Aftersell
Introduction
Aftersell, founded in 2019, quickly became one of the leading upsell apps in the Shopify ecosystem.
With leading brands like Good American, HexClad, Obvi, and Miami Heat in their roster, their rapid rise caught the attention of Rokt Ecommerce, a tool dedicated to helping DTC brands maximize the value of every transaction.
Rokt is a unique tool that leverages AI and machine learning from over 1 billion ecommerce transactions a year to provide their clients’ consumers with targeted and tailored ads and actions.
Rokt recently acquired Aftersell, giving Aftersell’s 20,000 SMBs access to the same network and powerful AI technology built for large enterprises.
But with this new partnership comes new robust products – and Aftersell/Rokt’s small marketing team were in the process of launching a new product feature when they reached out to GAAS for some help.
They realized they needed a lift in awareness and help gaining product adoption for their new feature.
Challenge
Aftersell/Rokt’s biggest challenge? Capacity.
Bootstrapped around a small, efficient founding team, their marketing department consisted of just a single person.
“When we started working with GAAS, our main objective was to support our GTM strategy and increase adoption for one of our newest products. Being a marketing team of one, it was crucial we worked with a team we trusted, and cared about our success as much as we do.” – Julia Bouterakos, Head of Marketing at Aftersell.
With a lack of bandwidth limiting their ability to increase brand awareness, Aftersell/Rokt needed help with creating content, brand reach, closing deals, and upping the momentum of their go-to-market strategy.
Solution
Tapping into GAAS’ products related to content creation, Aftersell/Rokt wanted to focus on educational content via:
Sponsored posts
Webinars
Using GAASmunity – an in-house DTC influencer community of over 100 members.
This community allows SaaS clients the opportunity to tap into DTC influencers that can help spread brand awareness or just create their own influencer relationships with other DTC founders and operators.
Some influencers within the community include Nick Shackelford, Jeremy Horowitz, Steve Odell, Cody Plofker, the founders of GAAS Ronak Shah and Ashvin Melwani, and more.
With these influencer’s audience being Aftersell/Rokt’s ICP, they understood that content production would be the best go-to-market approach for:
- Brand awareness
- Establishing themselves as thought leaders in the space
- Showcasing their strengths
- Exposure for their new product feature
With so few hands and such limited time, Aftersell/Rokt was looking for GAAS to be an extension of their team with little to no lift on their end.
And that’s exactly what they got.
“Another reason why I love working with GAAS is the team helps with doing most of the grunt work. With a small marketing team, it’s incredibly valuable to work with an external team that feels like an extension of your team, and authentically cares about our brand and the success of our brand.” – Julia Bouterakos, Head of Marketing at Aftersell.
Being a startup that was pretty green and inexperienced in the webinar space, Aftersell loved that GAAS managed everything from promotional material, to leading the webinar, and supporting content creation.
Efforts include:
Using Ronak, Ashvin, and other DTC influencer socials to get a lift in targeted, high-value attendance.
Using Linkedin connections and email to spread awareness about webinars.
And leading the topics of discussion during the webinar, tapping into what the audience truly cares about.
With GAAS’s full suite of content ideation, production, and distribution, very little effort was needed from the Aftersell team to execute.
All they need to do is sift through the discussion chat in the webinar and answer any questions brands ask.
“The GAAS team helps with everything from ideation to promotion and distribution -, they make it really low lift for us. They make getting involved in webinars super turn-key.” – Julia Bouterakos, Head of Marketing at Aftersell.
The biggest perk is that given Ronak and Ashvin are current users of Aftersell/Rokt, they’re able to dig into what other founders want to understand and go in-depth on relevant tactics and niche subjects with their mix of expertise and credibility.
With webinars as well as sponsored posts/overall educational content, Aftersell’s goal was to speak directly to their ICP in order to understand 1) what eCommerce founders and operators want to hear about and 2) what questions the Aftersell team can answer.
Through an ongoing social and content feedback loop, the GAAS team continues to iterate and provide new approaches to content that will resonate with the audience.
“The whole team is incredibly talented and well-versed in the B2B Saas space, so they are always implementing and ideating high level strategies that we love implementing at Aftersell. It’s been a great experience.” – Julia Bouterakos, Head of Marketing at Aftersell.
Results
With 20 sponsored posts garnering almost 500,000 impressions since the start of the partnership and a webinar with 100+ attendees…
Aftersell/Rokt has been able to close some of their biggest target brands like:
True Classic
Jones Road Beauty
Snow Teeth Whitening
Tenzo Tea
These are just some of the brands they’ve been able to acquire due to GAAS’s efforts through:
- Content creation
- Webinars
- Nurturing leads within Aftersell funnel via reference calls and social content.
#3 is more of a unique approach that differentiates GAAS when helping their clients acquire brands.
Ronak and Ashvin offer reference calls to other ecommerce founders in order to provide these leads with a direct review from a trusted DTC individual/friend and a current user.
And with every client of GAAS having access to “GAASmunity”, Aftersell/Rokt was also able to get connected with:
Nick Shackelford of Brēz
Cody Plofker of Jones Road Beauty
Steve Odell of Tenzo Teas
And more.
This avenue has helped secure many partnerships for Aftersell/Rokt given the persona & trusted touch these reference calls provide and the ability to leverage the connections GAAS has already made available to them.
“GAAS directly influenced and helped close some of our biggest deals like True Classic and Jones Road. If we were having difficulty getting a merchant to close, they would come in and help support by connecting with the prospect and giving them the extra confidence that we were the right partner for them. They played a really integral key part in closing those deals.” – Julia Bouterakos, Head of Marketing at Aftersell.
To date, Aftersell/Rokt’s partnership with GAAS has delivered a highly lucrative ROI of about …8x-10x ROI
This is what Julia, Afteresell/Rokt’s head of marketing had to say if you’re on the fence of using GAAS’ services:
“Consider what value and ROI partnerships like this will bring to you. For us they have brought pure value. They’ve taken customers on the edge with making a decision and given them the confidence to work with us, while supercharging our brand awareness and product adoption initiatives” – Julia Bouterakos, Head of Marketing at Aftersell.
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