ToutApp Adds Presentation and Website Tracking to Sales Communications Platform

Email Attachment Tracking

For the average person in marketing or sales, email attachments are incredibly important. They provide compelling content to the recipient, they supplement what can't be said in a short business email, and they're what help sign the deal. If you know your recipients are interested in the content you're providing them with, you have a far better chance of doing business together.

Now we'll let you know when your recipient opens an attachment and is paging around the content. You'll know when they open it, what's most interesting to them, and if they come back to view it again and again (a good sign!). This new attachments platform is called Tout Connect, and we've got some great additions coming to it soon.... so stay tuned.

Here's an example of what one of our trackable attachments looks like:

New attachment.docx

Getting Started with Trackable Attachments

Tout Connect works in both on our website and in Gmail and Google Apps. 

1) To attach a trackable email, go compose an email, and then click either the "Link" or "Link to File" buttons.

2) Choose your attachment and send it out. We support PDF, Word docs, and Powerpoint presentations.

3) Hit "Send" and fire up your Live Feed. You'll see your recipients as they open and page through your attachments. 

Site Tracking Actions

We rolled out our Site Tracking feature a few months ago to let you know when your email recipients independently visit your website.

We rely heavily on Site Tracking internally at ToutApp to see when prospects visit our pricing, "About Us", and trial account pages. However, we quickly realized that there's more to site tracking than just browsing around pages on your website. Now Site Tracking will alert you to the key actions that your leads are taking on your website: buying a product, signing up for an account, downloading an asset, etc etc.

Cool! How do I set it up site actions?

Log into our app and head over to our Site Tracking page in the Integrations pane. Follow steps 1-4.

Site tracking requires you to have access to your website's underlying code. If you don't have access yourself, you'll need to talk to your web administrator to get started. All you'll need to do is paste in some custom Javascript on the pages and action areas you'd like to track.

If you're have any questions, you can always email team@toutapp.com for help.

We hope you get a chance to play around with the new features! As always, we'd love to hear your feedback. And if you haven't had a chance to get started with our app yet, you can start your free trial today.

User of the Week: Eric Wu from Bracket Labs

I'm one of the founders of Bracket Labs. We're a Boulder, CO startup building enterprise software apps for the Salesforce AppExchange. Our apps are TaskRay and Campaign Calendar, and together they're helping thousands of sales and marketing people around the world work more productively in Salesforce.

We're a small company, so as a founder I wear a lot of different hats. One of my primary roles is sales, so I spend a lot of time talking to customers who have found our apps through the AppExchange and are looking for more information so they can make a purchase.

I love ToutApp for three big reasons:

1) It helps me do more faster! We have a set of emails we send to new leads to help them understand the apps and determine whether there's a good fit for their team.

ToutApp has allowed me to send (and schedule) my emails in a way that has reduced my time per lead by about 30%.

2) The ability to deliver nicely formatted, trackable follow-up email responses from within the Salesforce Leads tab but sent from my own email address (rather than Salesforce's mailer) is great because I don't always trust the deliverability of the Salesforce mailer.

3) The Live Feed of activity on my sent emails is awesome and gives me new insight on customer engagement with my emails. I can prioritize my follow-ups based on their activity and interest level, timely response to an engaged customer is a big part of showing them you're paying attention and you are ready to help.

Every other week, we'll profile a different person who uses our app to improve their email productivity. If you would like to be featured in the future, you can apply here.

Tout was Featured as one of Entrepreneur Magazine’s 7 Essential Apps for Sales Teams

This week, we were honored to be featured by Entrepreneur Magazine as one of the 7 Essential Apps for Sales Teams. And of course, we're in great company. As the article points out, there are a lot of small details required to for a salesperson to close a sale. If you can't manage the tiny details, there's no way you will be able to be a successful sales person.

A Better Way to Work

Luckily, tools like Tout will help you increase your productivity and manage each step in a smarter way. For example, the ability to schedule emails means that as soon as you've left a meeting, you can follow up immediately, but you won't seem over-eager. The fact that Tout will automatically update your CRM with not only a copy of the email, but also analytic data on that email, means that you have one more step you don't have to worry about. People are raving about it.

A browser plugin automatically scans for any email addresses listed on a Web page, helping you quickly find the person you need. 'Click the [contact] you want, click the template button and you're sending an email in two minutes,' says Beth Morgan, vice president of marketing for Palo Alto, Calif.-based healthcare tracking site Simplee.

It's all about streamlining the process. If we can find ways to help salespeople close deals faster and more efficiently, we ultimately help salespeople partner with their customers to bring them more of the products and services they need, without losing a bit of the personal touch.

Want to streamline your sales email process? Try Tout for free today.

And of course, a big thank you to Entrepreneur Magazine for helping us share our love of workplace productivity with the world!

Brian Whorley Writes, Tweaks, and Improves His Way to More Sales

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.

3 Sales Tips for Today's Sales Professionals

So here are my three top tips to rock your sales emails:

Be yourself.

Be concise.

Be consistent.