Do you want to know the secret of successful and scalable outreach?
After years of speaking with the best sales organizations in the world, we have adapted and curated their best practices, strategies, and tricks regarding prospecting outreach.
The secret? Successful and scalable outreach begins with the process.
Below are the top 10 ingredients to create a process that will lead your team to success:
1. Create A Cadence
To have a successful and scalable team, you need to provide each new rep a process they can fine-tune to make their own.
Follow these three rules:
- You must have a repeatable, measurable, and scalable process for prospecting outreach.
- Use company and industry best practices to discover what works for your business.
- Use a combination of calls, emails, and social media touches to reach your prospects.
Once you have the cadence outlined, you can break down specifics.
2. Minimize The Use Of Templates
You can still personalize an email template by using custom dynamic fields. ‘Semi-automation’ is the name of the game.
Start With A Killer Subject Line:
Make it all about the prospect and enticing enough that they will open the email and read it. Email subject lines can make or break opportunities to connect with cold (and even warm) prospects. Give them reason enough to click on the email, because once they do, you can ultimately guide their engagement.
Here are some examples of breakup email subject lines that have been effective in the past:
- Did I fall through the cracks?
- Should I Stay or should I go?
Personalize The Body Of The Email:
Take advantage of social media (LinkedIn and Twitter) to find key triggers to add personalization to prospecting emails.
Use a P.S. line It can be added to the end of an email referencing a personal fact about the prospect. The entire goal of the P.S. line is to show the prospect you are an actual human sending them a personal email.
Remember that it’s all about the prospect, not you. Don’t sell your features right off the bat. Make a warm introduction and approach the communication as starting to build the relationship.
Include An Actionable CTA:
Always send an email with clear motives for next steps. For example: Could you put me in touch with the person in charge of prospecting and lead generation activities?
3. Use An Email Intelligence Tool
Tracking activity such as views, clicks, and replies are integral to staying on top of hot prospects and measure the success of your emails. There are many amazing tools on the market including Salesloft Cadence that can turn your current outreach activity into an efficiency machine.
Whatever tool you choose should be sent from your personal company outbox and not a transactional server. This prevents the emails from landing up in the SPAM folder.
4. Use A Power Dialing Tool To Crank Out Calls Quickly And Efficiently
There are many dialers on the market but the key is to find one that seamlessly integrates with all your other prospecting tools. We drink our own KoolAid at Salesloft- my team uses Salesloft Cadence for all outbound prospecting.
As you prospect and call, make sure to track calls, voicemails, and conversations to better determine the minimum number of activities to attain an appointment or demo.
5. A/B Test
Always test email templates and subject lines against each other for better results. What worked last year may not always work next year.
A/B test for a minimum of one month so you have a measurable sample size.
Pro Tip: Change the subject line only and compare the email open rates. Then change the body and compare the click-thru and response rate.
6. Out of Office (OOO), Email Responses Are Worth More Than Gold
Nine times out of 10 the OOO responses include a prospect’s direct dial. Use it to your advantage in follow-up calls.
Pro Tip: Pause these prospects in your outreach program and start them up the day after they are back in the office.
7. Use Reminders To Keep Up With Important Conversations
Never let a prospect fall through the cracks by keeping tabs on reminders. There are many tools out there that can help with this. Use them.
8. aText Accelerates Writing Copy By Automating The Phrases You Use Most
aText is a typing accelerator for iOS. It’s by far one of the most valuable tools and will cost you the price of a beer.
9. Gmail Keyboard Shortcuts
You can turn these on in your settings and they will allow you to quickly and efficiently move through your inbox, send emails, compose, forward, etc. Speed is the name of the game.
ARCHIVE emails.
Never delete, do not use folders- ARCHIVE. If you need to find the email later, you can search for it as long as it is archived.
Pro Tip: this is the “e” button with Gmail shortcuts.
10. Measure Your Results
There is no “one size fits all” solution.
You need to always be testing, innovating, and developing new strategies to keep your sales emails fresh and your prospects hot.
Implement and use these kick-ass ingredients to turn your outbound prospecting into a well-oiled machine. Your manager will thank you for increased productivity and efficiency in the process. And prospects will want to do business with you.
What am I missing? What tools are you using to crush quota and set more qualified demos and appointments?