Running a small business is challenging, especially when it comes to attracting customers and growing revenue. With so many marketing options out there, it's easy to feel overwhelmed. Here are some top marketing tips that can help you grow your small business efficiently and effectively:

1. Understand your target audience
Many small business owners struggle with identifying their target audience, leading to wasted marketing efforts. Conduct thorough research to understand your customers’ demographics, preferences, and pain points. Create detailed buyer personas to guide your marketing strategies and tailor your messages to resonate with your ideal customers.

How to do it?
Research: Conduct surveys, interviews, and use analytics tools to gather data on your customers’ demographics, preferences, and pain points.
Create Personas: Develop detailed buyer personas that represent your ideal customers, including their age, gender, interests, and buying behavior.
Tailor Your Message: Use these personas to craft marketing messages that resonate with your audience, addressing their specific needs and problems.

2. Optimize Your Online Presence
A common issue is having a website that doesn’t convert visitors into customers. Ensure your website is user-friendly, mobile-optimized, and filled with valuable content. Implement SEO best practices to improve your visibility on search engines. This includes using relevant keywords, creating high-quality content, and ensuring fast load times.

How to do it?
Website Audit: Evaluate your website for user-friendliness and mobile optimization. Ensure fast load times and easy navigation.
SEO Practices: Implement on-page SEO techniques such as keyword optimization, meta tags, and high-quality content creation.
Content Strategy: Regularly update your website with valuable content, including blogs, case studies, and product pages that provide real value to visitors.

3. Leveraging Social Media

Many businesses struggle to effectively engage with their audience on social media. Choose the platforms where your target audience is most active. Post regularly, engage with your followers, and use a mix of content types – from informative posts and customer testimonials to behind-the-scenes looks at your business.

How to do it?
Choose Platforms: Identify where your target audience spends most of their time (e.g., Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn).
Create a Content Calendar: Plan and schedule regular posts that mix informative content, promotions, and behind-the-scenes insights.
Engage: Respond to comments and messages promptly, and interact with your followers to build a community around your brand.

4. Creating Valuable Content
Content creation can be time-consuming, and many small business owners find it difficult to produce high-quality content consistently. Create valuable content that addresses your audience’s needs and interests. This could be blog posts, videos, infographics, or podcasts. Share your content across various channels to reach a wider audience.

How to do it?
Content Plan: Outline a content strategy that includes blogs, videos, infographics, and podcasts addressing your audience’s needs.
Quality over Quantity: Focus on creating high-quality, valuable content consistently rather than just pumping out material.
Distribution: Share your content across multiple channels – social media, email newsletters, and your website – to maximize reach.

5. Utilizing Email Marketing
Email marketing is often underutilized by small businesses. Build a strong email list and send regular newsletters that provide value to your subscribers. Personalize your emails to increase engagement and use email marketing to nurture leads and convert them into customers.

How to do it?
Build Your List: Use sign-up forms on your website, social media, and during in-person events to grow your email list.
Personalize Emails: Segment your email list and send targeted, personalized emails that provide value to each segment.
Engagement: Regularly send newsletters with updates, promotions, and valuable content to keep your audience engaged.

6. Investing in Paid Advertising
Paid advertising can be daunting for small business owners with limited budgets. Platforms like Google Ads and Facebook Ads allow you to target specific demographics and interests, ensuring your ads reach the right people. Start with a small budget, test different ad formats, and optimize your campaigns based on performance.

How to do it?
Start Small: Begin with a small budget to test different ad formats and targeting options on platforms like Google Ads and Facebook Ads.
Targeting: Use precise targeting options to reach specific demographics and interests relevant to your business.
Optimize: Continuously monitor and adjust your campaigns based on performance data to maximize ROI.

7. Leveraging Customer Reviews and Testimonials
Many small businesses overlook the power of customer reviews. Positive reviews and testimonials can significantly impact potential customers’ decisions. Encourage your satisfied customers to leave reviews on platforms like Google, Yelp, and Facebook. Highlight these testimonials on your website and marketing materials to build trust and credibility.

How to do it?
Ask for Reviews: Encourage satisfied customers to leave reviews on platforms like Google, Yelp, and Facebook.
Showcase Testimonials: Highlight positive testimonials on your website and marketing materials to build trust.
Respond to Feedback: Engage with all reviews, thanking customers and addressing any concerns raised in negative reviews.

8. Building Networks and Partnerships
Networking can be challenging but is essential for growth. Attend industry events, join local business groups, and seek out partnership opportunities. Collaborating with complementary businesses can help you reach new audiences and provide added value to your customers.

How to do it?
Attend Events: Participate in industry events and local business groups to connect with other professionals.
Seek Partnerships: Collaborate with complementary businesses to co-promote products and services.
Provide Value: Focus on how you can add value to your partners and customers, fostering mutually beneficial relationships.

9. Tracking and Analyzing Results
Without proper tracking, it’s difficult to know which marketing efforts are working. Use tools like Google Analytics, social media insights, and email marketing metrics to track your performance. Adjust your strategies based on the data to continuously improve your marketing effectiveness.

How to do it?
Use Tools: Utilize tools like Google Analytics, social media insights, and email marketing metrics to gather data.
Set KPIs: Define key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure the success of your marketing efforts.
Adjust Strategies: Regularly review your data and make adjustments to your strategies based on what is working and what is not.

10. Focusing on Customer Experience
Customer retention is a common struggle. Happy customers are your best marketers. Provide exceptional customer service and create memorable experiences for your clients. Word-of-mouth referrals from satisfied customers can be incredibly powerful and cost-effective.

How to do it?
Exceptional Service: Train your staff to provide outstanding customer service and create a culture of customer satisfaction.
Feedback Loops: Implement systems to gather and act on customer feedback to improve your offerings.
Create Memorable Experiences: Go above and beyond to create positive experiences that encourage word-of-mouth referrals.

(vVv) IMPORTANT (vVv)
Ready to take your business to the next level? If you're looking for personalized strategies to grow your business, let's connect. Contact me to discuss how we can achieve your business goals together!

I recently binged on 5 influencer marketing podcasts featuring marketers and founders from brands like Athletic Greens, Olipop, and Oathaus.

As someone who's always trying to get better at influencer marketing, I found their insights super useful.

Here are some of the key takeaways:

​

• For luxury brands, prioritize a smaller number of high-quality UGC pieces that align with your brand identity, rather than focusing on quantity.
• As your brand evolves, be prepared to reinvent your influencer marketing approach every 6 months to effectively reach different customer segments.
• Monitor organic influencer content featuring your product to gauge audience interest and identify potential paid partnership opportunities (I'm using getsaral to do this for my brands).
• Having founders actively engage with fans on social media platforms like TikTok can help your brand stay connected to trends and your target audience.
• Influencers often have a deeper understanding of social media algorithms compared to traditional content creators, making them more effective at driving engagement.
• Diversify your influencer partnerships across various niches and platforms to find the most cost-effective and impactful collaborations for your brand.
• Provide influencers with key educational information about your product, but avoid strict scripts to maintain authenticity in their content.
• Leverage your own following as a founder to test product-market fit and validate concepts before launching full-scale influencer campaigns.
• Create unique, themed PR boxes for influencers to generate excitement and drive traffic during major brand milestones, such as retail expansion.
• Analyze which product features or usage scenarios drive faster repurchase rates, and focus influencer content on highlighting those aspects to boost sales.

If you want a list of all podcasts and more details about the strategies shared in each one, let me know in the comments. I will share them.

Hey makers!

I just launched AI or Not on Product Hunt.

AI or Not is an AI detector trusted by 100k+ users that checks for AI generated content in images, audio, KYC identity documents and more. We help businesses stop fraud, power content moderation and prevent KYC scams.

I appreciate any support 👇
https://www.producthunt.com/posts/ai-or-not

When I first started working with influencers, I was so focused on quick wins that I ended up making some really short-sighted mistakes. I cringe looking back at some of the tactics I used - no wonder our influencer campaigns kept falling flat.

If you're doing any of these 4 things, learn from my missteps and rethink your approach before you damage your brand's authenticity or waste any more of your marketing budget:

​

1. The Campaign Approach - Collaborating with influencers for one-off, time-bound campaigns like holiday promotions or product launches. This just rents an influencer's social media temporarily rather than leveraging their ability to be long-term brand storytellers and advocates.
2. One-and-Done Collaborations - Paying influencers a flat fee or free products for a single sponsored post with no plan for further engagement. This makes the promotion seem inauthentic, harms your brand reputation, and gives the influencer no incentive to keep being a brand advocate after they get paid.
3. Chasing Shiny Follower Counts - Prioritizing influencers based only on their popularity and follower numbers while ignoring audience relevance and brand fit. You end up wasting marketing dollars targeting audiences that don't align with your brand identity and values.
4. Myopic Focus on Direct Sales - Looking at influencer marketing ROI by only measuring directly attributed sales. This misses the bigger picture impact on brand awareness, credibility, UGC, etc. It leads to undervaluing and underinvesting in influencer marketing.

​

https://preview.redd.it/g1lhbrq6mcwc1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=669cc4e1fc56cfb127ac44a33ab791d8c75221f6

It took a lot of trial and error, but once I started taking a more authentic, long-term approach to building real relationships with relevant influencers, things really started to turn around.

If you want to know the details of the strategy I adopt now, let me know in the comments. I will share my notes.

Hey all! Long time lurker, fist-time poster here. I thought this group would enjoy/have great feedback for this project I worked on (hope that's ok)!

LookUp helps you vet a charity that you found online, and securely donate only if you feel comfortable. One of the biggest things preventing people from donating to new charities, is trust. LookUp lets you answer questions like

👉 How much of my donation goes to the actual mission?

👉 Am I just funding some rich executives compensation?

👉 I don't know anything about vetting charities, what do the experts say?

LookUp answers all those questions for you, by showing you IRS data about a charities finances, compensation an impact. We'll also show you what charity evaluators like CharityNavigator, Candid, and CharityWatch have to say.

Would love this groups feedback/comments/questions! Link for a private beta if folks are interested in trying it out live.

https://reddit.com/link/1bgh96f/video/yczzjzkzproc1/player

Back then, my entrepreneur friends and I were constantly struggling with switching between tabs and apps, and handling all the new knowledge we learned. But the existing apps out there just didn't fit the needs—they were either way too complicated or way too simple for what we needed. And that's how this app is born :)

It's been an amazing journey building this product and getting it into the hands of hundreds of beta users. Now, we're super excited for all of you to try it out too! Hope this will allow you to do work more productive

We're launching, and I'd love to hear your thoughts and feedback here.

Hey everyone! I recently just built Aidos.co. Aidos helps impact project developers centralize stakeholder management and create a verifiable trail of impact data. Would love for you to check it out and get your feedback and questions.

My partner and I created https://founderreports.com to be a source of ideas and inspiration for anyone wanting to start or grow a business. The website and email newsletter feature detailed interviews with entrepreneurs, founders, and creators willing to share the behind-the-scenes details of their businesses.

All of the content is free. The site already includes a number of excellent interviews, and we’re working on many more. Check it out if you’re interested in learning from successful entrepreneurs.

Hi there,

Working with some friends to build a WhatsApp community. We want to help growing entrepreneurs and freelancers through organizing local business events in their communities

We're looking for more people to build with us

If you want to be part of it, you can send me your WhatsApp number in DM and I'll send you details

We go through a screening process with each candidate to see if they're a good fit

My DM is open, so please ask me any questions you have on this.

Here is how it works:

Our mission is to use business events (classes, seminars, etc) to help improve the way families live.

Entrepreneurship is more than just a way to make quick buck. It's a career path that helps people discover their potential and how to add value - first to themselves and then to their families.

Our society is made up of a network of families. When more families are living fulfilled lives, we will have less bitterness and frustration unleashed on society. Thus a safer world for all of us

So if you think you can be a part of this, please send me a DM today

Thanks!

Hi, r/Socialpreneur!

I am an MBA candidate at Cambridge Judge Business School currently conducting research on how start-ups in the US currently fund-raise, specifically the pain points encountered in the process and how third-party providers of fundraising services help the process.

If you are currently fundraising in the US, or have successfully raised funds in the US in the past, I would very much appreciate it if you could complete this survey.

The survey is completely anonymous, and should take less than 7 minutes to complete.

If you aren't, it would be very helpful if you could suggest other Subreddits where I might be able to collect more responses.

Thanks!

Hey everyone! We're thrilled to announce that Socyal has officially launched on Product Hunt!

👉 https://www.producthunt.com/posts/socyal-boost-engage-elevate 👈

And as we launch here today, we're not just seeking feedback for ourselves, but championing its importance for every maker, for every product. Support us, dive into the discussions, but more importantly, let's keep the feedback flowing. To every maker who's launched before, those launching today, and the brave souls launching in the days to come – feedback is your gold. Treasure it.

Socyal is more than just an app. It's our vision for a future where feedback is free, recognition is celebrated, and every professional connection is cherished. 🌟

We'd be incredibly grateful if you could check us out, share your invaluable feedback, and support us with an upvote if you like what you see! Your insights will guide us as we refine and perfect our platform.

Thanks for being part of our journey! Together, let's redefine professional connections and bring a revolution in feedback culture!

Businesses, across most industries, have an average customer retention rate of less than 20%. This is abysmal. 

Imagine spending hundreds of dollars to acquire each customer just to lose 80% of them.

80% of people cancel their subscriptions because they fail to give the user what they want. Where’s the gap? Most apps are confusing and complicated. 

There are a lot of factors that determine your customer retention rate but one of the biggest ones is your customer onboarding. 

63% of customers think onboarding is key to deciding to subscribe to a product (source). Additionally, 86 percent of consumers will pay more for a better customer experience (source)

The first few minutes, hours, days, and weeks with your product will determine everything. You need to make sure you guide your clients to success.

How? That’s what this email is all about 

Let’s start off with why you need good customer onboarding

1. It sets the first impression

2. Helps users understand product value

3. Improves retention (reduces confusion and frustration)

4. Facilitates product adoption

5. Increases conversion (from trial to paid customers) 

Don’t think I need to sell you on the benefits of a good onboarding experience anymore. Let’s talk about how to create one.

Steps to a good onboarding:

 Learn Onboarding/Activation Best Practices

• Hubspot has a fantastic and all-inclusive guide on onboarding.

• Read The Psychology of Waiting Lines. Short and sweet but probably one of the most important things you will ever read in your career, especially as a founder.

 Onboarding/Activation Using Email

Email is still king. And still one of the best activation/onboarding tools out there.

• Customer.io: One of my favorite emailing tools and also have a startup program. 

• Hubspot, Mailchimp, Activecampaign, and any other classic email marketing software can be used to fill this need.

• Sendgrid, Mailgun, or Postmark are great solutions if you have a need for transactional emails that are technical. I still prefer using Customer.io for this need. If you’re unsure what transactional emails are, check out this guide.

• Checkout out beautiful examples of welcome emails here

Onboarding/Activation In-App

• Pendo: “Everything you need to create the best software experiences—all in one place.”

• Appcues: “Design, deploy, and test captivating onboarding experiences in minutes, not weeks”

• Intercom: One of the most popular tools, it can also fulfill your email marketing and support needs. “Faster resolutions. Happier customers. Intercom is the only platform that connects you with customers at the best possible time—when they’re already using your product, app, or website. 

Use interactive walkthrough (as shown below) to guide your customer through the product (and also keep them engaged) 

Create an onboarding video tutorial for your product. Check out some awesome examples here

Final Checklist

• Signing up is as easy and possible.

• You show the user how to set up the app

• Interactive show of the features.

• Provide a knowledge base or FAQ

• Send a check-up email every once in a while. (Consider adding a simple yes or no to 1-5 star survey)

Want more advanced tactics to set the right foundation for your product and customer experience? Check out my Startup Guide

What have you found to be the clearest introduction to this sort of work?

Good mentors are hard to find– and the good ones have very limited time. This can get expensive.I’ve found that once you’ve absorbed their way of thinking, you usually don’t need to waste their time. Most of the time you can journal out your questions and guess what they would say. Your mentors don’t even need to know you exist.

The main benefit is just having someone to talk to– and mostly to hold you accountable to your goals. There are some really interesting stats about goal setting and accountability that lead me to believe a tool like this could be helpful. Especially to self-learners, entrepreneurs, or anyone who wants to be their own boss.

That’s why I built Sensei AI. It uses AI to mimic the style of your favorite mentors, helps you break down weekly goals into manageable chunks, and actively holds you accountable (something that ChatGPT can’t do).

Once you create a goal, you can also add a real accountability partner that will be notified to nudge you if you haven't completed your daily check-ins.

Do you think this could be interesting or valuable? Would love to hear your thoughts.

You can try it for free here: https://bonsai.so/deshi-ai/

DM me your email if you want a free account upgrade (no credit card required).

Most nonprofits and faith based groups, ie. churches, mosques, synagogues, temples, etc. all need cybersecurity services and compliance assistance. 501c3s are NOT exempt from cybersecurity regulations. I am launching a cybersecurity firm to provide AFFORDABLE cybersecurity solutions and 24/7 monitoring. I am thinking about building out a referral program but I already have some good leads.

Hi there! I’m looking to help an impact focused business (or two) get their branding tuned up.

If you’re feeling like you’re brand is hurting more than helping, let’s talk. Your brand should authentically reflect who you are and how you help.

I’m a 20 yr veteran of graphic design (finance background) who is new to the impact space.

Low stakes opportunity to get some branding insight.

Please dm if you’re interested.

I've been working with thousands of influencers across dozens of brands and realized something striking - most e-commerce brands today have got their UGC playbook wrong, and it's costing them big time.

Some brands are paying for what's called as Actor Generated Content (AGC) which is inauthentic and less effective. So, I decided to dig deep into what big brands like Lululemon, Sephora, and Glossier do to get actual UGC without spending a fortune.

Here's what I discovered and how you can apply it too:

🔍 1— Find your core 100 influencers: Look for creators who are already in your niche. you want real people who connect with your product, not actors. Use tools like SARAL to find them easily & quickly.

🎁 2— Create a "no brainer influencer offer": This includes giving a free product, discounts for their audience, or incentives for them.

💌 3— Send personalized automated outreach: Don't waste time DMing or emailing one-by-one. use personalized templates and always follow-ups.

📦 4— Onboard creators and ship products: Once you have the interested influencers, onboard them, and send the free products. Again, it's surprisingly easy to handle this process with tools like SARAL.

📝 5— Ask usage rights and build long-term relationships: Once they post, ask for usage rights. keep the communication open, and soon, you'll have a community you can tap into at any time.

​

https://preview.redd.it/cmekjtcegmkb1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=f57f725f74db3a157eff8e36cc2764478d8df0db

The idea is to build genuine relationships with influencers who believe in your product. I've seen some brands save thousands of dollars and create a solid community following these steps.

And the best part?

Everything here is doable without having to spend $1000's on inauthentic content. This is how real engagement and sales happen.

Have you tried working with influencers to get UGC? I'm curious to hear about your experiences or any challenges you faced. It can be an entirely new landscape for some of us, and it's always fascinating to hear different perspectives.

When I was a CSM at SignPost, we used to lie about the product and what it does for customers. 

Why? Their product sucked. I didn’t believe in it. The truth is, no one did.

And I absolutely hated my job. 

Just because the product sucked, no one was motivated to sell it. Only money motivated everyone. And there goes the company culture. 

I got out ASAP but learned a very valuable lesson 👇

No matter how big of a company you are, or how much you’ve raised in funding, if your product is not good enough then everything will eventually fall apart. 

So, in this email, we’re going to talk about how to build products that your customers love using so you don’t have to spend your life hard selling. 

Customers are always RIGHT:

I don’t mean to do every your customer says.

What I mean is that they know what their pains are, they know what solutions they’ve tried, and they know why those solutions haven’t worked.

Talking to your customers beforehand saves you a ton of effort and reduces the risk of failure. But remember, Getting users to see your product is one thing while getting them to pay for it is another. 

Use The Mom Test as a guideline for interviewing customers. Don't have time for the book? Check out this awesome summary.

Listen to this Y Combinator talk on how to talk to users. 

Watch video

Start with a user-centric MVP:

Build MVP with just enough features to satisfy early adapters and provide feedback for future development. 

Create a low-fidelity mockup or wireframe of your MVP using tools like Balsamiq, Sketch, or Figma. Or use an easier-to-use tool like Uizard, which also has text-to-design capabilities. 

Gather data and Feedback for future Development:

Now you have your MVP in place. Time to start collecting data and feedback to learn and improve. 

Set up HotJar to watch people using your website. Best practice is to tag people who click on elements, scroll all the way down, stop and read sections, etc. Look at your numbers. Does this match industry standards? If not, interview people and figure out why they are not reading, scrolling, or clicking.

Set up a way to gather emails. You can create forms and popups for people to enter their email, name, and whatever other information you want.

Customers are always right, but now always:

Remember I said customers are always right. Well, it’s partially true.

You don’t want to build your startup for one person. The truth is, customers only care about their problems, not your product. 

Customers don’t care about your solution. They care about their problems. — Dave McClure

When you collect data from customer interviews and feedback. Analyze all the common trends and pains that are enough to support building the product or feature. Only then build. 

Use Read.ai, Otter, or a similar tool or record all meetings and analyze the conversations over time. 

A quote from Henry Ford fits well:

“If I had asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” - Henry Ford

Iterate and Improve:

Sometimes you’ll have to fail to learn. Building a product is a continuous process of iteration and testing.

You cannot create a perfect product and you don’t have to.

Your products always suck, but by testing and improving you go from “SUCK” to “LESS SUCK” 

When you stop failing you stop being a startup. — Fred Lalonde

Don’t lose touch with customers:

You are growing your startup. You’re getting customers. Now it’s important to not lose touch with your customers.  

Here’s what you can do: 

Ensure your executives, directors, and managers are truly putting customer success first. This awesome article has 9 questions you can ask yourself and your team. It ranks good answers against bad answers

Want to nerd out even more on 90 pages of tips, tools, questions, and playbooks on ensuring your company is aligned on customer success? Check out this guide.

Which Matrices to track:

Customer retention and referral rate are good metrics to track that ensure that customers need and want your product.

Here’s how Sam Altman puts it: 

“… if you want to be a great company someday, you have to eventually build something so good that people will recommend it to their friends-in fact, so good that they want to be the first one to recommend it to their friends for the implied good taste. No growth hack, brilliant marketing idea, or sales team can save you long term if you don’t have a sufficiently good product.” Sam Altman 

It’s easier to fall prey to ideas that you think can potentially help but don't deliver any results. You can reduce such situations by simply staying true to customers' needs

Leave a comment if you want me to send you my guide that includes this and much more.

According to the latest data, up to 90% of startups fail.

What does the other 10% do …. They look for product market fit. 

It’s no secret that achieving product-market fit is crucial for startups 

Yes, I am talking about that sweet spot where people absolutely love what you've built, and it starts flying off the shelves.

So this is what this email is all about → Getting you to product market fit

Let’s jump into it 👇

Understand the problem:

The first step is to stop thinking of your product as a “Product searching for a market” and instead view it as a solution to a specific problem. 

100 great ideas are useless

Ask yourself these questions:

1. What specific problem does my product solve?

2. Who is experiencing this problem, and how do they currently solve it?

   Simple advice

Remember, your goal isn't to sell to everyone but to create a loyal customer base that genuinely needs your product.

Entrepreneurs can sometimes get overly excited about their products and miss the actual market demand. This leads to building a solution without a real problem to solve.

Building an MVP

Bring a product to market that can offer a partial solution to a current problem (like shown in the picture)

What does product market fit feel like? A metric-driven approach:

Product-market fit can be hard to define, but we can gauge it by looking at customer retention rates. Netflix nailed product-market fit, keeping 70% of new users for a year and an impressive 30% for seven years!

Other metrics to consider are revenue growth, net dollar retention, burn multiple. But remember, product-market fit is a feeling.

Here's what you need to do:

Learn from the Best: Get invaluable insights and tips on finding product-market fit from "How Superhuman Built an Engine to Find Product Market Fit"

Read it. Understand it. Implement it. 

Talk to Users: 

Engage with customers and use the 8 Customer Discovery Questions to get insights for validating your product-market fit. 

Use The Mom Test as a guideline for interviewing customers. Don't have time for the book? Check out this awesome summary.

Check out these awesome resources:

What it really means, How to Measure it, and Where to find it

Seven Steps to Achieve Product Market Fit

A How-To Guide to Product-Market Fit

Also Check out this Reddit post with a lot of good stuff about product market fit

Leave a comment if you want me to send you my guide that includes this and much more.

Outbound outreach is hard to perfect but easy to set up.

This is typically a method used only by B2B companies.

But I believe there is potential in B2C as well. 

For example, a lot of the voices we feature on Cicero have Linkedin. I’d find the people commenting and liking their Linkedin posts and put them into an outbound sequence. 

The key to successful outbound outreach lies in prospecting. Focus on identifying your ideal persona that is most likely to trust you and become a customer.

If you’re unfamiliar with prospecting, I suggest starting with this Sales Prospecting Guide.

Lemlist also has a B2B sales prospecting: strategies, techniques & tools.

Ready to start with outbound outreach? 

Here are the Steps:

1: Basic Email Domain Setup

The best practice is to set multiple domains and email addresses to send from. This is to prevent one domain from being marked as spam and ruining your sending capabilities. 

Check with mail-tester.com to make sure it’s working correctly. 

2: Email Warmup:

Set up an email warmup if your email is new. You can use Lemlist, Reply.io, Instantly.ai, and Smartlead.

Otherwise, your emails will go to spam. 

3: Get a lead-generation tool

Signup for Apollo.io. It can fulfill your Prospecting and Outreach needs for free. You can find people, names, and numbers using it. You can filter your heart’s desire to find the right people for you.

There are other tools for this also, like Hunter.io for prospecting and Lemlist or Instantly for sending.

4: Clean your Email list:

Make sure you are only emailing Verified emails. Sending to a bad list is a quick way to get marked as a spammer. You can also use NeverBounce or Bouncer to clean your list. 

5: Build your Outreach Sequence: 

Be sure to use Email, Linkedin, and consider cold calling too. Your emails and Linkedin messages should follow the framework in the screenshot below. 

6: Ensure deliverability is good: 

Use an app like GlockApps to see if emails are landing in inboxes. Or use Mail-tester.com again.

7: Follow the best practices below: 

• Sequence strategy: Ideally your sequences are 30-60 days long, and include more than 10 steps (multiple email, call, and Linkedin outreach steps)

• Consider other platforms you can cold outreach from. Is your audience on Instagram or Twitter? You can use tools like Phantombuster to do cold outreach to them. 

• Email best practices:

  • This (surprising) cold email CTA will help you book A LOT more meetings

  • 15 Effective Cold Email Templates

  • How To Write A Cold Email Which Gets Results w/ 30 Cold Email Examples

• Linkedin best practices:

  • Check out this Twitter Thread for advice on some best practices.

  • A Guide to Generating Leads on LinkedIn: Dracula Strategy

• Cold Calling

  • 55 Sales Tips & Techniques That Work Like an Absolute Charm in 2020

The KEY is to keep the message short, and not push too much for the sale. Be consultative and focused on solving their pain. Not selling your product or legitimizing your company.  

Outreach can be a great way to acquire users if you don’t have thousands to spend on ad campaigns

Try out different strategies, channels, and figure out what works best for you. Double down on it. 

Hope it helps 🤙

P.S: I also launched my “No BS Startup Ignition toolkit” on Product Hunt, the biggest FREE launch that I’ve done so far.  This is a part of that.