ELG Insider Daily #623: Cold email is not dead, it is just not partner-led
Deals don’t come just from email open rate. Sales leaders like Jason Bay, Vin Mantano, and Florin Tatulea shared actionable tips to turn your cold emails into revenue.
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PRINCIPLES
Spice up your emails
We’re living in a saturated era, where you receive thousands of ad impressions, hundreds of daily emails, and your attention span is 7 seconds.
And we get it, you have a quota to achieve, but nobody is going to open your cold emails if:
- Your buyer doesn’t know you or your brand
- Your subject line is focused on the product rather than the buyer’s pain point
- Your email description doesn’t get right to the point of how you can help them
- You address the wrong person
You want to inspire trust and curiosity, not just clutter an inbox.
We’re living in an era where buyers don’t want to be sold to, they need help from someone they know (and trust) to solve their problems and achieve their goals.
TACTICS
3 tips to improve your cold email performance
In a recent webinar from Sell Better, Jason Bay (Founder of Outbound Squad), Vin Mantano (Senior Account Executive, Majors at Demandbase), and Florin Tatulea (Director of Sales at Barley) shared multiple best practices to boost your outreach strategy.
Best practice #1: Don’t use your subject line to sell
Your subject line is the key line for your buyer to open your email. Subject lines like…
- Sara, Can we talk?
- Qualified Appointment for [company name]
- Do you want to achieve [goal]?
…scream “I’m a stranger trying to sell you something”.
To improve that, follow this rule:
“Use a really short, 3 to 5 words, without capitalizing every letter, and give value from the beginning.”—Jason Bay
Short subject lines = 40%+ open rates
Our tip: If you don’t know what your buyer really values, well, leverage your ecosystem.
Analyze your ecosystem data from a tool like Crossbeam and Reveal to identify and leverage the relationship you have with your partner and what you know about them to draft a valuable subject line.
Best Practice #2: Make your emails’ copy user friendly
We’ll just drop these stats that were shared during the session (literally, this is all you need).
Keep in mind that quality is better than quantity. If your email has a solid and relevant copy but it’s 200 words, that’s fine — having emails under 50 words with a crappy message is not fine.
Our tip: Include ecosystem data in your email copy. Ask your partners who have that account as a customer for intel:
- What’s going on in the organization?
- Are you talking to the right people?
- The overall GTM plan of your buyer
- Which tech is your buyer already using
Then draft your email as a joint value proposition, or include case studies that resonate with them, this can help you activate your integration, upsell, or renew much more easily.
Adding partners to your copy helps you be one step closer to your buyer.
Best practice #3: Show them you know them
As you craft your email copy, there’s nothing better as a buyer to see that your email sender “knows you”. This means that you, as a seller, have to personalize your email as much as possible. Some examples of how to do that is to include in your email signals or intel like:
- An article your buyer wrote
- A podcast your buyer was part of
- A mention or referral made by someone your buyer already trusts
- A topic your buyer mentions a lot in LinkedIn
Our tip: Use ecosystem data like technographics to draft your cold emails to personalize your outreach based on the specific technologies and tools your buyer is already using.
When you demonstrate knowledge of your buyers’ technology stack, it shows that you have done your homework and understand your buyers’ business context, building trust and credibility.
Our second tip: Keep your knowledge professional and relevant to the job you want to help them with. Don’t reference something personal like a trip they posted about on Instagram or a hobby they’ve shared online. Save that for a later interaction as you’re building a rapport.
Get access to the rest of the best practices, frameworks and templates here.
MEME OF THE DAY
You got this!
You don’t have to change the way you sell, all you have to do is overlay ecosystem data.
Stuff you don't want to miss!
- July 17th — GTMnow live event: Crossbeam and Reveal are joining forces: the merger and what it means for go-to-market and ELG. Join GTMnow/GTMfund VP of Marketing Sophie Buonassisi in conversation with Crossbeam CEO Bob Moore and Reveal CEO/now Crossbeam COO Simon Bouchez about how the merger will shape the future of ecosystems. Register here.
- July 18th—Extend HubSpot with G2 and 6sense: How B2B SaaS Companies Can Leverage Account-Based Strategies to Win—Tiphaine Amblard (HubSpot), Rachel Gianfredi (G2), Stephen Lackey (SmartBug Media), Jeff Wagner (6sense), and Jonathan Burg (New Breed) on how you can better leverage the G2 and 6sense integrations to optimize your ABM strategy. Register here.
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