How to Achieve a 52% Reply Rate on Cold Emails

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Today’s Speakers

Jason Vargas MD, Outbound Sales

Manny Medina CEO

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The Proof

340 emails sent "

302 opens" 177 replies"

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1.  Finding the right prospect

2.  Creating an authentic outreach campaign

3.  Outlining sales cadence 4.  A/B test optimizing for opens and replies 5.  Tools to help you along the way

The Process

1. Finding the right prospect

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Revenue Employees Technologies

Funding Alexa Rank Business Type

Know your target

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Niche Persona Popular Points of Pain (PPP)

Want Need

-B2B SaaS companies -Dedicated outbound sales team -$50-100M in revenue -50+ employees on LinkedIn -$2M+ in funding

-VP of Sales -Director of Sales Operations -SDR Manager

-Wasting time -Wasting money -Missing quota -Looking bad in front of the CEO

-More qualified leads -More efficient sales team -Deeper understanding of target prospect

-Targeted lists -Accurate sales data

h#p://predictablerevenue.com/blog/a7sell7ideas7not7stuff7matrix!!

Sample buyer persona matrix

Definition: An action taken by a prospect that suggests that they are in the market to purchase a particular product in the near future.

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Signals of intent

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Signal: started a free trial Tip: Know which prospects are trying your competitor’s solution by seeing which websites have added your competitor’s technology each day.

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Tip: If you have LinkedIn Premium, use the ‘Save to Contacts’ feature to keep track of customers when they change companies.

Signal: new leadership

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Signal: using a complementary product

Tip: Know which prospects are using a product you integrate with, and create a campaign to target these users. !

2. Creating an authentic outreach campaign

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LinkedIn Outreach

•  Connect with prospect

•  send prospect a short, personal note

•  reference this note in your first email the next day

Step 1: Create a human connection

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1.  Intro line: reference LinkedIn connect

2.  Value proposition: use a signal of intent

3.  Close: who would you recommend?

Step 2: Draft personalized email 3 key components

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If you received this email, would you respond?

Step 3: Self test

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Tests

•  Clarity: Is it clear what we do and what I’m asking for?

•  Authenticity: Do I sound like a human?

•  Actionable: Would you respond?

•  Spelling: (duh)

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Step 4: Friend test

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To-do list

•  Create email templates around buyer personas

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•  Settle on a cadence for outreach touches

•  Test, test, test!

Step 5: Templatizing and Scaling

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3. Outlining sales cadence

Number of touch points

•  No less than 3 •  No more than 7 •  We see doubling or

tripling or quadrupling of reply rates with follow-ups after the first message

•  Mix phone calls with emails if you can

Mix Your Touch Points

•  Phone calls •  Emails •  inMails •  Tweets •  Think about how you mix

these channels to approach your prospect

Reply Follow-Ups vs New Threads

•  We see equal reply rates to simple bumps to existing threads as we do with new threads

•  Don’t hammer on your prospect with tons of information. Follow-ups as replies on the same thread are great.

•  When your emails feel personal people appreciate when you follow up on email

Timing of your messages

•  Think about when does your prospect actually read emails and inMails and phone calls. Time of day?

•  Think about when you read emails!

•  Think about spacing between touch points. How long do you wait?

•  Don’t be too aggressive! Start spacing it out, give them time to breathe.

Be Personal

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•  Try personalizing messages. •  Follow-ups can be more

generic, but your initial messages can contain personalization. Something about them or their company that obviously isn’t mass mail merge possible.

•  We see 20%-30% improvement in conversion rate when email is personalized

•  Try flattery. We saw a jump from 2% to 7% reply rate on two different templates, the only difference was a single line of flattery.

4. A/B Test Optimizing for Opens and Replies

Be Consistent

•  Work your prospects consistently

•  Use the same process across every contact

•  You will need data on what works and what doesn’t. Walk away knowing what works and what doesn’t.

•  You can then test one process vs. another

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Watch For Subtle Feedback

•  Watch feedback from your prospects through their actions.

•  What do they open? What do they not open?

•  What messages are they replying to and which aren’t?

•  When are they opting out? It’s an indication you were irritating them, or weren’t personal enough. High opt out rate (over 10%) is good data, it means you need to re-evaluate your approach.

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Start A/B testing

•  A/B testing is simple! In any given touch point, give half the prospects one email, and half the other. It could be as simple as a different subject line. It could be as simple as a line of flattery vs not. Or personalized vs not.

•  You should have at least one A/B test in a sequence.

•  You can continue to iterate on your process over time.

•  Get 150 or more data points before drawing conclusions on any given touch point.

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Effort vs Touch Point

•  Understand how many touches you need to drive engagement, ie reply rates

•  What touch points drive the highest replies

•  Try interspersing valuable content in your follow ups. Does it work?

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5. Tools to Help You Along the Way

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Lead Generation and Intelligence

Access professional profiles

Uncover new targeted accounts and contacts

Outsource your sourcing

Verify email addresses

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Communication

Follow up reminders and send emails later

End-to-end sales cadence and automation

Email templates and tracking

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Email drip campaigns

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