The way to a prospect’s calendar is through his inbox

Forget the proverbial needle in the haystack, finding a prospective customer in this multi- hued, layered and privacy loving the world is a task for the best of agent 007. The first point of contact is the most vital in the chain. Sales personnel recognize and bemoan the need for personalized yet non-intrusive methods of reaching out to a target client at the right time, with the right pitch. Tele-calls have been used and abused as a tool and fail in the case of B2B and high-value deals where the decision makers are higher up in the management chain and are hence quite intolerant to unscheduled approaches.way to reach prospects

The next strategy was emailing. Companies sourced databases and bombarded a broad target range with emails. Other than flooding the client’s spam folder and trash, or prompting him to file internet privacy suits against the source company, this too did not make any additions to the sales pipeline. Then, companies started realizing that personalized emailing, with significant research that precedes it, is the silver bullet. But, if not done well, this method too, can go the call/spam way.

Why Email Sales Pitches Often Fail

An email sales pitch fails for a number of reasons, such as:

Focusing on the seller and not on the client.
It’s too short, too long, or too vague.
The wrong pitch to the wrong person.
It isn’t timely or enticing enough to start a conversation.
There are specific ways to overcome each of these hurdles. It largely depends on the type of client you are addressing and the product or service you are trying to sell.

Your goal is to increase the number of successes you have with your emails, where clients are interested to start engaging. For this, researching your target industry, the decision makers, sales cycle and of the motivating factors that prompt a buy, are the most important steps

The first hurdle is “Who”. Once you get the correct point of contact, the next question is “Why”. Why would this person want to speak to your client, about the said product? This makes up the gist of the mail – the subject line. The email content itself should be a quick read which enlists the key “Whys”. The next would be “When”. Fixing a time to have a conversation, on email or on the phone, needs diplomacy, empathy, and perseverance. Once these “w” questions are done, an entry into the sales pipeline is made.