Steve,
Most sales blogs and articles are full of tactics. It is great to know what to do, but it is more important to know why they do it. To learn you need to understand the principles behind the tactic. Here are 14 principles on cold emailing.
And if you have questions, just email me.
1. Fish in the right lake. Find companies that are already motivated to buy from you. To find motivated companies identify the trigger events and scenarios that will lead them to purchase. One of the seven methods in our training is to contact the competitors of your best customers. They fit the same profile as your customer and are much more likely to buy from you.
2. Contact buyers. Don't contact someone who doesn't have the authority to make a decision. Make sure you are only contacting the buyer, or the people above the buyer.
3. Target top down. When contacting people in an organization start at the top and work your way down to the buyer. Owners delegate and employees want to look good for their boss. Use this leverage and social pressure to your advantage.
4. Have empathy. Place yourself in the customer's shoes and think what they are feeling. The customer doesn't care about you. When sales people write emails, they write from their perspective too often. Don't do this. Write from the perspective of your customer.
5. Establish credibility. Since you don't know the customer you are contacting and they don't know your company, establish credibility. They may not know you, but they will know companies you have worked with. Include names of your clients or broad credibility statements. And be specific. An example of a credibility statement for us would be Breakthrough Email has helped 25,246 sales people generate $85 million in sales.
6. Build trust. Don't be deceitful or manipulative. Make sure your subject line reflects or describes the content of the email. For example: "14 Cold Email Principles."
7. Write a personalized email to a single human. Don't spam the same template to hundreds of people. (I've tested it. It doesn't work.)
8. Make it easy to read. When you write, be clear and make it easy to read for the other person. Read the email out loud, and listen to your voice. If it sounds funny, edit it.
9. Write like your customer talks. Meet the customer in their mind. Use the language and phrases your customer says. To find the right phrases, interview your clients.
Don't use acronyms, abbreviations or jargon that are common to your profession. You make it difficult for the other person to understand.
10. Say something. After reading your email the customer should understand what you do, how it works and how you can help them. Above all else explain the ways you might be able to help.
People who say "keep it short" don't always know what to say. If the customer is asking for more information, you weren't clear.
11. Fall in love your customer, not your process. They don't care about what you do, they care how you can help them. What fears, frustrations and desires do you typically solve for your customers?
12. Make a clear ask. Whatever you are asking the customer to do, make sure they know what to do, and make sure the request is simple. Don't ask them to go to your website, download an attachment and reply. Make one request.
13. Be in the top 2%. To get a response from the customer, aim to be in the top 2% of all emails they receive that month. Set a higher standard for yourself. It doesn't take much to be noticed.
14. Follow up. If you don't get a response, follow up. 60-70% of the responses happen when you follow up. Be persistent, but respectful.
Finally, when writing a cold email, think of it like dating. A person won't be interested in you if you talk all about yourself and then pressure them to make a "sale."
Best,
Bryan Kreuzberger
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