Sales Emailing

Sales coaching session with Steli: Exomatch

Steli Efti · March 25, 2016

Ever wanted a celebrity to pitch your product?

Exomatch makes that happen by connecting advertisers with influencers. Their platform allows companies to pitch their marketing campaigns to influential Youtube, Instagram, and Facebook personalities, who then bid on the campaigns.

We spoke with Exomatch’s head of sales, Philippe Takama, and head of customer relations, Lukas Urbaum, about how to manage a successful cold email campaign. Here are the results.

How to pick the cold email approach that’s right for you

You have two options when you begin a cold emailing campaign: Direct or indirect email.

Which approach you use depends on your target market. Let’s take a closer look at each method.

Direct email

This is the standard approach of directly emailing the most relevant decision-maker.

For example, if you were selling a social media tool, you would send an email to the social media manager.

This approach is most effective when your primary customer base is made up of small businesses. In these environments, it’s easy to identify and reach key decision-makers.

Here’s a template for inspiration:

Above the relevant decision maker

This approach gained popularity after Aaron Ross’ best-selling book, Predictable Revenue. You email someone one or two levels above the relevant decision-maker and ask for introductions down.

For example, if you were selling a social media tool, you would contact the VP of Marketing and ask to be introduced to the appropriate person.

This approach is most effective when your primary customer base is made up of large businesses. In these environments, you often don’t know who to speak to. An introduction speeds up the sales process and gets your name in front of the high-level managers.

Here’s a template for inspiration:

What works, works

Experiment with both approaches and see what’s most effective in your market.

Measure your results with a CRM like Close that’s capable of tracking open and response rates, then use that data to run A/B tests to improve your campaign.

Want more templates like the two above? Check out three more cold email templates here.

How often do I follow up with someone who doesn’t reply?

This is one of the most important things you need to get right about cold emailing: the follow-up! How often depends on what type of lead you’re pursuing.

Cold leads

A cold lead is one you’ve never had any sort of interaction with. Follow up with these leads a total of three times over a two-week span. Here’s the schedule we use at Close.

Day one: Initial contact. Send your first cold email.

Day three: First follow-up. Restate your original message in a more concise manner. Send this email at a different time of day. If your prospect didn’t respond to the email you sent at 9:00 A.M., it may just mean they have busy mornings. Send your follow-up later in the afternoon to circumvent this.

Day seven: Second follow-up. Again, follow up at a different time of day. This email should restate your call-to-action. For example, “Hey, this is Ramin with Close. I’m just checking in again to see if you have time for a 5-minute phone call on Tuesday at 10:00 A.M.”

Day fourteen: Third follow-up. Still no response? Break up with your prospect. You’ll be amazed how many deals you close when you take them away. Your break-up email should communicate the following points:

I’ve repeatedly tried to provide value but you haven’t replied.
This is the last time I’ll contact you.
If you’d like to pursue our solution, here’s my contact information.

If you don’t receive a response to your break-up email, move on to more promising prospects.

Warm leads

A warm lead is one you’ve had a positive interaction with. If your prospect has ever expressed interest in your product, follow up indefinitely.

Use the plan above, but don’t send the break-up email. Just check back in with your prospect like usual. After day fourteen, you should check in once a month until you get a clear response.

That response may be a “no”, but “no” is always better than “maybe”.

How to reply to, “Sounds interesting. We’ll look into it and get back to you.”

When your prospect says, “We’ll get back to you”, 90% of the time they won’t.

They may intend to, but if you leave the decision to them, it’ll never happen. Here’s how to turn that non-commitment into a commitment.

How to respond over the phone

If they included a signature with a phone number, consider that an open invitation. Call them and say something like this:

Hey, this is ______ from ______. I’m just following up on your email. You’d mentioned that you wanted to look into our product more and I wanted to reach out and see if I could be valuable to you. Do you have five minutes for a quick question so I can send you relevant information?

[Insert powerful sales questions]

Most prospects will be willing to give you five minutes, which you can turn into a full conversation with the right questions.

How to respond over email

If you get this response often, counter it pre-emptively by including this in your email:

At this point, you’re probably going to hit “reply” and say something like, “This looks interesting, I’ll get back to you.”

I get it, you’re busy. But I also know how much value we can provide you and I don’t want you to miss out. To help us move forward, these are the four scenarios as I see them:

You aren’t really interested, but don’t want to hurt my feelings (I’ll be okay, I promise)

You are interested, but won’t be moving forward in the foreseeable future

You are interested and want to talk about this further

You are interested and would like me to send you relevant information

Go ahead and hit “reply” and just tell me which it is, and we’ll move forward from there.

Take back control

When a prospect says they’ll “get back to you”, you’ve lost full control of the conversation. Use these two strategies to take back control and move the conversation toward a commitment.

Turn your cold emailing campaign into a powerful conversion funnel

A successful cold email campaign is powered by the same principle as a successful cold calling campaign: The follow-up. If you aren’t willing to send at least three emails, you shouldn’t even send one.

But if you negotiate with friendly strength and fight for the value your product provides, you can turn your cold emailing campaign into a powerful conversion funnel.