Dancing with the elephants in a global world - Samir Palnitkar #PNCamp
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Transcript of Dancing with the elephants in a global world - Samir Palnitkar #PNCamp
Company Confidential 1
Dancing with the Elephants in a Global World
Product Nation CampDec 5, 2013
Company Confidential 2
Quick Intro to ShopSocially
Company Confidential 3
... social commerce for retailers
Company Confidential 4
Company Confidential 5
Benefits (click images to learn more)
$50MM+ in attributable, incremental revenue &
counting
Via friend recommendation, the best
possible way
Social signals are the #1 driver for SEO rank
• 2MM+ Facebook fans• 1MM+ Email subscribers• 4MM+ Rich profiles (b’day, gender, geo, likes & more)
200MM+ word-of-mouth impressions & counting
Social influencers,trending products & more
Company Confidential 6
B2B Sales in US Markets for India Companies
ShopSocially’s experiences
Company Confidential 7
Suggested Agenda
• Interactive Presentation – Samir• Interactive Presentation – Girish• Open Q & A
Company Confidential 8
Ground Rules
• Leave all mobiles switched off except during the break
• Please limit “air time”• Be succinct
Company Confidential 9
• How to get the customer interested?• How to get the customer to try your
product?• How to lock the customer in?
Things critical for a sale
Company Confidential 10
• Founders had to do the selling first– Sales people need a template to selling
• Changed our pitch multiple times• Trials were conducted in an ad hoc fashion
– We learnt from the trials– Now we have set methodology that is very
likely to succeed
Initial Sales
Company Confidential 11
• Pricing was a challenge. No pricing precedent– Started with Cost per Sale pricing
• Too much variability• Too much pressure to keep campaigns active
– Move to fixed monthly subscription• Either our pricing scared away merchants• OR we were leaving money on the table.
– Monthly subscription + cost per social action• Allows us to go low if needed• Covered on the high end with overages
• Performance + stickiness are very important
Pricing
Company Confidential 12
• Offer free trials if possible.– It eliminates the barrier to get engaged
• Started by offering free trials– Our product was not naturally sticky– People would kick tyres for a month and then
cancel. We spent a lot of time serving junk customers.
– Offer trials ONLY if the product is sticky or shows performance without too much hand-holding.
• If the product is not sticky, add sticky features– Sticky means like if they pull the product out of
their system, they should scream in pain.
Trials
Company Confidential 13
• Create a sales template– How will it benefit the customer?– How will it integrate?
• Visuals are extremely important– Stunning visuals will make a difference– Show customers the tool in “their” context if
possible• Do not expect them to extrapolate mentally about
how the product will fit in their environment
• Be ready with pricing– Some of our customers close immediately
Sales Lessons
Company Confidential 14
• Channels are extremely important to create scale.
• Identify possible ways of distributing the product.
• Create a value proposition specific to a channel• Channels for ShopSocially
– Brand Agencies– SEO Agencies– Affiliate Networks– Tag Companies– Shopping Cart Providers
• Decide on the cut to be given to that channel
Channels
Company Confidential 15
• Physical Product– Processes to do trials, shipments has to be
extremely mature– Lot of working capital needed to distribute
physical product– Distributors have to stock the product– Resellers sell the product, but do not stock it
• Online Product– Get customer to visit your website– Get the customer to try the product– Lock the customer in
Physical Product vs Online Product
Company Confidential 16
• Inbound Leads– Referrals from our own product (Powered by ShopSocially) 60% of our
inbounds– Success Story Webinars (once a month)– Thought leadership articles – blogs (twice a month)– Guest blogs (once a month)– Competitor press releases (twice a month)– Best practice series– Social Edge Newsletter
• Outbound Leads– Use LinkedIn to search for customers in a category– Build lists, name, email, phone– Efficient Lead Sources
• LinkedIn • Dedicated lead lists (e.g. retail, data.com)• Published lead lists• Need to extract email and phone #
– Inefficient Lead Sources• Conference Attendees
Strategies
Company Confidential 17
• Email the lead– Invite to webinar OR– Invite to read a whitepaper or interesting
article– On click, call the lead
• Follow up– Arrange a phone meeting– For large customer, in-person meeting– Persistent follow-up required
• Automated follow up via Pardot (not customized)• Or manual followup (using a person)
Outbound lead touch strategy
Company Confidential 18
Split of customer facing functions
SalesMarketing
(Conferences)Business
Development
Post-sales Customer Success
Sales
Customer Support
Global Split
Campaign Creation &
Support
Business Analytics
US
IndiaMarketing
(Blog, Webinar, Lead Gen,
Collateral, Site)
Company Confidential 19
Thanks