Here are some tips that can help you to enhance your chances of success with email prospecting so that you don’t have to face a string of unanswered emails and a gush of disappointment.
Email marketing is often approached with caution. Because often, it can hurt a sender’s reputation, get the business blacklisted for the violation of spam rules. But you aren’t a spammer. You are a salesperson or a marketing professional trying to generate as many leads to expand your business. So, you are tempted to send emails to as many people you could to make it to your target and finally, call it a day. And this is where you go wrong with email prospecting.
Sending emails to prospective clients is much more than just hitting the ‘send’ button. Rather than this counterproductive approach of sending fifty emails a day, a salesperson should focus on getting replies from the customers who matter. Email prospecting is akin to making a cold call to a customer, and making them warm up to you or a business is challenging. Prospecting can often feel like decoding a secret language between two people that no one else is privy to.
Eighty-two per cent of customers meet with sellers who reach out to them.
Email is a preferred mode of communication for more than eighty per cent of sellers.
One per cent of salespeople have accepted research and email verification to be an effective and accurate prospecting tactic.
Email Prospecting 101
Email prospecting is referred to the outreaching efforts of a salesperson by an email. An introductory email is sent to a prospect or a potential customer. These emails introduce a business, secure a meeting in person to discuss the opportunities of an engagement or a value proposition further, if possible.
It opens up a dialogue, reduces the initial awkwardness and brings about a whole set of opportunities. A practice designed for a new base of clients and businesses, such an email could also include a referral, reference to interaction on social media or a common familiar base.
Follow these key elements if you want to create a better and improved email marketing campaign for your business. These three aspects are a commonplace feature of a good sales prospecting email, which you should follow too if you want to reach out and maximise the efficiency of your email conversations.
Reason: Before you send an email out to a prospect, ask yourself this. Why do you want them to contact you? Why do you want to tell them about you? Do they fit your user persona? Is their email ID verified by email appending services or are you spit-balling? What is your value proposition to the customers? If any of the answers to these questions is a ‘no’, just skip it.
Time: Choosing your customers that fit your sales spectrum isn’t the only criteria to send an email. Is it urgent? What prompted you to send an email to the customers? Why now? Is it urgent? Is it a time-bound communication that compels them to take action? If there is nothing to trigger their purchase mode or arouse interest in you, they will ignore your mail.
Call-to-Action: A must-have for any sales email! You can’t just send them an email and direct them to do nothing about it. A vague telephone number or a gentle nudge won’t do. Be crisp, clear and to-the-point in telling them that it is not just a checking-in mail and you mean business as the collaboration can be beneficial for them.
Email prospecting can always feel like a part thrill, part adventure and a lot of nervousness – with a possibility of lot more chances of failure and least success - especially when you are using outdated and inaccurate sales tactics or email list.
So, here are some tips that can help you to enhance your chances of success with email prospecting so that you don’t have to face a string of unanswered emails and a gush of disappointment. (Not to mention unopened emails, bounce-off and failed deliveries)!
Read on!
Know your customers: So, you have the email ID and other relevant details of your customers. But what else do you know about them? If you want to make the most of your outreach campaigns, research them. Know their preferences, their buying patterns, and maybe their life a bit. You can start with their social media or a business website to get relevant information. However, with a list running down in a few hundred names, it can be a bit of work and take up several working hours, which can be utilised in tracking down leads and conversion, otherwise. Hence, outsource email appending services, which will not only enhance the data you have with relevant details but also update the list with current information regarding their location, economic status and general details.
Adhere to your limits: It is understandable if you get carried away while sending emails to your customers. It is just a ‘button’ after all. However, rather than landing in their ‘spam’ folder or ‘promotions’ tab in the inbox that they never bother to check out, it is better to focus on the customers, who might be interested in your business. And you can’t spend forever in figuring out who’s who. Once you have email data validation handy, you can be assured of the user personas of the customers you are approaching.
Besides, don’t turn a blind eye to people changing jobs and emails. They do. This is why email data validation is the indispensable aspect of your outreach program. Otherwise, you can spend as many hours reaching out to buyers with no luck in conversion or even a lead.
Quality over Quantity: It is the most common mistake that many salespeople do. Email prospecting isn’t about the numbers of emails sent but the number of leads or conversion you get. So, your focus should be on getting quality leads, and the best practice to ensure this is to assign scores to your objective. Give scores to the recipients to understand how likely they are to respond to your mails. Also, don’t forget to track the bespoke mails that continue to bring more response. If a recipient continues to score poorly, you may want to look into the content and rework on the draft. You can use something as simple as ABC or 1, 2, 3! No rules here! Just follow whatever comes easy to you.
Personalisation is the key: Interactive emails are the way to go! Interactive content in emails can increase the CTR by an exceptional seventy-three per cent. When you send a mail with videos, GIFs or animation, you increase the conversion rates by more than twice. These visual elements can help you to grab eyeballs and prompt them to open your emails. However, animate when it is needed. Too many colours, flash and videos in an email can increase the loading time.
Be consistent: It is possibly the most important aspect of sales prospecting. There has to be a clear timeline as to when to send emails. However, steer clear of mismanaged email routine. You shouldn’t send customers two emails a day, or one in a fortnight. Several studies have suggested that Tuesdays and Thursdays are the perfect days to boost click-through rates and conversions. Similarly, 4 PM is believed to be the best time to send emails, because people are looking for distraction during that time and are more likely to check their emails for pastime.
Use email appending services: All of these efforts can be rendered useless if you haven’t integrated email with contact list. It implies that only three emails out of ten are reaching out to your customers. And this is not it. Seven emails are being delivered to the wrong customers or worse, to an incorrect ID. Email appending services should be embraced by businesses proactively to ensure that your business communication reaches out to the right people.
A value proposition: Here’s a real-life example. Open your inbox and find out how many unread emails you have. There are a hundred emails from businesses, and sellers vying for your one click. And if you don’t want to end up like them, you need to stand apart. To do that, you need to have an outreach email that offers something of value to the clients. Be it some information, a free demo, free service or even a webinar that can be immensely beneficial for them. Sometimes, to sell something to a business, you don’t have to sell. You need to tell them that your services or business can be useful to them. Don’t make your outreach email marketing campaign all about your business but about the value, your business can bring to them.
A clear and defined objective: A CTA helps the clients to understand what the email is about and what they should do. An objective, on the other hand, lets you figure out your expectations of an outcome from an email. Even a well-crafted dialogue can be an ice-breaker, but it needs to be clear in its intention and include what your customers should expect to happen next. Business experts believe that if a salesperson leaves the next step on the recipient or a customer, it never comes to that. So, take the lead and be in charge of your email prospecting.
Always follow-up: Email prospecting is a closed-loop. You don’t get to send an email to forget about it and not follow through. An outreaching campaign works when it is followed up thoroughly. There has been an indication that seventy per cent of email chains are junked after one attempt of communication. On the contrary, a follow-up mail has more chances of getting a response. It is recommended to use email tracking to ensure that an email was opened or not, forwarded or ignored.
Data solution services: There will be more than four billion email users by the end of this year. However, these users will also continue to change jobs, locations and email addresses. If you want to have your outreach campaign an optimum reach, it is of utmost importance to keep email database updated. Avail email appending services to ensure that your emails reach out to the intended recipients and comply with global anti-spam laws. Email list building enhances the business and expands the reach of a business dramatically. Hence, it is wise to use data solution services such as email verification , email appending, email data validation and CRM cleaning.
Conclusion:
Foster your sales efforts and connect with your customers globally with email prospecting. Email prospecting is an art (process) to find and research for qualifying leads. It is an outreaching program and often entails cold emailing. This helps salespeople to identify qualified leads. It is qualitative and ensures that a salesperson isn’t wasting time in pursuing unqualified leads. However, it needs to be done right or else; you can waste too much time tracking down the leads, resulting in lower response rates as well as conversion. So, we recommend following the best tips for email prospecting if you want the best results for your outreach program!
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