[Help] Sales for techies?
Gabriel Birnbaum
3 replies
Hey all, I'm a technical founder who drew the short straw and is now in charge of sales at our startup.
Do you have tips for getting a sales sequence going? Tips for first-time salespeople? Would love to hear your thoughts.
Replies
Falko Piguet@falko
Hi! Could you share a bit more context so that we can help? What are you struggling with exactly, and what is the current stage of your sales progress?
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@falko Well I started doing outreach about a month ago. Our email sequence converted pretty well and I closed 4 pilot customers from it. But I am now trying to break into LinkedIn outreach and that has been a disaster so far. My connection requests are accepted quite often, but after that the conversations never go anywhere. Even if I am not salesly.
So I guess my questions are: is it ok to rely only on Email? How do I make LI work?
Flowla
While there are no hard rules that can guarantee success for your cold emailing campaign, there are definitely certain things you need to pay attention to. Namely, here are just some of them:
1. Prospect research
Hand-pick the prospects for your outreach list, according to your buyer personas. You can either do so using reliable B2B data providers, e.g. UpLead, or manually research the prospects on LinkedIn or other relevant platforms. In the second case, you can use tools like name2email or Reply Chrome extension to find their email addresses.
Important: make sure the contacts on your list are valid by running a bulk verification using tools like NeverBounce.
2. List segmentation
To be able to tailor your message according to the prospect’s needs and interests, and as a result, improve your chances of success, it is recommended to break your list down into smaller groups.
For example, you can create targeted campaigns for prospects in the same location, of the same job title, industry, etc.
3. The message itself
A successful cold email is brief, clear, and actionable. You should also avoid sounding generic at all costs. So, while relying on proven templates is a good way to come up with a good email copy, you shouldn’t just take a random email copy you’ve found online and send it out to dozens of your prospects.
If you want to break through the noise of the recipient's inbox, always personalize your emails. From the email subject to your offer and the CTA, it is important to make your email all about the prospect, their interests, needs, etc.
Important: a common mistake is to use cold email to actually sell your product/service. Avoid sounding too salesy - it is better not to pitch your offer right away but offer certain value instead.
4. Timing
The time and the day when your email will be sent is just as important as the message itself. After all, if your email lands in the prospect’s inbox in the middle of the night, the chances are it will be buried deep down by the time the person gets to the work in the morning.
A good strategy is to send your emails mid-day, mid-week. However, depending on your target audience, the optimal timing might differ.
Here’s a detailed overview of the popular time/days for emailing - What's the best day and time to email somebody in business?
5. Follow-ups
A single cold email, no matter how great, will rarely drive the results you want. On the other hand, each follow-up in your sequence can significantly improve your campaign success rate.
You can either simply float your initial message to the top of the prospect’s inbox by sending a short “did you see my previous email?” follow-up or write a more substantive one, e.g. share relevant content with the prospect.
The time and frequency of your follow-ups is another thing you should keep in mind. For example, here’s a sample of follow-up schedule we have been using at Reply.
6. Automation
Last but not least, you shouldn’t spend too much time on cold emailing. It’s better to focus on actual communication with the engaged leads rather than sending endless follow-ups to the prospects who haven’t responded yet.
That is why I recommend using tools like @replyappteam for your email outreach automation.
Find more first-hand knowledge and pro tips on how to nail cold emailing in this detailed guide - https://reply.io/cold-email-whit...
Based on my personal experience, I would also recommend using several outreach channels instead of focusing exclusively on emails.
Hope this helps!