Scaling up B2B Email Marketing and women's employment the Bluetuffy way

The company

Bluetuffy was founded in 2023 by Manjushree Gowda. After more than a decade as a B2B marketer, she started Bluetuffy, a B2B marketing agency, to work with startups and scale-ups across industries. The business helps technology companies adopt marketing technologies and redefine their entire sales and marketing strategies. Zoho helps them implement modern marketing methods, whether it be account-based marketing, email marketing, market programs, or sales enablement programs. Their services are primarily tailored for startups and scale-ups across different industries.

Running a team of over 15 employees, Bluetuffy has a predominantly women-driven team.

"We place a strong emphasis on women empowerment and diversity," Gowda began.

"In the B2B technology space, especially in sales, the presence of women is relatively low. Many women face challenges such as getting back to work after maternity leave, changing career paths, or transitioning from graduation into the workforce. To address this, I provide coaching and training programs to help them build their careers in marketing, sales, business development, and technology. Inspired by Zoho Schools, which focuses on empowering rural youth through skill development, I also encourage graduates from Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities to take up relevant courses and certifications to establish themselves in the industry."

The challenge

Bluetuffy operates on a global scale, targeting markets across the US, Europe, the Middle East, and India. While they work across industries, their primary specialization lies in B2B marketing and focus on startups. We are proficient in the entire Zoho suite and assist customers in implementing and running campaigns using these tools.

Right from the beginning, Gowda wanted to target software technology companies and leveraged LinkedIn to reach their audience.

As an agency, Bluetuffy helps other technology companies with marketing. This means they often encounter different challenges based on the industries they work with, such as FinTech, HR, and software development. Each company has unique challenges and requirements.

Gowda believes that having the right team and strategy in place is crucial nowadays.

"With the right tools, execution becomes easier," she stated.

"I am a strong believer in automation as it makes marketing more flexible and scalable. Over time, we adopted marketing automation techniques that significantly improved lead generation. Now, we are gradually expanding our team to manage different marketing initiatives."

The solution

"A few years ago, I worked for a marketing agency that focused on the US market. This agency specialized in helping technology companies with their marketing efforts. While working closely with the founder, I came across Zoho products."— Manjushree Gowda, Founder, Bluetuffy

Gowda has been familiar with Zoho for over four years. "I started working with Zoho CRM and found it very useful," she began.

"Later, I explored other tools like Zoho Campaigns, Zoho SalesIQ, Zoho Marketing Automation, Zoho Social, and the entire Zoho One suite. After gaining hands-on experience, I learned how to integrate these tools, create workflows, and run campaigns effectively. Later, I trained my team, and once this happened, I realized I could implement the same system for other businesses. Zoho became an integral part of our services."

One of their biggest tasks was educating clients on why certain tools are more effective, productive, and scalable.

"Convincing them was a roller-coaster experience, but things are going well now," Gowda said.

"I used Zoho Campaigns along with other tools to execute our email outreach. Additionally, I collaborated with consulting firms to leverage LinkedIn events and webinars as outbound marketing channels. Apart from that, we engaged in content marketing, including social media management, to create brand awareness and drive engagement."

Gowda has used other tools as well but loved Zoho for its integration.

"I have used MailBluster and Mailchimp, but they operate independently," she recalled.

"Zoho's solutions integrate smoothly with their ecosystem. I started with Zoho CRM and later adopted Zoho Campaigns and other Zoho products. We saw a major improvement in our marketing initiatives after switching to Zoho Campaigns. While Zoho Campaigns works seamlessly with other Zoho tools, independent email service providers require external integration, which can be complex and costly."

Benefits and ROI

Gowda has been a brand advocate of Zoho and recommend it to her clients as a CRM and email marketing tool. "I have helped over 10 clients implement Zoho in their systems. I have assisted them with integration and implementation, ensuring they can streamline their marketing and sales processes," she remarked.

She started using marketing automation even before launching her business when she worked as a consultant.

To start with, she finds the implementation to be simple.

"The first step is segmentation," she noted.

"Even for a nontechnical person, the setup is simple. Once set up, managing contacts and segmenting them based on demographics, actions, or behaviors becomes easy. Segmentation is the foundation of any strong marketing strategy. Since we run many nurture campaigns, I found Zoho Campaigns beneficial. After segmentation, the next step is creating a workflow. We often run five-stage or seven-stage outreach campaigns for nurturing leads. Zoho Campaigns made automation easy for me."

Bluetuffy has to provide its clients with detailed insights about various campaigns and performance. Gowda finds Zoho's analytics and reports helpful. "It helps us clearly explain results during client meetings," she said.

"The integration between Zoho CRM and Zoho Campaigns is excellent," she continued.

"I created a campaign where, if a customer met certain criteria, they were automatically added to the CRM. Synchronization is easy, even with third-party tools. For lead nurturing, we started with general cold outreach campaigns. Once we spotted customer behaviors, we triggered different email sequences for further nurturing. Besides automation, we also created landing pages and lead magnets to capture more leads."

In this, Bluetuffy found Zoho SalesIQ, which provided clear insights about website traffic, which also helped them optimize their marketing efforts based on lead magnets, newsletters, and campaign performance.

Looking ahead

In the time to come, Bluetuffy aims to work with more startups and technology companies and help them streamline sales and marketing, acquire more clients, drive revenue, and expand teams.

"We also want to empower more women to build careers in marketing and technology. For business to succeed, adopting technology and automation is crucial. It helps personalize the customer experience based on their buyer journey—whether they are in the awareness, consideration, or decision stage." — Manjushree Gowda, Founder, Bluetuffy

Currently, Bluetuffy uses Zoho CRM, Zoho SalesIQ, Zoho Campaigns, and Zoho Marketing Automation.

"In the future, I plan to use Zoho Projects and Zoho Invoice for accounts and billing," she mentioned. "As our team grows, we may also adopt Zoho People, Zoho Projects, and Zoho Desk. We continue to help businesses implement Zoho tools to optimize their marketing efforts."

To know more about Bluetuffy, click here.