Tell us about your business and your experience with Zoho:
We, at BI Ready, sell a range of Business Intelligence and Data Warehouse Automation solutions, and other information management tools. I am actually a big fan of Zoho and have been for many years (first using it back in 2010). I use Zoho Campaigns to reach over 4000 subscribers on my mailing list, Zoho CRM to track my opportunities, and Zoho Social to reach my social audience.
Who is your target audience? and how do you grow your list?
My target audience is IT managers. I’ve been in this space a long time, and so already had a huge list of contacts. More recently, I have been adding to my list via Zoho Campaigns forms on our website, by offering whitepapers primarily as a means to get people to sign up.
How do you use email marketing to reach out to them?
I have two approaches. Sometimes I send an email that looks just like a personal email sent from Outlook. Other times I’ll send a more ‘newsletter’-type of email. I get good open rates – usually around 20+% for the ‘personal’ emails. I also like how Campaigns will post our emails onto Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn – they get a lot of interest too.
How do you use workflow automation ?
I use Workflow Automation to help me build sub-lists from my main lists. For my purposes, it’s a kind of segmentation on steroids. Segmentation is good, but Workflow lets me create more complex rules with ease.
How has using Zoho Campaigns helped your business?
Zoho Campaigns helps tremendously. When I send a campaign, I’m more intrigued not only by those that clicked, but by those that opened many times and didn’t click! A quick follow-up phone call to those prospects has often resulted in a sale!
Would you recommend Zoho Campaigns to others? If yes, why?
I always recommend Zoho Campaigns to customers and peers. It’s very easy to use and the support has always been fantastic.
Your advice for others in the BI and Data Warehouse solutions business. And tips on how to use Zoho Campaigns for their business.
Well, my advice would be for anyone really: Get under the hood! Zoho Campaigns contains a lot of excellent features not found in other email campaign engines, and if they are there, you must pay a lot extra to get them! Zoho Campaigns actually offers exceptional value.