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
To Tweet or Not To Tweet? If That’s The Question, The Answer is – Know Your Objectives
Nov 10, 2009 American Entitlement, Business Coaching, Business Tools, Communication, Marketing, sales tools
Follow me on Twitter here.
“Should I be tweeting, Keith?” This question comes up more and more when speaking with clients. Since there are several factors to consider when answering this, my response to this question are additional exploratory questions that guide a conversation to help individuals and companies determine whether it makes sense for them to become part of the Twitter universe or, twitterverse, which according to the urban dictionary is defined as, “The cyberspace area of twitter. This naturally extends beyond twitter.com to anywhere you can twitter, which includes cell phones.” (Yes, be prepared for more jargon and a new language.) Here are a handful of those questions:
1.“What do you already know about Twitter?”
2.“Is this something you’re setting up as a personal account or for your business?” (What are you using it for? Staying in touch, for fun, to achieve a certain goal or objective, to make money, etc.”)
3.“Tell me why you feel you want to/need to be tweeting?”
4.“What are your goals and expectations?”
5.“How much time do you have to devote to this?”
6.“If this is for your business, who will be doing the tweeting?”
7.“What message are you looking to deliver?” (Around your personal brand, corporate branding, certain theme or platform, marketing messages, notifications, events, special offers, attracting prospects, nothing specific, etc.)
8.“What results are you expecting?”
9.“How many followers do you want?”
10. “Who do you want to follow you?” (“How many people, what audience, why do you want them following you,” and so on.)
11. “How will this complement your current marketing campaign and align with your social media strategy and objectives?”
Once we siphon through the answers to these questions, we can then start mapping out whether or not it makes sense for them to invest their time tweeting and a strategy to go about doing so that would achieve their objectives.
I know it’s easy to get caught up in trying to get as many people as possible following you on Twitter, and social media is all the rage. (Just Google “social media” and you’ll get 203,000,000 results. Probably even more since this blog went live.) For some people, Twitter has become a downright obsession, an ego stroke, a validation, a need to be needed, a way to feel ‘connected.’ (I’ll have to address what ‘connected’ means in another blog.)
Sure, there are those people out there that have earned the bragging rights to say they have tens of thousands of people following them on twitter, but I can tell you this with great certainty, if you’re looking at it from the perspective of what the financial benefit or monetary impact could be and how much personal income has been generated, I wouldn’t run out to swap your W2 statement with most of them. That being said, there’s always the few exceptions.
Like any new strategy you’re considering adopting, if you’re looking at Twitter as part of your overall marketing campaign in order to leverage it as a social media communications tool, there needs to be a healthy balance between the quality of your efforts and the quantity of them. There’s no, “one solution.” What’s needed is a holistic and well balanced approach to utilizing a variety of marketing vehicles that would reinforce your brand, provide further exposure and put you in touch with your target audience which, collectively, would achieve your marketing objectives.
Just think of selling; if you look at selling as a numbers game rather than a science or strategic benchmarking process, you’re in big trouble. After all, you can have thousands of prospects in your pipeline but what are those prospects worth if they’re not a fit for your product or service? The costs are significant: time and money wasted on engaging with the wrong people multiplied exponentially by the time you are not spending targeting, calling on and following up with the right prospects.
Depending upon your goals and the responses to the questions I posed earlier in this blog, Twitter may certainly prove to be one very important spoke on your marketing wheel that’s worth leveraging (it’s been worthwhile for me), that complements the other marketing platforms you utilize.
To reinforce this point, here’s a short movie aligning the values of legendary Zig Ziglar and his son, Tom Ziglar with Twitter. In this movie, you’ll find some great, classic quotes from Zig Ziglar, as well as a handful of guidelines from Tom on how to leverage and maximize Twitter to your advantage.
And yes, I do tweet as part of my overall social media strategy. So, feel free to follow me on Twitter here.
Enjoy the new Ziglar Twitter Movie. Click here to watch.
Tags: cold calling, Marketing, prospecting, selling, tweet, tweeting, twitter
When and How to Ask for Referrals
Jun 25, 2009 All About Selling, Marketing, Prospecting, Cold Calling and Networking, sales articles, Sales Coaching, sales tools, Sales Training, tele-sales
To complement my last blog where I shared some valuable tips on how to generate more referrals that were provided by my colleague Dr. Tony Alessandra, I felt we needed to get even more tactical by revisiting the positioning, language and the dialogue you need to be mindful of when actually asking for a referral, as well as the proper time and place to do so. Below is a strategy that has helped many salespeople and non selling professionals build their pipeline and their practice by knowing when and how to ask for referrals. What follows is a dialogue you can use that honors the permission based selling model that I’ve written about in my cold calling book.
________________________________________________
What exactly classifies as a referral? If we were to create some parameters that define what a referral is, this is what it would look like.
Synonymous with “recommendation” and “testimonial,” a referral is a potential prospect that is directed or given to you by someone you know or someone you don’t know who feels that you are the best source for help or information regarding a specific, subject, product, or service.
What makes a referral so incredibly attractive and desirable is that it is, for the most part, a warm lead. That is, when you approach a referral, there is less of a need to convince or sell them. A certain degree of interest, credibility, and comfort has already been established. Chances are, there’s already a need present. All you have to do then, is turn that need into a want or a desire for your product using the questions in your needs analysis.
Typically, your clients are going to be the top source for referral business simply because they are the ones who actually utilize your product, making them the most effective testimonial you can find to endorse your product.
The following dialogue illustrates how you can establish a referral agreement with your clients. This way, you will be able to identify the clients who are willing to become a referral source for you and the most appropriate time to ask them for referrals. This is a great example of how to set up your strategy to increase the amount of referral business you currently generate.
You: “Mrs. Client, may I take a moment to share with you how I build my business?”
Client: “Sure.”
You: “Well, what I enjoy most about what I do and where my time is best served is working with my clients. I want to spend as much time as possible serving my clients and exceeding your expectations. In order for me to spend more time with my clients and less time marketing or prospecting for new business I really need the help of my satisfied clients.
Please understand, I’m certainly not asking for any referrals from you now. Personally, I feel that would be incredibly presumptuous to ask you to introduce me to other potential clients before you even have a chance to truly utilize and benefit from my services. After all, we just started working together!
However, in a couple of months or even weeks, when you are clearly realizing the benefits of my services and have gotten even more value than you expected, would you be comfortable sharing the results you have experienced with others and introduce me to those people who might also benefit from my services?”
Client: “Sure, I don’t see why not.
You: “That sounds great. Thanks in advance for this consideration. Just so I know what it will take to make you a raving fan, what can I do to make you comfortable enough to actually want to refer business to me?”
The most effective way to earn referrals is to over- deliver on the value your clients expect so that you actually exceed their expectations. Once you confirm this to be true, it now becomes a great time to ask for testimonials or a reference from a happy client.
If you find that you are having difficulty asking for referrals, then question how strong your belief is in your product, your commitment to serving your clients, and the value proposition you can deliver.
Setting up a referral agreement with your clients will remove any reluctance and make you feel much more comfortable when asking them for referrals. Since they now know this is something you will be asking of them, it’s okay to ask.
Tags: ask for referrals, asking for referrals, filling your pipeline, networking, prospecting, referrals, Sales Coaching, Sales Training
Tony Alessandra Week on CanDoGo – Generate More Referrals
Jun 25, 2009 How To Sell and Sales Tips, Marketing, sales articles, Sales Coaching, sales tips, Sales Training
Last week on CanDoGo.com was Tony Alessandra week. While a little late on the draw this week, the good news is, you can still access all of Tony’s videos and tips on CanDoGo. This one in particular I felt was so relevant during a time where customer retention and acquisition is top of mind for all companies and salespeople. Below are some best practices when it comes to asking for referrals.
_______________________________________________
Asking for Referrals
By Dr. Tony Alessandra
Ask for referrals anytime a customer offers positive feedback about you, your company, or your product. Often, the best time to do so is right after your customer has a problem resolved by you, and you’ve proven that you can and will follow through. Any time you ask for referrals, follow these guidelines:
1. Ask for specific referrals to narrow the customer’s focus. Word your questions so that the customer thinks about a specific environment and a specific situation. For example: “Do you know of any colleagues in your business club whose needs are similar to yours?”
2. Gather as much information about the new customer as possible. In an informal, casual manner, ask about the referrals, business, needs and behavioral style. For example, ask “What did he say to you that indicated he has such a need?”
3. Ask your customer for permission to use his or her name. This should be no problem if you have built a solid relationship with that customer.
4. Ask your customer for help in obtaining an appointment with the referral.
5. Contact the referral as soon as possible, and then inform your customer about the outcome of the contact. If the customer decides to buy, send your referring customer a thank-you gift. If the customer doesn’t buy, send your referring customer a thank-you note for trying.
Tags: asking for referrals, networking, prospecting, referrals
Not Sure How To Innovate? Forget Brainstorming, SmartStorming Shows You How
Mar 23, 2009 Communication, Experiences in Marketing, Insights in Business, Leadership Academy, management tips, Marketing
Did you know that the concept of brainstorming as we know it today was invented nearly 70 years ago? This was right around the time when Roosevelt was President and gas cost 10-cents a gallon. Interestingly, while technology has advanced dramatically, the brainstorming process hasn’t changed much since then.
Invite most 21st-century professionals to participate in a brainstorming session, and they’re likely to run for the door. And it’s no wonder. The typical brainstorm is long, tedious, poorly facilitated, often intimidating and even contentious. And the results are often disappointing, as well. Even when a few decent ideas are generated, they rarely end up seeing the light of day.
Two marketing communications professionals from New York City are changing all that, with a totally new approach to brainstorming they call SmartStorming: Advanced Training in Innovative Thinking. I’ve had the opportunity to connect with the creators of SmartStorming and talk to them about this cutting edge technology in how we think and create new ideas. They’ve reinvented the concept of brainstorming so that it can be done in a more of a systematic, organized process that yields are measurable R.O.I.
“We all know innovative thinking is critical for success, today more than ever. We call it the ‘Innovation Imperative,’” says Mitchell Rigie, co-creator of SmartStorming. “The difference between surviving and thriving, today and in the foreseeable future, is going to depend on how fresh and unique a company’s thinking will be.”
Traditional brainstorming is still one of the most widely-used tools for generating ideas. Every day tens of thousands of brainstorms are held around the world.
It seems that the technology behind brainstorming has now evolved into something more powerful. “Brainstorming is a fundamentally flawed process,” says Keith Harmeyer, Rigie’s partner and co-creator of SmartStorming. “For years we sat through hundreds, maybe thousands of unproductive brainstorms. And finally we asked ourselves, ‘How can we do this better?’“
Based on their own experience and extensive research, Rigie and Harmeyer developed a turnkey system that addresses each of the key weaknesses of traditional brainstorming. The result is a thorough six-step process that takes users from pre-planning, through the idea-generation phase to follow-through and next steps.
“Consider the cost to an organization of a typical brainstorm session. Six or eight or even more people, sitting in a room for an hour or more. Then multiply that by the number of sessions held over the course of a year. And with what return? It’s staggering. Plus the negative impact on employee morale is enormous. SmartStorming delivers tangible benefits to the organization, managers and participants,” said Harmeyer.
At the core of SmartStorming is 3-D Ideationsm, a proprietary technique that breaks idea-generation into three parts, resulting in a significantly great yield of fresh, innovative ideas.
“3-D Ideation makes it possible for groups to think beyond their limiting assumptions about a challenge; what most people refer to as ‘thinking outside the box.’ They then view the challenge from a number of different viewpoints, to gain a broader perspective. And finally, they free associate, using a variety of ideation techniques we provide,” said Rigie.
Several leading creative services and consumer products companies have already benefitted from SmartStorming and many more are jumping on the bandwagon. To learn more about SmartStorming training, visit SmartStorming.com.
Jigsaw Launches Company Wiki as a Platform to Promote Your Brand
Sep 26, 2008 Business Coaching, Business Tools, Insights in Business, Marketing, sales tools, Technology and Software
A quick Wiki definition. (Would that be called a “Wiki-Wiki?”) A wiki is a type of website that allows users to add, remove, and edit the content.
Jigsaw’s Wiki is unique because it only contains valuable business to business information. Similar to Wikipedia, Jigsaw’s Company Wiki is a vibrant hub of user-generated content. However, any information and Wiki articles posted should contain only factual information and not opinions or marketing messages.
Jigsaw’s Wiki, however, is especially beneficial to marketers because all companies, big and small, are welcome. Unlike Wikipedia, “notability” isn’t required. It also features relevant, fresh business to business information, while leveraging Free Company Data- that business professionals turn to Jigsaw for Company information.
According to Jigsaw, any business can benefit from this free listing in a few different ways. First, linking to Jigsaw will help your search engine relevance, and as such, help your search engine results. And being a public domain, Jigsaw ensures the accuracy of your company’s public profile which you then get to promote to one of the largest business communities on the web today.
Give it a shot and let me know how it worked for you. It costs you nothing but a minute to sign up.
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