Dogfooding
- May 10, 2012
- by Tawheed Kader (TK)
- Founder and CEO
One of the things that sets us apart in the industry (especially in the Enterprise space) is that we use our own product to build our business.
I like to refer to it as "We use Tout to Tout Tout."
Back in the early days, it was rough. As I used our product to send out an email to a potential investor, or to a new customer, I'd encounter glaring bugs. It was painfull, but it forced each and every one of us to go through what our customers go through -- in fact, it made us customers (albeit empowered customers because we were able to address the problems that pained us the most).
Today, rarely do I end up wincing as I send an email with tracking, track the analytics around how our Happiness Officers are following up on customer demos, or even manage a Tout Group to say keep a list of people in our iPad beta.
Its actually a great feeling. But the process is the same. As I use it, I get closer to understanding the feature requests our customers ask for, the problems they are encountering, and as the head of product in the company, it really helps me hone in on what our product roadmap should be.
But more importantly than ever, I think its kind of cool that we can use our own product to grow our own company. Thats got to be one of the most rewarding things ever.
As I write this blog entry, I'm staring at my Live Email Feed and my Template Analytics, anxiously waiting for people to engage with an email I sent out to recruit testers for our upcoming iPad app (we think Mobile is going to be the most important play for us, way more than any other integration).
They say solving your own problems is the best way to build a great product and company. I agree.
Start Touting to grow your business today...
How Tout Makes the IT World a Little Friendlier
- Apr 20, 2012
- by Lauren Buchsbaum
- Happiness Officer
Ah, information technology. Having worked in the IT world for several years, I can confirm that it has a reputation for being unnecessarily jargon-laden and user-unfriendly.
Help with a Smile, however, is an IT company working to shrug off this reputation. Their President and Chief IT Specialist Michael Spadaro has built a company that is friendly and customer-centric, and at the center of all of their communications is Tout.
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How Help with a Smile Uses Tout
Michael: We're an NYC-based IT support and consulting firm, and we use Tout for communicating with sales prospects that are (hopefully) looking to improve their IT support situation. We store our e-mail templates in Tout and share them among the sales team. Being able to collaboratively develop sales messaging templates is not only a time saver, but it makes sure that the communications are on-point with our sales strategies. At the same time, we love how easy it is to customize a template on-the-fly to keep things personal.
Before Tout, our sales processes were very "shoot from the hip"- as a small company without a dedicated sales staff, we don't have the luxury of spending a lot of time writing and re-writing e-mail communications to prospects, which is exactly what we were doing before.
3 things you can do to embody the voice of the customer
- Constantly tweak and hone your templates
- Use your Tout templates to keep your team on-message, with a positive and light tone.
- Ask others outside of your field to [read your templates] and give you suggestions.
IT professionals have a well-earned reputation for not being able to relate well to the rest of the business world- bucking this trend is what Help with a Smile is all about, but many IT companies could use a dose of user-friendliness in their sales processes.
3 signs your prospects are engaged
There's been several occasions where we've used Tout to focus our sales efforts on prospects based upon their positive interaction with a message we "touted" to them. We can see when a prospect is showing a great level of interest, whether by:
- Repeatedly viewing the message
- Forwarding the message to others who are also viewing
- Clicking on links in the message
Even those bits of information alone can tremendously inform the sales process. Given this knowledge, we can prioritize our sales tasks to reach out to these individuals through other methods of communication as a follow-up to our e-mail.
How to Preserve Your Sanity while Emailing
- Apr 4, 2012
- by Lauren Buchsbaum
- Happiness Officer
Ever wonder what happens after you hit the "Send" button on your emails? Some of them are deleted without being opened while others never make it past the spam filter. Without a standard reply or a response to your "Hey, did you get my earlier email…?," you're blind to your recipients’ actions.
“Sending an important email without Tout feels like operating my business in the dark.”
- Forest Linden
Wondering whether your important emails have been received is a pain, but multiply that tenfold when you're running your own company. We had two founders of their own businesses weigh in on this topic: Forest Linden, the founder of Tech Husband, who doles out advice and training around web tools; and Matt Cooper, the Founder and CEO at Addroid, a platform that creates streamlined, affordable video banner ads. Forest and Coop both weighed in on how Tout has helped them stop worrying about email responses so they can start working on what's important: running their business.
Before Tout
FL: If 24 hours elapsed between when I sent an important email and getting no response from someone, I would start to get concerned that they didn't get it, and if a day and a half or two days went by with no response from them, I would send out another email to touch base and make sure they got the first email.
MC: Basically I was just sending regular emails out into the abyss and then days later would just think, "I wonder if that guy got my email? Should I try him again? I wonder if he saw the link I sent? Maybe I should call? Nah, that's crazy. Could I email again to check? Maybe I'll follow up with a quick note, but I wonder if I'm just bothering him at this point?" I'd pretty much go back and forth like this.
After Tout
MC: As the CEO of a new startup I find myself working many different roles. While I enjoy working on the product, I realize that it's not much good if no one hears about it. So, for the time being I'm the lead sales person, and I'm having to get up to speed on the process of sales and the tools of the trade... What I was really struggling with was sending and following up on emails. Tout has helped me dramatically increase the amount of prospecting I can do in a day and now I finally know if I'm getting though.
FL: With ToutApp, the entire worry cycle is gone because I can see if they opened my email... Since I can see whether or not they viewed it and how long they had it open for, I know when people have read an email, and now I can relax and give them a few days before I follow up.That allows me to focus on other important aspects of running my business, rather than wasting energy worrying and sending out second emails to see if people got the first one.
To find out what's working and what isn't working with your inside sales efforts you need to be able to measure the results. Tout solves this one problem and does it well.
- Matt Cooper
You can learn more about how Tout satisfies your curiosity with email analytics here.
Ditch the Business Cards - How to Network More Successfully at Conferences
- Mar 26, 2012
- by Lauren Buchsbaum
- Happiness Officer
Any experienced businessperson has attended their fair share of conferences and tradeshows. They’ve networked, they’ve delivered their pitch, and they’ve handed out and received endless swathes of business cards. As our society continues to talk about going paperless, the fact that business cards are still prevalent seems a little outdated.
At Tout, our mission has always been to make emailing simpler and more efficient by providing features like templates, tracking, and easy-to-message groups. Still, our product is flexible and ever-changing; we hear about new use cases from our customers every day. So when we heard about users relying on Tout as a replacement for business cards, we had to share it!
Tout solves a key problem for any salesperson: following up.
Picture South by Southwest in your mind: It’s a time for concerts, panel sessions, parties, and endless, endless amounts of networking. And with networking comes business cards. And with business cards come dead trees. All that aside, though, keeping track of the sheer volume of contacts met during SXSW is a daunting task.
We caught up with Vivek Sharma of Movable Ink who attended South by Southwest this year to get some insight into his use of Tout.
What was life like before Tout?
VS: [Before Tout, I would] carry a stack of business cards and do a card exchange. No one ever follows up on collected business cards. One could spend hours sorting through cards, transcribing data, and following up. Why not skip the steps and go directly to a personalized email? I've saved hours and hours of time with this streamlined process.
My inbox is also searchable so I'll always be able to go back and track older communications with someone I met. I love Tout!
How did you use Tout at SXSW?
VS: I used Tout to send people my contact information, follow up with them, and demo my company's technology. My company, Movable Ink, delivers live and streaming content in emails. Tout's the perfect solution to demo this to people I meet. I send people I meet a personalized email with an example of Movable Ink technology (see below).
It's the perfect tool to get people to experience what we have built on a visceral level.
Have you recommended Tout to anyone? How did you describe it?
VS: I do… in fact I describe Tout to anyone I've met and I'm about to send an email to. I tell them it's like a Mailchimp for personal use.
Bonus: What are your favorite Tout features?
VS: Tout's delayed send is an awesome feature. People are very busy during SXSW so its useful to auto-send the follow-up three days after the event, when they can actually absorb it.
The iPhone app is very easy to use when you're on the go. Finally, being able to track whether your email was opened or clicked on is a big benefit.
You can learn more about Tout on our homepage - and be sure to look up our iPhone app as well.
Brian Whorley Writes, Tweaks, and Improves His Way to More Sales
- Dec 13, 2011
- by Margaux Guyonneau
- Community Manager
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Brian Whorley really knows how to build a company. He and his co-founder, Daniel Lynn, have built Big Tree Solutions from the ground up for over three years. Their product, RDS Logic, allows restaurants to offer delivery when they don't normally have delivery services. RDS Logic allows restaurants to significantly increase their revenues because they can fill many more take-out orders than tables.
Selling RDS Logic
Over the course of the three years, Brian developed some great strategies around pitching his product to potential customers. Each time he met someone who could use his product, he sent an email to explain how it worked. Brian knew that RDS Logic could significantly improve a restaurant's business, and over time he was able to hone his message and develop different ways of selling the product; he basically created different templates.
We sent ad hoc emails that often varied day to day. I think they naturally evolved into 'that best template' over time, but that took too long - we needed to find out what doesn't work faster.
Consistent Messaging & Faster Tweaking
With Tout, Brian was able to create specific templates for each of his messages and track the success of each one. Because he was using Tout templates, Brian was able to make sure that he included all the relevant information in his emails. Like all business owners, Brian really did know the product like the back of his hand. It was still a challenge to remember each piece of information and customize it to show how RDS Logic fits the needs of each potential customer. With Tout, Brian could take the basic mental template he was already using and send it with Tout - consistency was faster and much, much easier.
Armed with analytics around his sales messages, Brian could also tweak and improve each message, making each email more effective than the last. His standard message was the same, but he could find information on the success of his delivery after each email, rather than waiting until the end of the sales cycle.
Tout allowed Brian to adapt and improve much faster, and thus lead to even more RDS Logic sales and more revenue for restaurants across the country. If you're ready to send a better message and improve your sales, give Tout a try today.