Growbots is a software that people use to run outbound marketing campaigns.
Simply use the prospecting tool to find contacts, which might sound amazing and easy BUT… Yes, there is a BUT…
The problem is, it relies on high-volume campaigns that worked VERY well in 2017 & 2018… but today relying on volume is not the way to get results.
In fact, to get higher replies and more qualified leads, you need to cut down on the volume and focus on the quality of your sales emails.
So before exploring Growbots, you may want to work with an agency or consultant that can help you ensure a strong OPEN rate (40-85%) and reply rate (10-20%) before you start increasing volume.
Please Note:
If you are using Growbots and it’s working for you, that’s great, don’t change a thing. This article hasn’t been written to slam the platform, because it does work for many people.
But our experience with clients who have switched from Growbots to Salesbread is that Growbots was relying on high volume campaigns (which worked in 2017/2018) but this tactic doesn’t work in 2021.
So, if you are using Growbots and you’re not getting the results you want, then using an agency as an alternative, even if it’s just initially, might be the way to go. And once you have a strategy that works, and a few clients in your pipeline, you can always use Growbots, later on, to send out more emails.
A little more about Growbots before we continue
(Feel free to skip this section if you already know a lot about Growbots.)
How does Growbots work exactly? As mentioned above it is a lead generation software platform that gives you access to 100 million contacts.
You can choose your target market by searching various criteria to find who you are looking for.
(Side Note: The different packages allow for you to have between 500 and 2000 contacts.
The higher volume of contacts can equal greater spam emails, so you will have to be very careful not to send thousands of emails at once. )
Growbots offers search options such as:
- Company location
- Services
- Organizations
- Technology
- Internet
- Job Title
And much much more.
The next step is to create your prospecting campaign once you have a list of leads. In this next step, they offer automatic follow-ups, multi-channel sequences, warm response detection and allow you to connect multiple email accounts.
The last step is to optimize your results with A/B testing and check your campaign insights.
What’s the pricing like? Well to answer your question, it is pretty cheap. This means that most people could afford this type of software.
They offer 3 packages:
- Outreach – $49 per month
- All-in-one – $199 per month for 500 contacts but $549 per month for 2000 new contacts
- Pro – Price to be discussed
Once again note that you can get up to 2000 new contacts. Emailing so many prospects at once, or even following up with automation, can cause problems with your deliverability.
In the past, this would have worked, but in 2021, this is the fastest way to get your email account in spam purgatory. Which is the worst place to end up.
Why?
Because very few prospects actually read their spam emails. 84% of emails are viewed as spam and for every 12,500,000 emails sent, spammers receive one reply. So you do not want to end up in the spam folder.
User Reviews for Growbots
Most users had good reviews, but some complained that their email accounts ended up blacklisted or in spam.
(Reviews are from G2.com and Capterra)
Jim B
Manager of Business Development
Small-Business(50 or fewer emp.)
Validated Reviewer
Verified Current User
Review source: Organic
Mar 15, 2021
“Best platform for cold emails you will find”
What do you like best?
Growbots takes cold B2B outreach and makes it easy and time-efficient. The interface is super intuitive, the information and contacts on leads are accurate, and the emails coming from your server lets you control everything.
I was concerned about the quality of the customer service I would receive since the company is located in Europe but that has never been an issue at all and customer service might be what I like about Growbots the most.
Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
What do you dislike?
I dislike very little about the platform. The determination of what constitutes a cold or warm response is not always accurate but this is not that big of an issue. Sometimes email responses are classified as warm when they are not but I would rather error on the side of warm than cold so can review personally.
“Gets your domain flagged as spam”
Comments: Customer service was excellent until the last fiasco. We have one technical issue outstanding regarding something to do with the DNS but getting flagged as spam just led [SENSITIVE CONTENT HIDDEN] to say, get in touch with your provider, and then we can restart the campaigns with that new email address.
I deleted all campaigns and paused sending to be on the safe side.
Pros: Ease of use, relatively easy to set up including all the email things that non techies like me don’t understand such as spf records.
Cons: I am now in the middle of sorting out getting a domain that I have been using for about 12 years out of spam purgatory.
I specifically asked during set up if I should use a g-suite account and was told no need. I may be the only person on this planet currently grateful for COVID-19 as I am essentially shut down from email for 3 days while Godaddy tries to get my email address no longer flagged as a spammer by Microsoft.
The email address had obviously been primed for like 12 years.
“Good product – interface could be better “
What do you like best?
Sequencing always looks professional, identifies warm leads to call on. Lots of emails in a short amount of time
Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
What do you dislike?
Interface could be better – hard to call directly from the platform and filter based on person.
I catch myself switching between our CRM from Growbots for more information on a prospect. Data is not always accurate and pulls irrelevant lists
Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
Recommendations to others considering the product:
Take time with CE rep to implement the process on the front end. Follow up emails with calls.
Why less is more
A few years ago sending many emails at once wasn’t such a huge issue, but in 2021 it will affect your deliverability.
At Salesbread we focus on sending very few emails but to a super targeted list of prospects, whose email addresses have been verified.
We also focus on using personalization for each and every email that gets sent out.
Why?
Because this will ensure a higher response rate.
The more volume you send, the lower your open rates get.
Chart 1: High Volume email vs replies
The more emails that you send, the lower your open and reply rates will be.
Low Volume Emails Vs Replies
The lower the email volume, the more replies and open rates you get.
Why is this?
Think about it… As a person you know when the same email has been sent to thousands of people.
It might be a generic template, or a boring sales pitch, that has nothing to do with your interest or business. It’s like a salesperson trying to sell doctors’ equipment to a real estate agent.
If a sales team hasn’t perfected their list and is sending emails out to prospects who aren’t qualified, their response rate will be low. It’s easy to make this mistake when you have a prospect list of thousands of people.
A better option will be to rather find 100 prospects who are the perfect fit for your sales product and then send them personalized emails. (Never send more than 500 emails to prospects per day.)
Rather focus on doubling the number of positive reply rates per campaign, than doubling the number of emails sent. And you do this by focusing on a small batch of prospects that get the best quality emails.
If your audience is better qualified, and your message resonates with them, you are bound to get higher positive reply rates.
So, if you are looking to get more leads in sales out of your cold email campaigns, the answer is almost never just to crank up the volume, but to focus on improving your campaign quality.
If you aren’t getting the number of leads that you would like, it might not just be about email sending volume.
Other things that you should consider are:
- What’s your sales pitch like? Maybe you’re pitching your service in the wrong way?
- Are you targeting the right people?
- Are you not following up on your emails on time?
- Maybe it’s a sales problem?
- What’s your sales process like?
- How is your segmentation?
You don’t always need to optimize the number of cold emails sent, but rather optimize your process. It’s easier to do cold email outreach the right way when you have smaller, laser-focused lists.
This is why using email software tools that send thousands of messages, for outbound sales is not always the best option INITIALLY.
But today in 2021 (based on the podcasts I shared) volume alone won’t help you. Instead, you need to focus on the number of leads you need to generate each month and then use outreach platforms such as Linkedin and email to help get you there.
The pricing is also reasonable. There is a free option, but packages start from $30 – $900 a month.
Why consider using an outbound agency or consultant as an alternative.
(Even if it’s just for a few months.)
If you are new to the world of cold email, or a weathered user, hiring an outbound agency can put more qualified leads in your sales pipeline.
Here are some reasons why you should consider an agency, before using software that sends out thousands of emails. At Salesbread, we offer all of the following listed below.
1. Lower volume, higher quality emails
At Salesbread we focus on sending fewer emails, but ensure that the quality of the messages is perfect. We would rather send 100 high-quality emails to qualified prospects (because this ensures a higher open rate and response rate) than thousands of emails, hoping to get a few leads.
Because we do this, we guarantee our clients 1 lead per day. ( Read this article to see how we got 118 leads in 8 weeks for a fintech company.)
2. Personalization
If lead generation agencies are not personalizing messages, and are just relying on automation tools, then unfortunately you will not see results.
Without personalization, unfortunately, your campaigns will fail. This is why at Salesbread we focus on personalizing each and every message that gets sent to prospects.
We have a personalization expert, who researches each prospect and then writes copy that is especially for them.
This could be complimenting them on a podcast that they were on or congratulating them on a new role in their company.
Hubspot has numerous studies that show how important personalization is, and this is one of the reasons why we can get 1 lead per day.
Personalizing emails or messages creates a “pattern interrupt”.
This means that when a prospect sees something that is about them, they know that it’s not some artificial intelligence tool that has sent a random message, but rather a real human, who would like to engage with them.
Personalization also creates curiosity, so people are less likely to just hit delete without reading the message first.
Our replies are also in real-time and are not sent out via marketing automation. Giving a real-life human experience, and not just a random robot sending out the same follow-up message to everyone on the list.
3. Expert list building
Salesbread is obsessed with list building.
Why?
Because the more targeted your list, the higher your response and reply rates will be. We review our lists over and over again because even if we only have 100 prospects on a list, they will be 100 prospects who will say yes to what you are selling.
List building takes time and research, but it’s worth it because it gets results. We look for patterns from previous buyers and then narrow down the list until it is perfect.
4. Skilled Copy Writers
The founder of Salebread, Jack, is a professional copywriter by trade; and if you mix this in with years of copywriting experience for outbound lead generation, you can be sure that your campaigns will be a success.
Each message is written with the prospect in mind, with no sleazy sales pitch.
5. Multi-Channel outreach & integrations
We also don’t just rely on one outreach channel, but rather a few. We make use of the social media platform Linkedin, cold email, and even SMS to reach out to potential clients.
Why is a multi-channel approach important? Well, if we can’t reach a prospect on Linkedin for example, we can then send them an email or SMS.
Salesbread also integrates with any CRM tool that you might be using. Whether it’s Salesforce, Pipedrive, or Hubspot marketing hub.
6. Consultation services
If you’re not yet ready to hire an agency to run your campaigns, Salesbread also offers one-on-one consultation services. Many startups like this option, as they can learn how to run their own campaigns, with all of our knowledge at a fraction of the cost.
The Takeaway
If Growbots is working for you, don’t change it. That’s great!
But if you’re just getting started, Growbots can be a hard platform to navigate. If you’re not getting the profitable results that you would like, then let’s hop on a call.