promised the greater part his stake as insurance for credits; Forbes has limited his stake to consider the advances.
He ventured down as director in 2018, in the wake of making affirmed “bogus proclamations” about an arrangement to take Tesla private, setting off a SEC test.
SpaceX, Musk’s rocket organization, is presently esteemed at $46 billion.
He experienced childhood in South Africa, at that point moved to Canada at age 17. He arrived in the U.S. as a student from another school to the University of Pennsylvania.
New Addition in Electric cars: Tesla Model 3
Now that you have read a bit about Tesla lets through some light on how we can order Tesla from our iPhone by end of the year. By this, you can guess that Tesla is into announcing the new addition i.e, MODEL 3.
It is accessible with Automatic transmission. The Model 3 is a vehicle and has a length of 4693mm, a width of 2087mm, and a wheelbase of 2875mm.
The Tesla Model 3 is an electric four-entryway fastback car created by Tesla. The Model 3 Standard Range Plus form conveys an EPA-appraised all-electric scope of 263 miles (423 km) and the Long Range adaptations convey 353 miles (568 km). According to Tesla, the Model 3 conveys full self-driving equipment, with intermittent programming refreshes adding usefulness.
Restricted creation of the Model 3 started in mid-2017, with the main creation vehicle moving off the mechanical production system on July 7, 2017. The authority dispatch and conveyance of the initial 30 vehicles occurred on July 28.
As of March 2020, the Tesla Model 3 is the world’s top-rated electric vehicle ever, with more than 500,000 units delivered. The Model 3 was the world’s top-selling module electric vehicle in 2018 and 2019, and the top-rated module vehicle in the United States. The Model 3 was likewise the top-selling module vehicle in Europe in 2019. In 2020, Tesla delivered more than 450,000 of the Model 3/Y body autos.
New plan for 2021
Tesla is giving its entrance level Model 3 vehicle a large group of improvements for 2021, including outside styling components that have traded brilliant chrome for silk dark trim. Three new wheel plans give the moving stock a new look, and the storage compartment top is presently power-worked.
Appearance redesigns proceed inside where the vehicle’s metallic entryway ledge defenders acquire the dark glossy silk trim to coordinate the outside. The Model 3’s middle reassure has been updated to oblige two remote cell phone charging cushions, and the sun visors presently utilize a magnet to hold them set up.
The seat-change controls and the directing wheel-mounted infotainment scroll wheels have new completes—the previous in graphite-shaded paint and the last in metal. Generally significant of everything is the Model 3’s improved driving reach. The base Standard Range Plus model presently guarantees a traveling scope of 263 miles for each charge, up from 250, while the Long Range model flaunts a 353-mile range, 31 miles more than the 2020 model conveyed.
Conclusion
This was all about Tesla and the new model 3, 2020 might not well according to our planes but we are hoping best for 2021 and it already had started. If you are interested in business or want to connect with some of the top Automotive companies in India you can explore our website. We are the best know for our 100 % accuracy rate in providing the correct information of all the companies and email addresses.
How to register a private limited company in India?
If you are trying to start a new business and looking to incorporate a new private limited company in India, then, first of all, a big congratulation to you for taking this step.
Entrepreneurship is hard and if you have taken this leap of faith, then I must admire you for that, after all I am an entrepreneur myself and started my own B2B contact data company a few years back.
Now that you have decided to start your own business let me share a step-by-step guide on how you can register for a private limited company in India.
Find a name for your company
The first step is to identify a name for your company, the name should be unique and resemble the business you are into, ideally.
The name should be of 4 words, out of which the first word is a unique word, the second word usually represents the business like if you are a service then you may user Services private limited, if you are a technology company you may want to use Technologies private limited, just like we have done.
The ministry of corporate affairs, recommend that you should propose at least 1 and a maximum of 6 names for your business while applying for a name for approval.
And the name should not resemble any other company already registered in India as an entity, you can ensure that by looking at the existing company names via the MCA website.
Apply for the name
Once you have decided on the names, you can now apply for the availability of the name via eForm1 A to the concerned ROC by logging on the MCA portal.
You have to pay INR 500 fee for the name approval.
Get your Digital Signatures
The next step is to apply for DIN but in order to do that, you first need to have your digital signatures ready with you as it will require them while applying for DIN.
There are various certifying agencies who will provide you with Digital signatures i.e DSC.
Using Aadhar card-based authentication, digital signatures can be obtained and they can also be arranged by your chartered accountant.
Get your Director Identification Number
In order to apply for a private limited company, all the individuals who are going to be the shareholders i.e Directors will have to get their Director Identification Number i.e DIN individually.
The SPICE Inc form helps you do that. You can apply for a DIN via the MCA website.
Applying for MOA and AOA
The next step is to apply for a Memorandum of Association and Articles of Association.
The Memorandum of Association or MOA is the document that covers the power and constitution of the company and outlines the core foundation of the company upon which it is to be built upon.
It defines the scope and boundaries of the company and what it can be and what it cannot do.
The Articles of Association or AOA defined the bylaws of the company, i.e the duties and responsibilities of the directors of the company.
Apply for MOA and DOA and get it vetted by the ROC and get those documents printed.
Get PAN and TAN
Once your company is incorporated you will be given the incorporation certificate which you can print and apart from that you will also get the PAN Card and the TAN i.e Tax deduction and collection account number.
Both the PAN and TAN are required for you to raise invoices and deduct tax i.e TDS for billings done by the company.
You can also apply for a GST certificate and number later on.
Open a bank account
With all the information in your hand, you can now open a current bank account under the name of your company at any bank of your choice.
All the payments you receive or payments you make will have to be done via the bank account.
Also, after you open your bank account, all the directors have to deposit a cheque in proportion to the face value of the shares allocated to the directors. This cheque should be deposited within a few days of the opening of the bank account.
Next Step, B2B leads?
Congratulations!!
Now that you have already opened up your private limited company, the next step is to grow your business and for that, you will be needing a B2B company database to target potential customers.
You can check EasyLeadz for the B2B leads database.
How to Set up Cold Email outreach for B2B lead gen
The genesis of this guide comes from our experience of talking to a lot of customers who buy custom email lists from us for their lead generation campaigns. On asking them “How are you going to set up your Cold Email outreach?” most of the times reply was –
“We will use MailChimp to send emails”
That got us thinking that it’s high time we laid out the process for sending cold emails based on our personal learning and experience.
At this point you might be wondering why are these guys hating on Mailchimp, well we have nothing against MailChimp. In fact, we love MailChimp and use it ourselves for sending out newsletters and setting up landing pages.
However, a tool is not suited for every application although it might have a certain feature.
You can chew the food on the plate with your teeth, but you can’t possibly be chewing the plate itself, even though you might be capable of it!
Tenor.com
First, let us have a look at Why Mailchimp is not the best-suited tool for running cold email outreach and then we dive into the basics of cold emailing and learning how to set up an email outreach campaign to generate leads.
What Mailchimp is suited for?
MailChimp is simple and yet powerful marketing software for –
Building beautiful landing pages.
Building your subscriber list via Opt-In pages.
Running Newsletter and Email marketing campaigns for your subscribers.
Managing and segmenting your audience.
Why MailChimp is not a good fit for cold email outreach?
Violation of Basic Terms
First of all, MailChimp forbids cold emailing. It clearly states in its TOS that you should have subscribers in your list who have opted in and allowed you to send them marketing emails.
Violating the policy may lead to suspension of your account.
Deliverability
This is one of the most important reasons as to why it’s not a good fit. MailChimp triggers campaign emails from shared servers which means originating IP of your message may be flagged as spam by the recipient’s email server if it has received spam messages in past from the same IP, which likely can be the case.
Without sounding too technical what it means for you as an end-user is that your email deliverability is impacted as your emails are more likely to end up in the Spam or Promotions folder.
Additionally, this lowers your open rates and hence the response rates.
No follow-up scheduling
You can’t set up scheduled follow-ups based on replies, which improves open and response rates. You will have to create another campaign and the whole process becomes manual and unscalable. We will explain this in detail, later in the post.
Why Cold Email Outreach?
Cold email outreach is a powerful technique to get in front of the right prospects. People have launched startups, grown blogs and landed their dream clients by sending cold emails.
Now let’s dive into the scenario where you are looking to generate leads for your business.
You have a list of emails and your objective is to reach out to these prospects who yet don’t have any idea about your product or services.
What do you think should be the prime objective if you are looking to generate interest and close a sale?
It should be to get responses from a few of the prospects if not all and jump onto a discovery call to understand their pain points and challenges.
How can you achieve that or what would it require?
You can achieve that by setting a cold email outreach process that works as a growth machine to drive leads.
Now let‘s explore each step one by one.
1. Targeting and Email list building
Targeting lays the foundation to generate high-quality leads through any channel let alone cold emails. Setting up any lead generation process without getting the targeting right is like building a castle on shifting sand.
Right targeting will drive your outreach in the right direction. So how do you get targeting right?
Start off by researching into the business needs and challenges of the Industries and companies (within those industries) who stand to benefit the most out of your products and services.
Once you have narrowed down, now look at which decision-makers would be the right prospects.
This exercise will help in 4 key areas you will –
Get to know who your potential customers are and save you tons of hours which otherwise would have gone in trying to reach out to everyone.
Be able to create your Ideal Customer Profile which will help you in building a targeted contacts list.
Know customers’ pain points, challenges that not only the companies face but also the individuals, which can be used for crafting personalized emails and boost replies.
Get better at lead scoring and comprehending reasons behind why a particular customer is buying and why not.
Now that your targeting is in place next important thing is to get the email list ready. At this step, you can go in 2 directions –
This is the step where people falter the most but the only way to become good at not faltering at this step is by repetition and experimentation. That is how we have become better here at Easyleadz.
As is the case with building any other skill you become better at cold emails as you write more and keep on experimenting with formats and optimize
There are dozens of email templates out there, in fact, we also share templates with our readers but truth be told simply copy-pasting a template won’t get you much success.
Instead of simply copying, make any template your own.
Meaning, understand the structure of communication and add your own personalization based on the understanding of your audience. it’s definitely hard work.
Most people skip the hard work and then complain we are not getting responses.
Tenor.com
In the beginning, write cold emails from scratch, draft a few different versions and test them. Having said that there are few Cold email best practices that you can always follow –
Personalize subject lines and test different versions. Short and crisp or long form such as asking a question like Joe, Are you looking to scale lead generation?
Opening lines should be engaging and warm up the reader to read through the whole email. You can be direct or quirky or clever. Try all different variations and assess what works best in your case.
Make it about your prospect’s problem and how you have a solution and not about your product features or bouquet of services.
Always close with a call to action and preferably a single one. It is necessary to direct your reader towards making a decision at the end. Never leave it. You can ask about connecting over a call or seeking their permission to send more information or simply asking them to watch a video or webinar.
Keep your signature short and crisp with links to social profiles preferably LinkedIn. Don’t stuff it with too much text and company logo.
Don’t use too many links or images in your email body. It will negatively impact deliverability.
Don’t include attachments as at times google’s spam filters route the mail to spam even if its a scanned attachment.
In order to dive deeper into the technicalities of writing cold emails, you can refer to
Next thing you need is an email domain to send emails from. It is highly advised to not send emails from your main business domain such as easyleadz.com. Instead, use an alternate but similar sounding domain for e.g. easyleadz.in.
The benefit here is that even if people mark you as spam on rare occasions it will not impact your main business domain.
Once you have your email domain set up, create a personal email account using your name. Don’t plan to send emails from ids like info@domain.com or sales@domain.com. It lends credibility to the overall personalization you are trying to achieve with your email body.
You can create your email account either using service from your Domain hosting service provider or use Gmail for Business or Outlook.
We would advise using Gmail since most of the cold email automation tools allow you to quickly connect your official Gmail account in a single step without having to go into technicalities of manually configuring IMAP and SMTP settings.
Irrespective of whether you have a new email account or an existing one if you are using it for the first time to send cold emails at scale, keep in mind these basic checks –
Mxtoolbox to look up.
Set up SPF (Sender Policy Framework) and DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) to protect your domain. Learn how to set it up.
Warm up your email account before sending large batches of cold emails. Start small with 10-15 emails per day and slowly increase in intervals of 7 days. Don’t jump from 10 to 50 increase in intervals of 15-20 emails.
Now comes the step where you can automate your outreach process and generate leads at scale. So what is an Email outreach or Cold Email automation tool?
Cold Email outreach tools help you send out personalized cold emails at scale while mimicking human-like sending behavior. You can set a sequence of emails (schedule followup emails in case no replies) for each recipient and the tool automatically send follow-ups based on reply detection on previous emails.
You would be easily able to track open, reply, click rates and optimize the performance of your campaigns.
For e.g. you can easily check which email in the sequence is getting most replies and which one is not and accordingly optimize.
You can set up your campaigns in 2 steps –
Connect your Email account and upload an email list
Create Email sequence.
First 2 steps are easy, I am going to focus on the third.
Setting up Email sequence
You might be sending cold emails to 100’s of prospects but if you are not sending follow-ups your open rate is impacted negatively by at least 30-40% and reply rate by at least 10-15%
This campaign had only one email
This campaign had one followup email
Note the difference in open rates and reply rates
In our experience of sending 1000’s if not millions of emails on an average, it takes at least 3-4 touches to get a response.
Here are the basics of setting up followup emails –
Setup at least 3-4 follow-ups in your campaign, although recommended, is 5-6.
Keep the flow of communication in followup emails in context to the previous email. You can even take the prospect through an awareness journey wherein the first email your CTA can be as simple as reading an informative post and then in one of the next follow-ups you can ask for a call.
Wait at least 2 days before sending a followup email. Give your prospects space and time to evaluate what you are offering to them.
Now coming to actual tools you can use, there are many of them with their own unique features and value proposition.
However, there are certain standard features that most of the tools provide –
Email verification and list cleaning
Reporting features like Open, Link and Reply tracking
Personalization tags
Follow-ups
A/B Testing
Contact Management
Integrations with Third Party apps.
Free trials.
We are going to look at 3 of the tools we have tried and loved them –
Easy to use UI even if you are new to using email automation tools. Found it really easy to get started right away without much learning curve involved.
Pricing starts at $40 per month and you can send emails to an unlimited number of prospects. They have 14 days of free trial available.
Reply has been around for almost 5 years and the team has added some exciting features like Direct Calling, Gmail Plugin, and Live Tasks to make the platform more powerful over the years and enterprise adoption worthy. One thing I loved about their email composer is the ability to choose templates right from the composer itself.
Pricing starts at $55 per month with 14 days of a free trial. In higher plans, you get a has a host of team collaboration features
Lemlist is the new kid on the block and they have created quite a buzz with their Image and Video personalization features. Those of you curious to try out images and videos in cold emails Lemlist is your go-to platform.
Pricing starts at $29, in the base plan you can send emails to unlimited prospects with a cap on daily sending limit to 100 emails.
Here is what to do next
1. Tell us which part of cold email outreach you were not paying attention to earlier.
Email introducing a new product is one of the most cost-effective and direct ways to reach out to the right prospects. When any product is new what it needs most is a tribe of right kind of early adopters who will not only use the product but also give valuable feedback that is so sought in early stages.
Either you can wait for those early users to discover your product or you can cut it short by directly sending an email introducing the new product, making them aware of the pain points your product solves.
The situation is unique given that there is no social proof yet which can be used as a unique proposition for prospects which means either the communication has to stand out or the product or even better Both.
The main objective of sending the email is not to immediately close a sale but to generate enough interest so that your prospect responds. Once you have their attention, you and your product can do all the talking and convince them to buy.
Keeping that in mind here are 5 examples of
Email introducing a new product
Adapt these to pitch to your prospective customers.
1. Be direct with product benefits as the core of communication
Hey {firstname},
This is John, I work in {Role} at {Company name}. I came across your company profile and thought what we offer could be of value to you.
We have recently launched {Product} which helps in
{Benefit 1}
{Benefit 2}
If this sounds interesting, can we set up a time for a quick call?
{Signature}
Pro Tip: Now the most important piece in this email is how you contextualize the benefits w.r.t. The business challenges or the pain points your prospect might be having.
2. Weave a story around your product
Greetings {firstname},
I was browsing through your companies website and thought of dropping you a note. You have never heard of me, I am Joe from {company name}.
While working on X we realized that {Pain point 1},{Pain point 2} could be easily resolved using a tool which helps with {solution 1}, {solution 2}.
We buried ourselves into the problem and worked hard for the past 6 months on building {product name} which can help companies like {company name} with achieving {benefit 1}, {benefit 2}
If you can give me 15 mins of your time this week, I can walk you through how we can help you achieve these results.
{Signature}
Pro Tip: Study your prospects’ pain points in depth so you can customize it as close to their objective as possible 18
3. Be direct with the fact that yours is a new product.
(and how it is better than existing solutions)
Hey {firstname},
This is Joey, I work at {Company name}. I came across your company profile and thought what we offer could be of value to you.
Although we have recently launched our {product name} but we solve {paint point 1}, {pain point 2} better than {competitor 1, competitor 2}.
We deliver {result 1}, {result 2} by {quantiy the benefit} at 10% less cost.
In case this piques your interest enough, Can we speak for 10 mins sometime this week?
{Signature}
4. Let a personalized video do the talking
Greetings {firstname},
Apologies for interrupting your lovely day but I wanted to show you something that can be of value for {company name}.
{Video – Personally talking about the product}
Btw, This is Joe from {company name} Have a great day ahead!
{Signature}
Pro Tip: Don’t send a basic product demo video with voiceover, instead, talk directly with the prospect and explain to him/her what you have built and why. Put your call to action in the video itself.
Prospects will appreciate the time you took out to create a personalized video for them.
Your hustle will reflect positively on the product and create a positive image.
5. Break the ice with a dash of humor and make it about yourself.
Largely intended to get a meeting or demo call. A tinge of humor lowers the unfamiliarity and warms up the reader.
In business settings, people generally receive to the point, professional-sounding emails. Your email could be a positive break from the pattern and might elicit a response.
Think like a stand-up comedian!
Greetings {firstname},
I wanted to show up on your doorstep and introduce myself, alas all I could manage is this email 😛 You have never heard of me, I have not done anything newsworthy yet!
This is Joe and I lead {role} for {company name}.
We are new kids on the block helping companies in {key areas, for e.g. Customer support} but with a much more powerful solution that delivers {X}% better results.
Oh, and I wanted to ask something before I show myself out of the mailbox. Can we get on a demo call where I can show you how we deliver better results?
Now you can go back to sipping that cup of coffee you have been waiting for.
Have a great day ahead!
{Signature}
You can try mixing and matching the content and format (text/video). Test different versions to optimize response rates.
Don’t forget to follow up 2-3 times with your prospects not everyone might have to time to reply the first time itself.
Here is what to do next
Share your results with us and the email that nailed it.
For a startup especially the bootstrapped ones like us, early paying customers are most crucial. First 50 paying customers not only bring revenue but also validate your value proposition and help you grow in the right direction.
It becomes even more important that you listen to them and their feedback, on the other hand, don’t get every customer on board who are willing to pay in early stages, as every customer is not a fit.
They might pay you but if they eventually become a pain in the a*s and you have too many of them, it will drain the team more and impact long term growth.
As a small team starting out with limited resources at the disposal it is really important to pick the right and few battlegrounds and go all in on them. You practically can’t be targeting every marketing channel to get the first 50 paying customers.
So here is a lowdown on how we went about acquiring our first 50 paying customers.
The Process
Step 1 – Narrowed down on channels we would be focussing on
Step 2 – Worked on lead generation tactics for each channel.
Step 3 – Analyse how each channel performed, rinse and repeat.
We decided to focus on the following 3 channels and hit the mark of 50 customers:
1. Cold E-mail Outreach
Since we help companies with building B2B contacts list, it was a no brainer. We cook and eat our own cake.
Source: Giphy
E-mail outreach is a much better channel for quick revenue realization in early stages as SEO/Content Marketing take time to build and drive results. You can’t be entirely dependent on your Inbound marketing to kick in results.
We built our e-mail lists based on the following criteria –
Industries – We picked Industries where companies are B2B focussed.
Next, we worked on our E-mail templates varying the content depending on which Industry we were targeting and used an E-mail automation tool using which we could set a cadence of 4-5 follow-ups.
We tracked open, click and reply rates consistently and optimised our campaigns for higher response rate.
Cold E-mail outreach is still a big part of our lead generation process and drives close to 40% of our monthly revenue.
Our advice would be to start small with your outreach campaigns and examine how well your targeting, content, and scheduling is working and scale up from there.
2. Quora
Here are some interesting facts about Quora (Source: Similarweb)
Quora has more than 600 million monthly visits
Almost 20% of traffic coming from India
Of the overall traffic, 70% of it is coming from search
What does this mean?
This means people are searching in google for answers and end up on answers in Quora because questions asked on Quora get indexed in search results.
This means if you answer readers’ queries in your niche in an in-depth manner, you are likely to get visitors who are not only interested in your product/service they already have a fair idea of what problem you can solve.
To top this as per this Gartner report close to 88% of buyers encounter information during their decision-making process and one of the easiest ways to disseminate information about your services is Quora.
So what did we do? We went about dedicatedly answering the questions in our niche and adding value for the readers and buyers in our own unique way.
Now there is a whole process to finding the right answers on Quora to balance the amount of effort you should publish and visibility it can drive for your product and services. Deserves a well-explained post in itself, we will write about this one soon
Blindly answering every question that comes across in your feed is like burying your head in the sand and then expecting the storm won’t hit you.
A few basic checks you can follow while starting out are –
Pick a few niches where following is big and answer consistently
Look at follower to answer ratio. 3:1 is good and anything above it is great. Don’t just leave a question because the above ratio is low if you feel you can write something which can really benefit the readers, go ahead and write.
Make use of the Answer wiki’s, edit/create them wherever you think your product/service is the right fit.
Not only did we start getting traffic from Quora, as we kept on posting, but traffic also started converting into leads and leads into revenue.
3. LinkedIn
Being the largest Professional network, its a heaven for anyone looking to sell to businesses. You can not only target your audience but also engage with them and build relationships.
LinkedIn is the most effective social channel when it comes to generating B2B leads. Don’t believe me, read this post from Neil Patel LinkedIn Strategies for B2B Marketing. As per his research, almost 80% of social media leads come from LinkedIn.
There are many tactics which can generate leads on LinkedIn right from having your own company page to participating in groups.
We will focus on tactics we adopted to drive leads:
1. Content Publishing – We continuously post about our learnings, best practices, B2B lead generation tips and add value to the network using free giveaways like one of these posts which generated close to 2M views.
There are a fraction of people who like, comment and directly interact with your content and then there are lurkers, who simply observe and absorb value from your content for a time and then when they are in buying mode they know where to look.
2.Prospecting and Direct Messaging – LinkedIn is a great platform to prospect your target audience especially with all the insights you get to know about your prospects can be used for personalized outreach.
First, start with connecting the right prospects in our case it was people working in Sales and Marketing roles across companies.
Don’t simply hit send when you are sending a connection request, personalize your request by adding a note and follow up with a conversation using the insights you have about them. It can be about workplace promotion, their social activity or any great piece of content they wrote.
In all honesty, we tried both the things directly pitching our services right after the connection was accepted out of eagerness and pitching after a few rounds of messages has been exchanged.
The second approach fared better, warmed up the other person, built a level of familiarity and created a more solid pitching ground for our services.
These are not the only channels which can help get early paying customers. Now we have also started focussing on SEO and Content Marketing.
You can always experiment rapidly with a bunch of channels and settle on few that would work. The operative word here is few as a small startup team you ought to be focussing and optimizing on every calorie of energy spent rather than fighting on all fronts.
Let go of the good ones for great ones at least for reaching from zero to 50 paying customers.
