How to Use Email as a Sales Tool

Email continues to be one of the most effective mediums of outreach for salespeople. According to one study, 59% of businesses consider email to be their most profitable channel for sales outreach.

Yet, things have gotten a lot harder in the past few years. With GDPR, there are a number of new regulations that govern the legality of sending a cold email. Platforms like Google filter and segregate messages from people outside a user’s network. This affects the deliverability rate of your email campaigns (both for marketing and for sales outreach).

From a marketing perspective, there are tools like Constant Contact and its alternatives that promise high deliverability. For sales campaigns though, recent policies have contributed to the challenges that the average salesperson faces when it comes to sales outreach.

Here are a list of tips that can help you navigate these challenges and maximize your outreach efficiency.

Keep emails short and simple

 The first email you send a prospective buyer should not be your sales pitch. That is, you should not use the real estate to talk about your product. Instead, the objective of this outreach must be to establish your credential and gauge interest.

As such, keep your emails short and sweet - studies show that the most effective sales emails are between 50 to 125 words. Restrict the message to talk about who you are and what your pitch is about. Avoid sharing links, images or attachments in the initial outreach to avoid getting your message caught in the spam filters. Only share your brochure and assets once you have heard back from the recipient.

Establish an outreach process

 One of the biggest advantages of email outreach over other channels, including cold calling, is its ability to scale. Large sales teams send several hundreds of outreach emails every single day. At this scale, it is very easy to lose track and for chaos to set in. Establishing an outreach process is thus of paramount importance.

Invest in a CRM software that can organize all your sales outreach in one place. With a CRM application in place, you may initiate outreach to dozens of prospects with just a few clicks. You will also be able to view what stage of conversation you are at with any given prospect. Popular CRM tools like Freshsales also let you integrate your CRM with email or call so that you can track deliverability, open rates as well as personalize messages at scale without any hassle.

Be ready for omni-channel communication

 Every prospect is different, and so are their preferred modes of communication. So while you may prefer reaching out via email to your target buyers, they may not necessarily prefer communicating via the same platform. It is not uncommon for buyers today to prefer apps like WhatsApp or even Twitter for their communication. For this purpose, be ready to switch channels if need be. Use integration tools that can bring all these conversations on to your CRM application so that you can continue to track and monitor these conversations regardless of what form it may take.

Following up is everything

 Sales conversations can often take a long time to fructify. It is typical to spend anywhere between a few weeks to several months for a business prospect to finally turn into a paying customer. Successful relationships take time to build and so salespeople must learn the art of following up without appearing spammy. There are many ways to do this. One strategy that works is to be the source of industry insights to your prospective buyers. This gives you an opportunity to touch base periodically.

Ultimately, what works in one scenario may not necessarily work for another. As a salesperson, experiment with your strategies to find the most effective way to use email for your outreach campaigns.