ToutApp Turns Three!

ToutApp was founded back in 2010 as a simple tool to write your emails faster and track them. Today we help over 45,000 customers crystalize and streamline their day-to-day communications process as one of the leading sales communications platforms and we are pretty happy about it.

We're only pretty happy because much like a toddler starting to develop his own personality and character and likes and dislikes, we feel like we're just getting started in leading the change in how salespeople communicate.

ToutApp has been through quite the journey over the years let's take a look back.

2010-2011

• Created Email Templates
• Introduced Email Tracking

2011-2012

• Rolled out integration with Gmail and Google Apps
• Integrations with Highrise, Batchbook, Capsule
• Introduced team collaboration features 
• The Live Feed was created 

2012-2013

• Rolled out Salesforce integration
• Outlook integrations
• Introduced attachment tracking
• Website tracking
• Made ToutApp enterprise ready
• Introduced an analytics dashboard 

We have grown our team, our product and customers. Thank you all for being a part of the ToutApp jourmey and for what is to come. Without our amazing customers we would not be where we are today. Thanks for all your feedback and support over the years. Cannot wait for the years to come as the leading sales communications platform. Wish ToutApp a happy 3rd birthday today! 

Trada Hones in on Hot Leads with Tout

About Trada

Online advertising is a crowded, confusing industry that Trada brings sanity to. They run the first and only crowdsourced, community-based marketplace for online advertising. Clients sign up, detail their needs, and are matched with industry experts, eliminating the need for a full in-house paid search team. Their business provides an easy solution that’s ideal for mid-market and larger small businesses.

We've profiled Trada in the past to spread word about a job opening for Business Development Reps. Check it out to learn more about their team and great culture - as well as their annual scooter race! 

The problem

Trada’s messaging and lead follow-up process were systematized, but they lacked key insights into their day-to-day sales communication. Their Business Development Reps weren’t sure which leads were the most qualified to follow up with, and they also weren’t sure what communications resonated the most with prospects.

The Solution

Trada’s sales and marketing departments worked together to get Tout running for the team. Marketing created templates for sales, and sales used these in their everyday communications to A/B test and gather usage metrics. Tout’s templates save Trada time writing repetitive emails, and they ensure that messaging is consistent across the team. As a fast-growing company, new Business Development Reps can quickly get up to speed on the sales process and messaging. Trada’s sales team can now gain critical insights on a lead-by-lead basis - by knowing who opened their emails - to hone in on the most interested leads with targeted follow-up.  

Tout enables our sales team to prioritize their day. In the past we wasted time chasing leads who never opened the emails we sent them. By using Tout we can now target prospects that we are confident have opened their email. Tout also gives us insight into how quickly they are opened, how many times and what action they take after reading,"
- Chris Crawfurd, Director of Training and Sales Enablement

Bonus: ToutApp best practices from the Trada team

• Move recipients with the most clicks and views on emails to the top of the list for follow up
• Have marketing and sales work together to create and test sales email templates
• Follow up with an email or phone call when the Live Feed shows a lead viewing your email
• A/B test sales templates to see which perform the best, then use the ones with the best statistics.

Why Email Tracking is a big deal for Salespeople

Marketers have been obsessing over their Email Open Rates since…well.. since the beginning of Email Marketing.

With Tout Email Tracking, we brought the same "fancy" technology to everyday 1-to-1 sales emails so that salespeople could see in real-time how prospects and leads engaged with their sales emails.

Up until now, Email Tracking for Salespeople has been a well kept secret, something that gives you that "extra edge."

Email tracking may soon become a necessity rather than a luxury.

Today's article titled "Email Auto-Filtering - What's a Marketer to Do?" on a Marketing News & Expert Advice Site suggests that the rise of auto email filtering services like SaneBox and Google Smart Inbox are probably relegating those marketing emails to a folder called "Travel" rather than the person's Inbox.

Whether it's a folder or a "stack," your email marketing message has found itself tightly aligned with other email communications from competitors and other vertically aligned organizations. Many systems have default categorizations that look at a variety of information within the marketing message and the email envelope to tuck the message away neatly for the recipient.

Better Inbox management and smart filtering is something that needs to happen. These filters will get better and better to get you, me, and our leads to focus on the messages that matter and ignore the ones that don't. This is something we believe in as well.

Interestingly enough, these filters can start looking into sales emails as well. Pretty soon, I can imagine a world where your sales email will get locked out faster than a smart receptionist knows to block out cold sales calls for the CEO.

What's a salesperson to do?

Use Email Tracking. That way, instead of wondering whether that email got through and ignored or engaged, you'll know. In Real-Time, you'll know whether your email gets opened, whether your presentation gets viewed, and whether your links get clicked.

How does Email Tracking help?

Obviously, being that Tout Tracking provides all this functionality, we're a little biased. But, don't just take our word for it. Here's what Jeanne Burns had to say about Tout's real-time tracking on our recent DIYMarketers article "ToutApp Does Email Marketing Like Never Before":

Here is something even more critical. Here is how Tout’s real time analytics will improve your ability to close sales. That important email you sent two days ago, to the client you are dying to connect with was opened an hour ago. They looked at it for twelve minutes. They clicked on the links. Now is the perfect time to follow up with a phone call. Strike while the iron is hot. Increase the impact and improve your chances of closing that sale. Is there any other way to do this? None that I’m aware of.

ToutApp Revamps Email Tracking and Templates for Salesforce

ToutApp's integration into Salesforce provides advanced email tracking and templates beyond what the standard CRM offers. 

One of the biggest draws of our Salesforce plugin is that it lets you do all of your email outreach right from within Salesforce while ensuring your emails still get sent through your own email servers.

Once you've installed Tout from the AppExchange, Our Tout Outbox lets you see email analytics in Salesforce, and our "Email with Tout" button lets you send emails with Salesforce templates and tracking. ToutApp will also auto-BCC Salesforce on all your communications, even when you're emailing from Gmail or Outlook.

And now ToutApp for Salesforce is even more powerful, because we'll display email tracking and engagement information whenever you pull up a Lead or Contact.

So for those salespeople who live within Salesforce and can’t imagine needing to navigate away to look up email tracking information, we’ve got your back. Here's what our newest tracking info in Salesforce looks like:

For current Salesforce users, here's a video explaining how to update your Salesforce plugin to the latest version with additional tracking:

Also, if you're looking to take your sales communciations in Salesforce to the next level, here's a book we wrote with the 5 top best practices on how to make the most of Salesforce + Tout.

ToutApp's Email Templates and Tracking coupled with Salesforce CRM makes a killer combination for your sales team. In this book, we've put together five best practices on how to make the most of your sales communications process with Salesforce and Tout: View PDF or iBook now  (no pesky forms necessary)

Give it a try and email us your feedback or comment below!

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.