Kalo Yankulov’s Journey to Innovating Marketing Automation

We recently sat down with Kalo Yankulov, the co-founder of Encharge.io, to gain insights into the innovative world of marketing automation. Kalo, a figure in the digital business landscape, shares his experiences and deep understanding of how automation can propel business growth. His dedication to assisting entrepreneurs in expanding their online businesses is both inspiring and enlightening. Our conversation explores the evolution, challenges, and successes of Encharge.io, providing valuable perspectives on the future of marketing automation.

Inspiration Behind Encharge.io

SBS – What inspired the creation of Encharge.io, and what gaps in the market were you aiming to fill?

Kalo – We wanted to build a product that would make us happy to work on for at least the next 10 years. So, we were aiming for founder-product fit. My co-founder and I jotted down a list of about a dozen requirements we had for the product — to be in the marketing space, to have room to explore interesting UX, to be a critical product (i.e., something people need in their business vs. innovative but untested idea), etc. That’s how we decided to work on Encharge.

Regarding a market gap, we knew that no marketing automation platforms were focused on SaaS businesses at the time. Yes, tools like Customer.io existed that could handle email marketing quite well, but no platform was focused on automation for SaaS. We decided we could fill in that gap. 

Overcoming Initial Challenges

SBS – Can you describe the initial challenges you faced while starting Encharge and how you overcame them?

Kalo – It’s hard to name all of the early-stage challenges we had. In the first two years, we barely had any revenue. The biggest challenge was the huge tech barrier that the competition and alternatives had — most of these tools have existed in the market for almost 20 years. We had a huge scope to cover in terms of features and a big barrier to entry to overcome. 

The large scope was a challenge for a long time and even a challenge today. Even with the narrowed SaaS focus, there are so many different ways people do marketing automation and the different tech stacks they employ that it’s virtually impossible to serve everyone how they want.  

The other challenge was the lack of funding. Most of our competitors are venture-funded companies with tons of resources and employees.

Target Market Identification

SBS – How did you identify your target market, particularly focusing on B2B SaaS businesses?

Kalo – Before Encharge, we both worked in marketing SaaS tools that we have exited. We love the SaaS community and always enjoyed talking to SaaS people. 

Growth Factors

SBS – What were the key factors that contributed to Encharge’s growth in its early stages?

Kalo – The biggest one was our AppSumo lifetime deal launch. We were among the top five tools to launch on the marketplace, with more than 4,000 licenses purchased. We used the revenue from the launch as bootstrapped funding, and the word-of-mouth and exposure generated snowballed the growth in the next year. 

Team Building Insights

SBS – How did you approach building your team, and what qualities were you looking for in the early hires?

Kalo – We are looking for motivated self-starters who are not afraid to wear many hats. In a small, bootstrapped business, everybody does everything. We don’t have the luxury of hiring super narrow specialists full-time. However, we have worked with contractors and freelancers who specialize in certain fields, such as Facebook ads and SEO, for example.

Developing Encharge’s Key Features

SBS – Can you share some insights into the development process of your platform’s key features?

Kalo – We use Noora and Productboard to collect and manage our feedback. Feedback is prioritized based on customer MRR (we prioritize feedback from customers with higher MRR). 

Our tech team uses Jira and works in weekly or monthly sprints. That’s a pretty standard procedure as far as development goes.

Effective Marketing Automation Strategies for Small Businesses

SBS – What are the most effective strategies for small businesses to implement marketing automation?

Kalo – The marketing automation field is vast, and there are tons of ways you can implement emails and automation to help you. It’s important to focus on the part of the funnel that you need most help with. Look at your Google Analytics and see where is the biggest drop-off. If you struggle with converting leads to customers, you can focus on lead nurturing or onboarding strategies. 

Lead Nurturing with Encharge

SBS – How can small businesses effectively use Encharge to nurture leads and convert them into paying customers?

Kalo – Most of our customers use behavior-based onboarding emails — emails that are sent when a person does (or doesn’t) do something on your website and in your app. These emails are generally much more effective than traditional one-off newsletters because they catch the user when he or she is most likely to engage with your brand.

Another common use case is the implementation of CRM platforms like HubSpot and Salesforce. We have native two-way syncing integrations with these tools that make it easy to automate high-touch sales processes and coordinate them with your email marketing. For example, qualify leads based on product activity, change lead status in the CRM, and send an automated email to book a call.

Other businesses like the chat platform Landbot have automated their whole marketing stack through Encharge. We have seen them use Webhooks, Segment, and other more technical integrations to automate extremely complex processes across the customer lifecycle.

Common Pitfalls in Marketing Automation and How to Avoid Them

SBS – What are some common mistakes you’ve seen businesses make in their marketing automation strategies?

Kalo – Not doing it all. When it comes to early-stage SaaS businesses, most never find the time to implement any strategies beyond untargeted email blasts. 

We try to make the process of implementation easier and help SaaS businesses use marketing automation quicker than other platforms out there.

The Role of Personalization in Email Marketing

SBS – How important is personalization in email marketing, and how can small businesses achieve this effectively?

Kalo – There are various reports that show that personalization is critical, but you don’t need to read them to believe this. Just look at your inbox. Email inboxes are the new social media feed — you simply can’t keep up with all of the emails you get.

Start using behavior emails. Track what people do on your website, what lead magnets they download, and what features they use or don’t use. Once you have the data, you can personalize your email marketing efforts based on it.

Successful Marketing Automation Flows:

SBS – Can you provide examples of successful marketing automation flows that have worked well for your clients?

Kalo – Most of our customers use Encharge for lead nurturing campaigns, behavior-based emails, and sales automation. It will be hard to go over specifics in that little space, but you can check our case studies and flow use cases for examples.

Improving Customer Onboarding: Strategies for Small Businesses

SBS – What advice would you give to a small business looking to improve its customer onboarding process?

Kalo – Start small and implement some basic emails like a welcome email and a nudge email to remind inactive people to get back to your app.

The Future of Marketing Automation

SBS – What are your thoughts on the future of marketing automation and how businesses should prepare for these changes?

Kalo – AI will also change the marketing automation landscape. It would take longer than other fields, but I expect ChatGPT to be able to generate and send personalized emails on a one-by-one basis — as in, every person will get a unique email based on their needs, preferences, and so on, without having to technically implement any dynamic personalization tags. 

I suggest starting with the basics — as I mentioned, integrate data into your marketing automation tool. The more data you have, the easier it will be for future AI tools to provide relevant input. Apart from that, get the hang of ChatGPT queries. For developers — invest time into prompt engineering.

Essential Integration Tools for Small Businesses Using Encharge

SBS – In terms of integration, what are some essential tools or platforms you recommend for small businesses to pair with Encharge?

Kalo – SaaS businesses can integrate their recurring billing provider, like Stripe or Chargebee, and synchronize data from their CRM, like HubSpot and Salesforce. Other apps I recommend connecting are Slack, Calendly, and Facebook ads for retargeting ads.