Using Email for Sales Prospecting

Email can be a wonderful channel for sales prospecting.  It can help your company with visibility and branding. It can turn cold contacts into warm leads. You can literally grow your stable of warm B2B leads overnight.  If, you do your email marketing the right way.

Email marketing can be an invaluable tool for connecting with your target audience, even if your first point of contact is to a cold prospect. The value in a purchased list lies in the opportunity to consistently push new leads into your sales funnel.

You need to be smart about email marketing to purchased lists. Most of the well-known CRM systems (Mail Chimp, Constant Contact) seriously frown on using imported commercial lists into their system.

You may want to take advantage of dedicated lead generation software that is CAN-SPAM compliant to insure that your business is safe from damaging your sender reputation.

There are several Email Sending Programs in the market you can check out. Some of our clients have had good results on their B2B emails using Clickback.

Tips on Using an Email list

The first thing you want to do is import the data into your email sending program. But you need to make sure the data is in top-notch shape.

Clean / Validate the Data

We always say a clean list is a happy list. You will want to make you have your email list cleaned and the email addresses validated. Make sure the data is scrubbed.  Email addresses tend to change frequently. Email lists are also full of spam traps and sites referred to as “honeypots”.

The best email cleaning software will:

• Remove Duplicate Emails
• DNS Record Verification (Invalid Domains)
• Email Address Syntax (Improper Format)
• Detect Role-Based Accounts ([email protected])
• Detect “Junk Collector” Emails (disposable addresses)
• Spam / Honeypot Detection (bots, bad emails, spam seeds)
• SMTP Verification (Ping Mailboxes)

Sending outbound email marketing campaigns to a dirty email list is a surefire way to trigger red flags in the eyes of ISP’s and spam filters. You don’t want to be labelled as a spammer. If an ISP marks you as a spammer, all of your emails will be trashed. And that’s something you definitely want to avoid.

Converting the Cold List into Warm Leads

Once your email list has been cleaned and optimized, it’s time to send out your first prospecting email.

It’s time to convert that cold list into permission-based, opt-in data that you can now import into your CRM system.

Your creative focuses on your prospect

Your email needs to be about the prospect, not about the nuts and bolts of your product or service. You want to lead with benefits, not features. Your email needs to explain what you are doing to make your prospect’s lives better. Some writers use the expression pain points. You want to show how you are easing their pain. The same way you are checking your email list for spam triggers, you will want to check out your email creative and makes sure it passes muster.

Does your subject line conveys urgency?

There are books about email subject lines. How long should it be? How many characters? Many experts suggest it should have a sense of urgency. Others contend that personalizing the subject line will increase response. One important thing to remember is that 40% of emails are opened on a mobile device. You will want to test what you’re sending to make sure it looks good.

Is your landing page well-concepted?

This is the specific page you are driving your responders to. When you use email for sales prospecting, your landing page needs to be smart. It needs to load quickly. And, it needs to match your email and be consistent with your message.

Your lead generation form needs to be front and center on your landing page.

Experiment with the number of fields you want your prospect to complete. There are been many studies about how form length affects conversion. Bottom line, the fewer things you ask for, the better. Most of the studies suggest limiting the number of fields to 3 or 4.

You will also want to experiment with the position of the form, how the fields are labeled, and whether or not you want to use a Captcha.

Does your offer make me want to click?

Your offer may also be referred to as the Call to Action (CTA). It’s what will make your prospect complete your form and return it.

Your offer may be a free whitepaper, YouTube how-to video, or an eBook. Your offer needs to be relevant to your business. It also needs to be consistent with your email message.

Once your prospects have returned your form, they have become your warm leads. Now you can import them into your CRM system, give them to your salespeople to work and push them into your sales funnel.

Make email part of your multi-channel success story

Email is also best used in conjunction with other marketing channels. It’s a great companion to direct mail and social media.  When you use email for sales prospecting, important to use multiple marketing channels. It rounds out your campaign and gives your prospects a chance to see your message in the medium that works best for them.