Key Strategies for Building Partnerships, Cold Emailing Insights and Essential Tools
In the competitive world of B2B marketing, strategies centered around growth tactics and partnerships are essential for scaling e-commerce brands.
Recently, Bill Stathopoulos, the CEO of SalesCaptain, shared his insights at the Two Ecomm Experts Podcast (a podcast hosted by the founder of Markademics, Viktor Stoilov, you can check the episode here).
SalesCaptain excels in accelerating growth for B2B SaaS companies and agencies by implementing advanced go-to-market and outbound strategies. They have a proven track record of securing meetings with major enterprise organizations like BlackRock, Diageo, BestBuy, and ESPN.
While previously working for Ad World Pro, Bill Stathopoulos, has interviewed Seth Godin, John Sculley, Scott Galloway, Kipp Bodnar, Arianna Huffington and built the speaker lineup for Ad World, the largest marketing conference in the world.
At SalesCaptain Bill’s approach involves a strategic blend of personalized messaging, audience targeting and leveraging the right channels.
By adopting a comprehensive and dynamic B2B marketing strategy, companies can reduce risks and seize growth opportunities across both digital and traditional sales channels. Bill Stathopoulos’s proven methods provide a roadmap for businesses looking to thrive in a competitive marketplace.
He works with international companies and startups, helping them grow through data-driven marketing and has helped 6 startups scale from $0 to $3M+ annual revenue.
But how did the right partnerships and cold email strategy help him scale effectively and what were the steps taken?
Sales Marketing and Partnerships
“Marketing in sales is not a complicated thing,”
Bill explains that the three fundamental elements are message, audience and channel.
“If you play the game right, it converts.”
This philosophy shows his approach by emphasizing the importance of crafting a personalized message, accurately targeting a larger audience and using the right channels.
One key strategy is focusing on retention and repeat purchases. Can your product have an add-on, an extension or a new version that encourages customers to buy again? It’s easier to get someone who had a good experience to buy again than to attract a new customer.
Another strategy is expanding into retail. This involves partnering with existing stores that sell similar or complementary products or even opening your own store if you have the capacity.
Often the first option, partnering with existing stores, is seen as more practical. But how to start?
1. Map out your market
As a business owner, you likely already have data about where your customers come from and their interests.
If not, it’s crucial to gather this information. Identify what other brands your customers like, which stores they visit and where they make their online purchases.
This information will help you find existing stores that sell multiple brands and products similar to yours.
2. Resell platforms
These platforms can expand your reach and connect you with businesses looking to resell complementary products.
3. How to execute your partnership outreach
Traditionally, businesses assign a salesperson to contact retail partners one by one.
However, with the power of modern marketing techniques, such as cold emailing, you can smartly fasten this process and establish your own company. But how?
Bill Stathopoulos’s email strategy
Have you considered the smarter approach?
It is by leveraging Google Maps for targeted cold emails.
Begin by adding a few keywords to filter the type of businesses you want to target, for example “Apparel brands”.
Then, segment these brands based on the types of products or audiences they cater to.
Bill says:
“Thankfully in 2024 and beyond there’s tools like Clay and other AI enrichment tools that allow us to automatically go to the website and classify the business in specific niches and sub niches”
This type of AI enrichments provide insights into the products they sell, the lines they carry and the regions they operate in. With this scaling method, you can efficiently expand your outreach and connect with potential retail partners.
We did the thorough research, now how to start the process of outreaching to retail stores?
Firstly, build the data set/prospect list. Then, create the messaging. After that, you can set up the email accounts and launch the campaigns.
The bonus fourth step is to pitch the brand itself. For that step you would have to have a really good e-commerce store that converts well enough.
Because, with that offer, you are going to be putting the other brands’ name on your website. This way you can increase their Average Order Value (AOV) or drive more people to their store simply because you have their brand and vice versa.
How to make sure you are not spammy, when outreaching?
1. DON’T use “me” (your company accomplishments), instead use “them” (the company we are outreaching)
Ex. I noticed you are in that location.
Ex. I noticed that you are working with brands A, B, C
2. Observations about them
Ex. I noticed X (something specific – launching a new collection, etc.)
3. Something tied to the observation
Ex. We do X similarly, as well as implement Y, Z this way.
4. Conclusion
Ex. I thought we would be a really good fit, so I decided to reach out.
For the call-to-action (CTA) use the so called by Bill:
“The MOM rule to not be spammy”
1. Tailor your message accordingly
For example, you wouldn’t scam your mom, so don’t use it as a tactic in your email as well.
2. Minimal Links and Attachments
Limit the use of links and attachments in your emails. Overloading emails with links or attachments can devalue your message.
3. No plain files of sending
Use tools like “relate.to” or “doc.us” to share assets with recipients in a better manner. These tools enable you to create individualized links for each recipient, allowing you to track their interactions with the shared documents.
Useful tools for outreach through cold emailing
1. For Identifying Website Visitors
Use Rb2b, a tool specifically designed for the US market to identify companies visiting your website, as well as their LinkedIn profiles. This enables direct outreach to potential leads.
2. For List Building and Data Enrichment
Use tools like Clay or Apollo.
3. Waterfall Enrichment for Email Accuracy
Incorporate waterfall enrichment, a feature available in Lemlist, to enhance email accuracy. By testing different tools for prospecting, you can achieve up to 90% accuracy in finding the right email addresses for your outreach campaigns.
4. Email Sending with Lemlist
With Legroom included in Lemlist, your emails go through a warming process, which increases deliverability and reaches recipients’ inboxes directly.
5. Outreach with Mail Forts
Mail Forts enables you to send up to 12 000 emails, which is emailing about 3 000 prospects and sending around 4 emails each.
At the end of the episode, Bill Stathopoulos shares the practice of SalesCaptain regarding team dynamics.
He says that in business, success often hinges not only on the products or services offered, but also on the personal connections made with others.
Understanding what motivates your co-workers and being able to relate to them on a personal level can be crucial in fostering meaningful relationships and driving success.
Bill Stathopoulos provided a comprehensive roadmap for B2B marketing success, focusing on key strategies for building partnerships, effective cold emailing and leveraging essential tools.
His insights, drawn from his extensive experience as the CEO of SalesCaptain, emphasized the importance of strategic partnerships and advanced growth tactics in scaling e-commerce brands.
If you want to hear more of this story and many others that give practical advices to implement in your business, check the “Two Еcomm Еxperts” podcast on YouTube, Spotify or Apple Podcast.
