Give your mailings more impact
Emailing is a very good way of making contact. More effective than phoning, it is less time-consuming - and therefore less costly - to implement. For your sales staff, it's a great way of offering quality content while fuelling their sales efforts. While there are a few rules to be observed when it comes to content, the recipient email base remains pivotal to the success of your email campaigns.
Mailing or phoning?
Direct canvassing
What form should your first prospecting contact take? E-mail? Call? This depends very much on the nature of your market. If you don't have many leads, why not call directly? Yes, but to say what? While email allows you to deal with a higher volume of leads, it also provides a good excuse to call afterwards. "Hello, Mr Dupont from company x. I've sent you an email...". That's as many chances as there are for you not to be met with the traditional "Send us an e-mail...", a phrase that's systematically used when you're trying to avoid a response. If you've already done that, you'll be able to bounce right back.
The difficulty of phoning
The first contact is a cold call or cold mailing. The ROI (Return on Investment) of cold calling is very low: around 4%. It has to be said that companies are very busy, and cold calling can be seen as intrusive. As a result, cold calling has become a real sport! Telemarketing requires salespeople to be both tenacious and enduring. But even the most motivated risk becoming demoralised when the umpteenth call is unsuccessful.
Mailing as an approach technique
In B2B, direct mail is the preferred channel for finding suppliers. The Fevad study reveals that it accounts for 63% of purchases. In terms of ROI, emailing achieves a result of 12%: three times better than phoning. What's more, it's less time-consuming, because you're addressing a large target of prospects at the same time. This saves your sales staff time, allowing them to focus on the "hottest" prospects.
The rules of a good mailing
Keep it short and personal
Your mailings should be concise. Be concise to better capture attention. Personalisation is also key: address the person by their first name, mention the name of their company and tailor your message to their situation.
Write a good subject line
The subject line should also be short but effective. There's nothing worse than sending an email, arriving in Inbox, but not being read because our subject line didn't appeal. You have to succeed in attracting attention, piquing curiosity and capturing interest. Don't say too much to keep people interested. If your open rate doesn't exceed 20%, it's because your objects need to be reworked. AB testing is a method of testing two variants and analysing the results, in order to select the best one. Some mailing software packages offer this. This optimises the delivery rate of mailings sent.
Call to action
A good mailing is one in which the recipient knows what is expected of them. This is known as a CTA: Call to Action. Your prospecting consists of moving forward by proposing a follow-up to your readers: a next step. Ask a clear question such as: "Would you be available for a telephone conversation at 3pm? Rather than being too vague, such as "I'd like to have your feedback".
Follow up
Send follow-up emails until you get a response. 90% of sales reps don't bother. Being part of the persistent 10% makes all the difference. We're afraid of sounding insistent, but in reality the majority of your recipients will notice your pugnacity. In today's fast-paced world, we all receive a lot of emails and don't take the time to read/open them all. But that doesn't mean we're not interested. And the day you need a supplier, the name of the one you're receiving emails from comes more quickly to mind.
Automate
Canvassing is fine, but how do you go about it? When you're prospecting a large volume of contacts, it's difficult to segment actions by batch of recipients without making mistakes. It would be a bad idea to re-address an email to a contact who has replied in the meantime. To do this, there's nothing like automated reminders. You're sure not to forget anyone, while adapting the action to each individual.
The quality of your database
Which database should you use?
Writing a good mailing is one thing, but if the recipient emails are no good, the result will be zero.
How good is your database? Is the information fresh? Up to date? Hard to know. And then... it's hard to keep track! Buy a database on purpose? Yes... but the risk is that it will already have been used a lot. And it can't be exhaustive.
Use professional social networks
Linkedin is the most up-to-date and comprehensive network. People use it to fill in and update their career paths. It's a goldmine of information. However, the network requires you to know the person in order to 'connect'. Retrieving emails by export is complicated. You can certainly opt for a paid premium version of Linkedin, or use specialist software.
Feed your CRM with fresh data
There are lead generation software packages that can update your database using professional networks in real time. This is the case with Datananas. Based on networks such as Linkedin or Viadeo, the solution searches for relevant contacts and prospects for the company and exports them to your CRM. As personal business emails are not always included, the software will be able to guess or check the business email of all exported contacts.
Sales reminder template to include in emails
Can't find the right words to follow up your prospects? Download this free template and customise it.
Mailings are still an important part of lead management. Less intrusive than phoning, they allow you to offer content while feeding the conversion tunnel. While the quality and characteristics of the email certainly play a big part in terms of impact, the qualification of recipient emails remains key. This is why professional networks such as Linkedin represent a goldmine of fresh, personal information that can be used judiciously.
Article translated from French