Lessons From The Founders Of A Self Funded, Award Winning B2B Company
Let me start with the bad news – not all channels that work for other B2B players will work for you, if you’re a new, bootstrapped business.
Good examples are LinkedIn InMails/ads and Google ads. Many large or funded B2B businesses spend crores every month on ads. When we first started Ripple Animation, we too went in thinking that ads on these two platforms would work miracles for us.
But what actually happened? We got 100x the number of leads that we used to get before we started advertising…which meant we had to assign the new leads coming in to good sales people…which meant we needed more money and resources than we had originally anticipated…and then over time, we found that the conversion rates were minuscule compared to the conversion rates we were getting before we started paying for ads. We did have some sales growth but what was the cost of that marginal growth and what did that do to our profitability? As a self funded company, we realized that Adwords and LinkedIn ads were not for us. So, what next?
Here are the 5 strategies we developed over the years, that helped us stabilize our revenue, work with the largest global brands, win awards and become one of the best players in the explainer videos space.
1. Organic Search (SEO) – Get a freelancer or small company with solid experience in SEO. Start with 10 potential SEO partners, shortlist 3 and then choose the one you believe has the best ideas and of course, the best experience.
Next, select the keywords to optimize together. It doesn’t need to be a long list but should instead be a highly relevant list with decent search volumes. Give your SEO company all the content they need to help rank your business on the first or second page on Google in the cities you’re targeting. All the imagery and copy needed for SEO for your brand needs to be carefully created by your own teams. Best not to outsource it.
In our case, it took 12 months or so to start seeing results from SEO but the outcome was encouraging – we didn’t have to pay Google for ads and the number of inbound leads we got from SEO were significantly less than what we got from Google ads BUT these leads were converting at exponentially higher rates – helping us grow the company while saving time and money. More profitable and sustainable for sure.
2. LinkedIn Profile Building – rather than spend money on InMail and LinkedIn ads where we had little success, we invested in building our own personal profiles and reaching out to our universe of potential clients directly by connecting with them and then interacting with them through their posts as well as ours.
The beauty of this strategy is that as you grow your network and put out posts, you get your target audience interested in your work and they feel that they know you. And the best part is that your audience data is always updated and accurate.
As you build your network over the years, you can leverage it to grow your business slowly and steadily. Make sure you have a company LinkedIn page for hygiene as well but know that people connect with people not brands. So although it’s a must to have a company LinkedIn page, it’s unlikely that it’ll get the kind of traction that your own profile will. And when you post insightful thoughts, articles and showcase your work, your audience will have the opportunity to understand the value you bring to the table.
3. E-mail outreach – As a B2B business, don’t underestimate the importance of outbound e-mail marketing. The trick is to narrowly break down your target audience into different segments and find one or two insights that are truly compelling, that resonate with your target audience. The key is that your insight should be unique – so that your prospects know that you ‘get’ them and understand their specific problems. Once you have the right insight, present your offering as the perfect solution.
Next make sure that you segment your audiences and talk to them in a way that resonates with them. So, for example, if your target audience for the same offering is the CEO of a 50-100 person company as well as the marketing head of a 1,000-1,500 person company, talk to them differently. The CEO’s needs will be different from those of the Marketing Head. Understand what each segment’s lens or viewpoint is and craft your e-mail campaigns accordingly.
Personalize and automate your e-mail campaigns. Next, send 3-5 e-mails in each sequence, using your discretion as regards the number of e-mails per sequence. Check your reports regularly to see how your campaigns are doing and tweak them every now and then to see if you can improve the performance.
4. Make sure to build some case studies, testimonials and reviews as you grow your company. These will help prospects make a buying decision, hopefully in your favour. Share your marketing content on your website, LinkedIn page and other social channels. Mention your unique content in your e-mail campaigns as well. Proof of credibility will increase your conversion rates.
5. Once you’ve converted prospects into clients, give them the best service and engage with them regularly via newsletters, updates and phone calls. Land and expand within their organizations and become a valued, trusted partner. Evolve new offerings & features that could help your clients do their jobs more effectively.
My co-founder, Vivek Nathwani and I have created a short step by step (under 30 minutes), video lesson on how you can find the right prospects at scale without paying for ads, how you can automate your outreach as well as mass personalize your e-mails. We will show you what tools to use and the most effective ways to leverage them based on our experiences.
We’ve used the processes and tools at Ripple Animation to build a stable, award winning business and grown to become the best 2D animation company in India. You can check out the course here to help your business reach greater heights too.
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