Are Your Emails Getting Deleted By Your Prospects and Customers? Five Things You Can Do to Increase the Success of Your Email Campaigns. Prospecting Email Strategies – Part Two
Oct 7, 2010 Business Tools, cold calling, Cold Calling Tips, customer service, Marketing, Sales Coaching, sales tools, Sales Training, Technology and Software
Developing an email template compelling enough to elicit a response from a prospect is hard enough. Unfortunately, this is only part of the challenge. What compounds this challenge are spam filters, firewalls and a slew of other devices that channel our innocent solicitation into the prospect’s spam folder or worse, the trash; never to find its way to the inbox of our targeted prospect.
In my last blog post, I shared some very practical and specific strategies you can use to increase the success of your emails and the odds that your email will actually be opened by your prospects by making sure you’re leading with the most effective subject line in your emails. Some of these strategies are straight out of my cold calling book. Below you’ll find five additional things you can do, and what not to do, to increase the success of your email campaigns and avoid them being deleted in the first place.
1: Don’t Send Attachments in Your First Email. One cardinal email sin when emailing to new prospects is to send out your first unsolicited email with an attachment. Whether you are sending out collateral materials or other attached information, never, ever do this. It has spam written all over it and in many cases, it will be blocked by a firewall or wind up in the recipient’s spam box. For those of you who are compelled to want to disseminate so much information, this may challenge your current way of doing things. However, that’s the point. The less information you provide, the more they will need to contact you to get the additional information. And that is the objective; for them to contact you.
You’ll have time to send them your precious collateral materials, after you’ve made first contact and most important, have determined what materials they are interested in seeing and what information is a priority for them (not you) which would then move your sales process forward.
2: Hyperlinks. I know how difficult it can be to avoid placing links in emails. However, the more links you include, the greater the odds that your email will not make its way into the prospect’s inbox due to the virtual gatekeepers of email: firewalls and spam filters. If you’re going to include a link, try to limit it to one at the most. Multiple links in your email are what your spam filters are trained to sniff out and more links will increase the chance that your email will be flagged as spam.
3: Email Etiquette – Bulk Emailing and Blind Copy. If you’re sending out emails in bulk from your CRM to multiple prospects at once, this can also cause a problem. Bulk email has been known to be more readily labeled as spam or junk mail rather than sending out individual emails to each recipient. However, if you’re still compelled to do so because of the number of emails you need to send out, please, blind copy (BCC). If you are using a list management company that enables you to create newsletters or emails and sends out the email campaigns for you, or a program where only the recipients’ email shows up in the “To” line and not the entire database you’re emailing to, this isn’t as much of an issue, as the blind copy is often automatic.
But keep in mind, you have other issues to contend with, such as whether or not the solution provider you’re using to send out your emails is actually blacklisted and the company or prospect you’re sending the email to does not accept emails from that provider/IP address. Yes, something else that prevents your emails from getting through. You can check to see if the solution provider or list management company is, in fact, blacklisted via some online resources, such as spamcop.net (a Cisco service).
In certain CRM solutions such as Outlook, where have to manually put the recipients in your “To” line yourself when sending an email, consider another roadblock that your email may encounter. While you still may experience the issues I mentioned when bulk emailing through a list management company, you need to consciously use the blind copy field in your email application so that all the recipients don’t see who your email is going to. This is a matter of sound email etiquette and common courtesy which I find even to this day, is not very common when it comes to emailing multiple recipients, especially prospects who don’t know you and who you don’t even know.
Now, if you know the person who you are sending the email to, unless you’ve established the expectations, boundaries and parameters where it’s acceptable and important that everyone sees who is on that email string, that is a different situation altogether. For example, internal company communications, communicating back and forth with clients and those who need to be involved in the conversation, even communicating with friends and family, general email copying that exposes all of the recipients to each other is fine. However, when it comes to a cold email campaign or an email where it’s a general announcement that you are sending to a group of people who you may even know but they may not know all the recipients included, no one is contacting you and saying, “Hey! Thanks for sharing my email with the world and to a group of people I may not even know! I really hope it helps generate more spam for me!” Okay, this is just one of my biggest pet peeves.
4: Words Spam Filters Love. Be mindful of certain words that will easily be flagged as spam. You can have the greatest email message ever crafted but it won’t even reach the eyes of your prospect if it winds up in their spam folder. Unfortunately, when this happens, in many cases, salespeople feel their email didn’t work, when in fact, it was never opened up in the first place. To counteract this, there are several technology solutions to this that could help, which confirms receipt of your emails, starting with the most basic solution in Outlook, which is requesting a delivery/read receipt.
In an effort to try and reduce the number of self imposed limitations that can restrict our most valiant of email attempts, watch out for the following words that can easily be tagged as spam and as such, send your email into the endless void of cyberspace. Here are some words to avoid:
Words to Avoid That Can Be Flagged as Spam
• Marketing
• Market
• Free
• Bonus
• Plan
• Click
• Click here
• Advertising
• Ads
• Sales
• Selling
• Shop
• Shopping
• Package
• Save
• Save money
• Savings
• Insurance
• Discount
5: Take Your Email For A Test Drive. Here’s a final tip from your coach. If you’re not sure whether your email will safely arrive in your prospect’s inbox, then send a few test emails to either yourself, someone you know or to another computer. As long as you have your virus software and security updated and running on your computer, if it clears this test, you’ve at least increased the chance of your emails getting through to your prospects.
Tags: blacklist, blacklisting, cold call, cold calling, emailing, emails, firewall, list management, prospecting, Sales Coaching, Sales Training, spam
Your Prospects Aren’t Responding To Your Emails? Maybe It’s Your Subject Line. Prospecting Email Strategies To Increase The Success of Your Email Campaigns– Part One
Oct 1, 2010 cold calling, Cold Calling Tips, Marketing, Prospecting, Cold Calling and Networking, Sales Coaching, sales tools, Technology and Software
Developing an email template compelling enough to elicit a response from a prospect is hard enough. Unfortunately, this is only part of the challenge. What compounds this challenge are spam filters, firewalls and a slew of other devices that channel our innocent solicitation into the prospect’s spam folder or worse, the trash; never to find its way to the inbox of our targeted prospect.
While the body of the email is critical when prospecting, the subject line will often determine whether or not the email will even be opened in the first place, gets caught in the recipient’s spam/junk folder, is blocked by the firewall or is evaporated from existence by the stroke of the ‘delete’ key.
Building off the work from my book on cold calling, I spend a substantial amount of time with salespeople and sales teams helping them craft their prospecting systems and compelling email templates. However, we take just as much time ensuring the subject line in every email is on point in order to avoid the pitfalls I mentioned.
While crafting the body of the email message is a different topic altogether, in part one of this two part series on effective email strategies, here are some quick ideas to be mindful of to ensure your emails get opened in the first place. Keep in mind, some subject lines will work better than others, depending upon a variety of factors that you need to weigh in and be mindful of; including your:
1: Target audience, their position as well as whether or not they are a client, a referral or someone you’ve never spoken with,
2: Your product or service,
3: Your sales cycle,
4: Even the locations in which you sell, both domestically as well as internationally.
In terms of what to write in the subject line, here are a few ideas.
1. The Blank Subject line: As the recipient of an email with no subject line, first the recipient may peek at the sender. “Hmmm, looking at their email address they seem like a reputable sender but what is this about? Maybe this is important.” Curiosity may take over and before you know it, they’ve opened up your email. Personally, I delete every email that does not have a subject line in it, unless I know who it’s coming from personally; but that’s me.
2. The Referral Subject Line: What if you’re prospecting through referrals but the person you’re sending the email to has not a clue who you are? Simple, lets say Jane Smith gave you the name and email of a viable prospect and decision maker. Most important, make sure you get permission from Jane that it’s okay to mention her name in the email to this prospect. Next, in the subject line of the email you’re sending to this prospect, you can write, “Jane Smith Suggested We Connect.” Again, these are the strategies I use and my clients use with great success. This particular strategy turns a very cold email into a warmer, more inviting one.
3. The Cold Email Subject Line: Okay, so you have a name and an email address of a potential prospect but it’s not a referral and you’ve never connected with them. It’s a cold call in email form. What to do? Here’s where you need to take your time and be articulate, brief, creative and compelling but tempered with a delicate balance between being creative and sounding to salesy. Here are a few examples. Fill in the blanks and edit accordingly to include your service, a signature client or a measurable compelling reason. Again, be mindful of getting permission from your clients to use their names as testimonials.
• Recent Work We’ve Done For (state client)
• Why (state a client or client’s industry or profession) Choose Us
• An Introduction and Recent Success With (State Client)
• We Just Helped (Client) Reduce Their IT Costs by 35%
• Recent Success With (state client)
Lets say you provide a lead generation or marketing service. Here’s one that works well. The words in brackets are optional. Use at your discretion.
• Who Do We Send Referrals(Leads) To (At Your Company?)
Here’s another subject line strategy. Write a subject line that simply contains their industry name or name of their profession or a reference to their product or service. For example:
• Need a Florist
• Need a Mortgage
• Need a Caterer
• Need a Real Estate Agent
• Need a Photographer
• Interested In Your Services
• Your Services
• Your Products
• Information About Your Services/Products
Of course, regardless of what subject line you use, your email message needs to support it but keep it brief and don’t give away too much information to the point they have no need to follow up with you to ask for more.
One final tip. When you finally do connect with your prospect in person or over the phone (fine, even via email), interview your prospects to determine what it was that motivated them enough to respond. This way you can duplicate what works and develop your own set of best email practices.
It may take you several attempts to find the strategy that works best for you. Conversely, you may find a blend of these strategies to work if not all, depending upon the situation you’re using them in. So be patient, be consistent, be pleasantly persistent when prospecting and remember, make sure you’re tracking your results to gauge what works and what does not in order to continually refine and develop your masterful prospecting system.
Tags: coaching salespeople, cold call, cold calling, email, firewall, prospecting, Sales Coaching, Sales Training, spam
VIDEO: The Primary Objective of a Cold Call or Your Prospecting Efforts? It’s About Finding The Fit, Not Focusing On The Result
Mar 31, 2010 cold calling, Cold Calling Tips, Prospecting, Cold Calling and Networking, Sales Coaching, Sales Training, telesales, Videos
What’s the initial objective of a cold call or your prospecting and new business development efforts? Rather than focusing all of your energy on making the sale, first determine if there’s a good fit between you, your prospect, and what you are selling.
Instead of feeling that the intention of prospecting is to get a sale, provide a demonstration, submit a proposal, or schedule an appointment, the initial intention of prospecting is to determine if there’s a fit worth pursuing.
While this may sound a bit strange, closing the sale and earning the business of a prospect is not your initial goal. Instead, your primary objective is to determine whether you and your prospect are a good fit.
Take a moment and think about how this change in your attitude and mindset would change your cold calling approach as well as your experience.
While your traditional approach may be to produce a measurable result, now your primary objective is to discover whether you and your prospect are a good match and if this relationship is worth moving to the next stage of your selling process. If you feel that you constantly have to push the sales process forward, you’re not taking into consideration that the prospect may simply not be ready, let alone may not be a good fit for what you are selling. Pushing the sales process forward before a prospect is ready only creates pressure for the both of you, fostering an unhealthy relationship from the start.
By changing your thinking and your approach, you’ll now be able to focus your energy and precious time on the right prospects who are more inclined to buy from you, rather than wasting your time sending out proposals and following up with people who you have no business following up with in the first place. Filling your sales funnel with unqualified prospects does nothing for you other than cost you time when you spend it on people who are simply not a good fit for you or your product and service.
Here’s a clip produced by CanDoGo.com on how you can make this critical shift in your thinking which will result in more selling opportunities and less cold calling reluctance.
Tags: appointment setting, coaching salespeople, cold call reluctance, cold calling, prospecting, Sales Coaching, telesales
When Cold Calling, How Do I Determine How Much Qualifying Is Enough?
Nov 16, 2009 coaching salespeople, cold calling, Cold Calling Tips, Prospecting, Cold Calling and Networking, Sales Coaching, Sales Training, telesales
I received the following question from a salesperson the other day who was struggling when it came to qualifying his prospects during a cold call. He was looking for an effective way to best qualify his prospects and how to avoid wasting time when meeting with the wrong ones. What follows is his initial inquiry and my response, which I felt important enough to share with you, as many salespeople seem to be struggling with this very issue today.
That is, “When cold calling, exactly how much initial qualification is enough before determining the next step in my selling process? Do I do all of my qualification up front on the phone before scheduling a face to face meeting or do I wait until I meet with the prospect and then conduct a more robust needs analysis? How do I make this determination?”
Here’s the email I received:
“Hello Mr. Rosen,
I am a salesperson selling health insurance who is currently working on my sales system. My target market is owners of small businesses. I call them and set appointments from telemarketing leads. I have a script in which I use to set the appointment and qualify them, before meeting them face-to-face. I’d be curious to know what strategy you feel is best regarding my two approaches below.
First Approach: Do minimal questioning and qualification and just set the appointment. Then at the appointment, conduct a fact finder to find out their situation and what they like or don’t about their current health insurance plan. Then, set another appointment and come back with a proposal and recommendations. I will pre-close them on the first visit.
Or is this a better this way?
Second Approach: Call and qualify them and ask them all the questions over the phone to find out their current situation on this initial phone call. Then, I will bring the proposal to the first face to face appointment, recap what we discussed over the phone, explain the plan and try and make the sale. Pretty much try and make the sale on the first face to face visit.”
Here was my response:
The answer is – BOTH. There’s always a minimal amount of non negotiable qualification that must be done before meeting with a prospect. Then, when determining how much deeper you can go in your qualification, depending upon the situation it could go either way, so let the customer decide.
The IDEAL scenario is the second one you mapped out. And it’s all in the spirit of saving you your precious and limited time following up and meeting with people who you shouldn’t be meeting with in the first place. The cost of meeting with unqualified people is compounded exponentially because you’re not only meeting with the wrong prospects but you’re now losing time that you could have invested meeting with the right ones – the ones that your competition is meeting with.
Of course, there are those situations where the prospect simply doesn’t have the time nor desire to answer all of your questions during an initial phone call and at that point, it’s going to be a judgment call on your part. So, to minimize the risk of meeting with the wrong prospects and maximize your time when meeting with the qualified ones, what I would recommend is making a list of the non-negotiable qualifying questions that must always be asked, regardless of the situation, so that you get a baseline understanding whether or not this person is even a candidate for your product or service.
Here’s a great way to handle how much qualifying you can do over the phone and how to do it in a way that would encourage the prospect to spend more time with you during this initial telephone conversation.
Simply put, let the prospect decide. After all, people want to save as much time as possible and would appreciate any opportunity to be more efficient when it comes to leveraging their time. That said, the next time you speak with a prospect over the phone, use the following approach during your initial needs analysis/qualification process.
After asking them a couple of preliminary, non negotiable questions, deliver the following message.
“Mr./Mrs. Prospect, I know you’re busy and I want to respect your time. That said, I want to share two options with you that would save you some time when deciding what solution is best for you and whether or not there’s even a fit here. We could schedule a time where I can visit with you to learn more about your business and your objectives and then at that time, schedule another meeting where we could discuss my proposed solution, or, to speed up this process and avoid scheduling another meeting, we can continue our conversation now on the phone so that at the end of this conversation, you would have a very good sense as to whether or not I can deliver more value than your current solution is providing you and if it even makes sense for us to meet face to face in the first place. Which option would work better for you at this time?”
When you give people a choice and share with them the benefit of investing a little more time with you on the phone, you’ll find that your prospects are much more willing to do so. And if you’re saying that your prospects are, “too busy to spend more time with me” or “this won’t work in my industry,” I would challenge you to re-think whether or not this is truly your prospect’s objection or a costly assumption that you’ve created in your own mind. If this new marketplace has changed the way we sell and engage with our prospects, then the old rules of how we qualify and set appointments with our prospects much be challenged as well.
This win – win saves both you and the prospect time, while ensuring that you’re meeting with more of the right prospects.
Tags: cold calling, discovery, needsd analysis, prospecting, qualifying, sales, Sales Coaching, Sales Training, selling
VIDEO: Developing a Compelling Opening Statement When Cold Calling and Prospecting.
Sep 21, 2009 cold calling, Cold Calling Tips, Prospecting, Cold Calling and Networking, Sales Coaching, tele-sales, Videos
BOOK EVENT EXTENDED THROUGH THIS WEEK! Due to Keith’s book selling out and making #1 on Amazon, we’re extending this event through this week! You can still get the book 34% off and the hundreds of dollars worth of bonus materials. More here.
Here’s one example of the type of opening statement and cold calling approach you can create that’s sure to generate more qualified prospects for you than ever before. This example was one that a cost reduction company used when calling on the C suite of prospects, such as the controller or CFO. Once you listen to the opening statement, I’ll then dissect this approach so you can see the strategy behind it.
Tags: cold calling, Cold Calling Tips, opening statement, prospecting, Sales Coaching, Sales Training, video
PODCAST: Is Cold Calling Really Dead? A View into the Mind and the Day of a Salesperson
Jul 10, 2009 cold calling, Cold Calling Tips, podcast, Prospecting, Cold Calling and Networking, Sales Coaching, sales tips, tele-sales, telesales
Listen to this podcast here.
You get to your office, sit down at your desk and open up your calendar. A concerned look sweeps over your face. “Only one appointment this week.” You look at your pipeline and get that squirmy feeling inside your gut, as you realize your pipeline is not as full as it used to be. You’re wondering where you’re going to find your next prospect.
The uncertainty begins to sweep over you. The stress starts creeping into your body, for you realize you can’t keep procrastinating making the cold calls you need to in order to book more appointments with key decision makers.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: cold call, cold calling, podcast, prospecting, selling tips, telesales
Are Salespeople Asking Prospects the Wrong Questions?
Jul 1, 2009 cold calling, Cold Calling Tips, Prospecting, Cold Calling and Networking, sales articles, Sales Coaching, Sales Training, tele-sales, telesales
“Are salespeople asking their prospects the wrong questions?” As I mentioned in my last post, this was a conversation that came up while being interviewed by Geoffrey James for an article he was writing for Selling Power magazine on what managers need to do to effectively coach their sales team when cold calling.
The answer to this question? Well, it’s actually yes and no. Yes, many salespeople are asking good questions that help uncover whether or not the prospect is a fit for the product or service they are selling. Conversely, many are asking the wrong questions that drive the prospect away from you, rather than move them closer to a sale.
The real universal gap that I see after coaching and training thousands of salespeople,
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: cold calling, discovery, disqualifying, prospecting, qualifying, qualifying prospects, questions, questions that sell, Sales Coaching, sales questions, sales tips, Sales Training, telesales
The Seven Types of Prospectors – Get Your Copy of This ebook For Free Today
Jun 18, 2009 cold calling, Cold Calling Tips, Communication, Prospecting, Cold Calling and Networking, Sales Coaching, tele-sales, telesales
Download this ebook for free here.
Our new marketplace requires new strategies and a new way of thinking in order to achieve more and thrive. Here, you can access these new resources I developed specifically for salespeople and sales managers to attract more prospects, boost your sales faster and coach your sales team into sales champions so they can close more sales today.
Here’s the second in a series of new resources and ebooks I’m giving away.
The Seven Types of Prospectors
What kind of prospector are you? Although developing a unique, personalized approach to prospecting is encouraged, there are some pitfalls to be aware of and some communication styles to abandon that you may not even be aware of which will sabotage your prospecting efforts. Use this guide to uncover which of the seven types of prospectors you most closely resemble and what you can do to adjust your prospecting approach and communication style for maximum impact.
Download this ebook for free here.
Tags: books on cold calling, cold calling books, Cold Calling Tips, prospecting, Sales Coaching, sales tips, Sales Training, telesales, teleselling
PODCAST: Benchmark Best Sales Practices to Achieve Your Sales Goals
Jun 8, 2009 All About Selling, cold calling, Cold Calling Tips, How To Sell and Sales Tips, Prospecting, Cold Calling and Networking, sales articles, Sales Coaching, Sales Training
Listen to the full podcast here.
Companies are running so fast in an attempt to catch up on their sales numbers that they aren’t aware of the blinders they’ve developed which are obstructing their view of the fuller picture when it comes to selling and driving the right sales activity, especially the deeper level of questioning and discovery every salesperson needs to engage in today.
Sure, you can ask your prospects the more generic questions about the current products, services, solutions and venders they currently use. But what about the questions that facilitate a buying decision; the tougher questions that help you better understand if this prospect is, in fact, even qualified to buy from you now, in the near future or ever? Delivering a recent seminar to a senior team of sales professionals reinforced how most salespeople, regardless of how experienced or seasoned, are still stepping over the additional questions I’m suggesting we need to ask.
I’m referring to questions that uncover:
Here’s a tip from your coach: Low closing percentages = a misalignment in who you should be presenting to and following up with in the first place.
If you don’t have the answers to these questions, you’re robbing yourself of the opportunity to enjoy the certainty and peace of mind that comes from utilizing a formulaic approach to selling. After all, if you define it, you can then refine it.
So, if you’re ever wondering why you or other salespeople fall into what’s known as a ‘sales slump,’ here’s the main cause of that. They aren’t honoring their sales process by the numbers and as such, those who continue to ‘wing it’ as their overall selling strategy are destined to experience the ups and downs in performance and in their stress level, as well as the waning sense of satisfaction and confidence that’s sure to follow in its wake when this amount of ambiguity and uncertainly is present.
In this podcast, I detail several critical questions you need to answer that will enable you to uncover the gaps in your data pool that in turn, will help refine your overall approach to how you prospect and sell and the measurable effort that’s required for you to do so successfully.
Listen to the full podcast here.
Tags: cold calling, discovery, Executive Coaching, pre qualification, prospecting, qualifying prospects, qualifying questions, sales benchmark, sales benchmarking, Sales Coaching, sales tips
A Cold-Calling Conundrum: If You’re Not Passionate About What You’re Selling, How Can Your Prospect’s Be?
Jun 1, 2009 cold calling, Cold Calling Tips, How To Close The Sale, Prospecting, Cold Calling and Networking, Sales Coaching, Sales Training, Videos
Salespeople wear their emotions on their sleeve. As such, your prospects will sense your reluctance or fear. A prospect wants to do business with a salesperson that’s excited about what they have, not someone who is struggling to promote their product or service.
Rather than a sign of conviction, this can be construed as a sign of doubt or uncertainty. If you’re not convinced that what you have to offer is important enough to make a call, then how can you expect your prospects to get excited about what you have to offer? This will sabotage your cold-calling efforts, cultivating an unhealthy relationship from the start.
From: The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Cold Calling
Related Winning CanDoGo™ Insights
A Great Sales Coach Uses His Heart
Tags: call templates, cold call, cold calling, cold calling advice, prospecting, sales tips
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