You’re probably thinking, why on earth would I not teach my SDRs to do what I did as an SDR?
If you’re like me and many other people that were former SDRs, you probably have a ton of tactics in your bag that were sure-fire ways to get meetings!
From the last-ditch effort email offering the prospect an “A,B,C” option to either opt out/take a meeting, or the funny crocodile meme that always got a laugh and promoted a meeting, many of us were able to achieve varying levels of success with bulletproof tactics!
However, prospecting is an ever-evolving game. The minute a tactic starts to work really well, it’s time to get ready and try something else.
To facilitate creating new messaging that is sure to snag a meeting, it’s critical to keep two things in mind every time: testing and providing value.
Always Be Testing
With the heavy use and adoption of Sales Engagement solutions, modern SDRs are rather fortunate to have systems and tools that enable them to test different messages at scales. By creating a testing culture within your team, Sales Engagement platforms will allow you to test your different messages, report back on the metrics of these tests, and share across the team.
My team incorporates this testing culture into our team meetings every single week. During our team meetings, we have a portion in which people share what messages received high response rates and why. Then we designate 1-2 people on the team to test the messaging on their own to see if the new tactic was a one-off or something that can be applied at scale.
Because we have Salesloft, we’re able to constantly test and measure different tactics and reinforces innovation every single week!
Fun Fact: One of our recent tests taught us that LinkedIn voice messages/videos work quite well on Friday afternoons before the weekend!
Value Always Wins!
A mantra that we have on our BDR team is, “If your message doesn’t contain specific information that will help your prospect do his or her job better, don’t expect a positive response.” So, when developing messaging, we always want to make value at the forefront.
This doesn’t mean to completely ditch your favorite meme/giphy (people still get a kick out of those). It simply means that as you’re testing out new messages and incorporating new tactics it’s critical to give something (preferably tangible) to help your prospect with his or her job.
Fortunately for us, we’re able to use intent data to do just that. With the ability to use 6sense’s product to first and foremost see when a company as actually in market for your product, my SDR team has the ability to see why they’re interested in our solution. Within this is the gold. By knowing what websites have been visited or keywords have been searched, my SDR team is able to really understand our prospects’ true pains and give them resources to help them with their struggles.
So, we most definitely will send a funny, quirky message, but best believe that this will be coupled with messaging that will be tailored to a prospect’s specific pains and help them succeed within their role.
Times Change. So Should You.
It’s definitely uncomfortable trying new things and relying less on what traditionally drove success. However, the modern SDR must do this in order to succeed. Fortunately, platforms such as Salesloft and 6sense enable SDR teams to efficiently test and improve messages as well as use data to hyper-personalize in a value-centric manner.