Why do sales professionals still treat leads from different sources in the same way? Treating cold email leads the same as inbound might be the reason you’re not closing enough deals. How should you approach cold email leads to increase your chance of closing?
Behind the term “lead” there’s a person who’s interested in what you’re offering. And depending on how she got in contact with you, she will view you completely differently. How do I know?
We’ve built cold email lead generation processes for over 170 clients from 17 countries. Our own leads come mainly from cold emails, plus a few cost-effective inbound tactics.
And we’ve learnt that for B2B sales to be efficient, you have to adjust your sales approach to the type of lead you’re approaching.
The people behind different B2B sales leads
Inbound leads are those people that contact you first, usually because they’ve been browsing the market for a similar solution and found you. Referrals are the most effective type of lead — a person that’s looking for a solution like yours and contacts you because of a third-party tip that you’re a good company. These people more-or-less trust you before contacting you.
You can’t make these assumptions about outbound leads from cold emails (any type of outbound lead for that matter). You’re the one who’s trying to start a conversation in this scenario, trying to define and satisfy a need — because the person isn’t usually looking for a solution like yours right now, or doesn’t yet realise her pains can be fixed. She doesn’t trust you yet, and is paying close attention to what you’re offering to make sure you’re not an online scammer.
The main difference between types of leads is in trust and brand awareness. Inbound leads trust you more and are already familiar with your brand, otherwise they wouldn’t have come to your website or to you directly. Outbound leads by and large don’t know who you are and don’t trust you, which is why you have to provide solid proof of credentials.
Outbound leads and inbound leads
Specifics of leads from cold emails
What does a person receiving your cold email think? And what could convince her to reply?
The fact that should influence your approach the most, is that respondents of your cold emails don’t trust you. It’s the classic “annoying salesguy” problem — it’s like you’re knocking on their door while they’re busy doing something else.
That’s why you need to break the ice right off the bat — show that you’re invading somebody’s inbox for a valid reason, and you’ve done your research and know something about them.
Otherwise, the person will keep thinking “why did he write to me?”.
If you’re the one who’s reaching out, it means you have no leverage and the only “way in” is to provide solid, instant proof of the value you can deliver. This is a first impression, which can make or break a business relationship from the start. Your advantage, however, is that you’re making a first impression with hundreds of potential clients at a time.
That’s why targeting and personalisation is such a big part of cold emailing — doing a good job here is crucial to get quick results. Good targeting and personalisation mean that from the very beginning you’ll be appealing only to potentially interested decision makers, not random people from random companies.
Why is that so crucial? Because you’re writing to a someone that might need your solution, but usually isn’t planning to take care of it right now. In this context, a reply-worthy email has to:hit someone’s inbox around the time they’re browsing it — one email won’t cut it, following-up 3 to 8 times is standard practice instantly prove your credentials without incentivizing buying — no salesy expressions, negative signals, false promises, in short: full transparency
I’m no poet, but good cold emails are kinda like seeds. You spread them on a targeted area and cultivate whatever blossoms — new business relationships. Depending of the quality of the seed and soil (email and target group) — you’ll have good crops, or none at all.
Human to human
Ever gotten a weird salesy email that should have never hit your inbox? Oh, everyday?
Me too, but don’t worry — we’re fighting the good fight. The end-game is that someday, companies will only approach people that want to buy from them. That’s why quality data is becoming the most powerful asset today.
In the end, chasing a lead simply means approaching another person that you have some information about. It’s like going to a party — if you’re misinformed, you’ll end up dressing up as Batman for a serious networking event.
The Batman costume will work for some types of leads, the key is to know which and put it on only for them. Once you spot them — keep the suit on and hustle quickly!
Marketing involves two types i.e.
These are the two business marketing models where sales hold to be the final result, however, this does not mean that these two business models are similarAnd it’s very important to understand the differences between B2B and B2C marketing.
Both B2B marketing and B2C marketing have distinct plans and strategies that work for them Target Audience Marketing Strategies Return on Investment Marketing Costs Content Marketing B2B and B2C marketing have various similarities, but there are also several differences between the two.
B2C or Business-to-consumersmarketing is a term used by companies while referring to the type of business they operate.
B2C companies focus more on selling their products to an individual and also market their products for personal use.
There are many companies that sell their products to other businesses and consumers as well, but the focus of B2C is that they are solely focused on selling their products to consumers only which is drastically different.For instance, let us take grocery store; we go to a grocery store in order to buy food and other items for our house.
These grocery stores store items in small containers which make it easy for us to carry it home and hence promotions and sales are targeted to us i.e.
To make it easy to understand, these stores are actually acting like a small B2C company.From business point of view in B2C marketing, companies need to keep their customers in mind.
When all these factors are analyzed properly, companies can then create their marketing messages that answer’s their customer’s needs.Consider the same example of the grocery store mentioned before, the company sends weekly ads that offers sale and discount to customers.
