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Brian Hurst

Post-Launch: What I learned

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It's been a couple weeks since my team and I launched mDash here on Product Hunt. Here's a few things I learned so far: 1) Start marketing your product and launch early. Go full-force on each platform that makes sense at least 6mo or more ahead of time. PH-specific, start building a network here as early as you can and be consistent. 2) Get as much feedback as you can from initial users. The feedback we've received so far from our agency clients and new users has been invaluable. 3) Have guidance materials (knowledgebase/resource center AND guided tours) ready to go before launch. We were lulled into a false sense of security there because our agency clients picked it up quickly. SaaS users are a whole different ball game; a guided tour is a must. 4) Cold emails work, but it's a numbers game. Get your system together for some intense cold-emailing to keep the flow of new users coming. Other founders, what did you learn early on?

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Jeff Fajans
Would love to learn more about your cold email approach, if open to sharing
Brian Hurst
@jefffajans Not silly at all! Your main email address is "warm" because you're a real human sending emails to good addresses and getting replies. The automated warmup process helps to keep you off a spamlist. There are others I'm sure, but I tried it for it for free first with Apollo and Snov on their lowest tiers. Sign up to one of those and have a new domain/email address that's not your main to connect there. Their email warm-up components are easy to find, you just select the brand-new inbox you want to warmup and it does it's thing for about two weeks. When it's ready you still send emails at a limit (I currently do 50 emails/day for one email address, and only 10/hour) to make sure that email address doesn't overdo it and end up on a list. Even though you're automating the process it needs to feel organic within the limits a human would send to stay off a spamlist.
Brian Hurst
@jefffajans @gabriele_mazzola Absolutely! Right now I use a combination of Apollo and Snov as my email platforms. I have 6 domains (buying more) I'm sending emails from. I warmed those email inboxes up first in their respective platform (takes about 2 weeks) between Apollo and Snov. I also made lead lists in Apollo of specific groups I wanted to reach out to. Then I set up sequences (Apollo) and Drip campaigns (Snov) for specific domains to automate my email process. My sequence is email, Linkedin Request and message (automated through Apollo), another email 1 week later, then I'm A/B testing options from there between emails and LI messages. Each lead should have about 4 contact points. I found several great youtube videos of entrepreneurs who are sending like 5,000 emails a day and how they set their cold email systems up. I'm not quite that aggressive, but I'm not ruling it out for future. Starting with ~300-500/day to make sure none of my domains end up on spam lists. There is some organization and monitoring to be done to make sure the number of sends in a day makes sense. So far, so good!
Jeff Fajans
@gabriele_mazzola @brianhurst Wow very useful - thanks so much for sharing. What youtube videos of entrepreneurs do you recommend that you are referencing here?
@jefffajans If I had to guess (I don’t know anything about this) I would send a few emails from trusted existing emails to these addresses, and then I’d probably answer. Not too many, to not look suspiscious. But perhaps I’m saying random stuff 😂😂😂
Brian Hurst
@gabriele_mazzola @jefffajans This is one of them I sent my team to watch as well:
This guy's approach more aggressive than my current approach, but it helped me strategize how to start. Honestly starting is the hard part but once you get going it's easy.
André J
Did you use a warmup service for the cold emailing? And s different email domain than your company email to not get blacklisted at ISPs etc?
Brian Hurst
@sentry_co Yep, you're correct. Different email domains is a must, and I warmed them up in the email platform I'm using. I currently use Snov and Apollo. I like Apollo's setup and LI connection a lot so I have more going on there right now, but Snov works great too. Warmup takes about two weeks and even after that I have some strict limits to the numbers I'm sending to make sure those email domains can stay in circulation. Right now I set them at 50 emails/day per email address/domain, and only 10 can send in an hour. I'll up that to 75 emails/day at some point and then 100. I won't go over 100 emails/day sent from one email address. I'm just buying more domains as I up my approach.
André J
@brianhurst Very interesting. Thanks for the insight. Email marketing is some dark magic it seems.