Heather - 12/18 - SalesFolk

How to Reverse Engineers Sales & Customer Success

March 12, 2015 By Heather Leave a Comment

Spamming generic and mindless cold emails by the thousands doesn’t make since, but neither does writing every single sales email one at a time.

In today’s sales world you need to know how to reverse engineer the personal feel of a one-on-one email template to work for hundreds or thousands of sales prospects.

So just how do you do that?

In my interview with Gainsight’s Customer Success Evangelist Lincoln Murphy, we discuss how sales reps, marketers and customer success teams can reverse engineer one-offs to deliver scalable delight.

Lincoln Murphy is a pioneer of SaaS marketing and has directly helped 300+ SaaS companies accelerate their growth by optimizing the Customer Lifecycle, from customer acquisition to retention. Although the term growth hacker is often overkilled in Silicon Valley, Lincoln is a no-nonsense real-deal growth hacker.

This interview also includes:
-how to trigger powerful emotions when writing cold emails
-how to reverse a one-on-one email to become effective for mass
-some of his favorite growth hacks
-prerequisites to virality

For more tips on cold email from Lincoln Murphy, check out his post “7 Cold Email Sanity Checks” on 16 Ventures. It’s great!

3 Cold Email Introductions to Hook Your Prospects

March 10, 2015 By Heather 4 Comments

Do you know if your prospects are reading your cold emails all the way through, or are they bored after the first few words?

So many cold emails start out with the same lame introductions, with sales reps talking too much about themselves and their company, neglecting the prospects’ needs. Others start by asking prospects to point them to the right person without even bothering to convey their business’ value or ask about the prospect’s problem.

There are so many things wrong with this approach; the main issue is that almost everyone is using this. You don’t want to send a cold email identical to all the other junk cluttering peoples’ inboxes.

Your only goal for the introduction of your cold email is to entice your prospects and keep them reading. If your intros look and sound just like everyone else’s, then your prospects won’t read your pitch, and will never get to your call to action.

So how do you create intros that will get your emails read?

Here are 3 standout introductions to help you start better conversations with your prospects:

Email Introduction #1: Make your prospects think by asking them a question

Do you know why {!Company}’s cold emails get low open and response rates?

Most cold emails turn off prospects before they even get past the first sentence because they fail to connect on a personal level and feel like a long-winded monologue.

This introduction belongs to a cold email that received a 37% response rate. It was so successful because it used an open-ended question to highlight the target buyer’s specific pain point. The more you can remind your prospects about their problems, the more receptive and eager they will be to hear your solution.

Asking a question helps set a personal tone, unlike many standard intros, which often come across as too pushy, narcissistic and impersonal to your prospects.

Email Introduction #2: Create trust and allure by offering something of value

I’d like to share a quick idea with that has helped [clients] gamify their sales team and exceed their revenue goals

If your prospects aren’t responding to your cold emails, then your message is probably focused too heavily on your product/service’s features, and not enough on how it can benefit your prospects.

9% of recipients responded to the email above. Why? Because it’s interesting and offers to add value to the prospect’s life.

You can increase your credibility with prospects later in the email by mentioning other companies you’ve worked with as social proof, along with possible statistics around ROI.

Email Introduction #3: Evoke your prospects’ curiosity with a social engineered question

I’m conducting research on ways to improve employee loyalty and since you’re an expert on management at {!Company}, I’d love to hear your thoughts

Everyone loves to have their ego stroked, and your prospects are no exception. Flattery is a great way to put your prospects at ease and to avoid coming across as too salesy.

Social engineering may seem like an odd approach at first, but a B2B company set at least 3 appointments with this one email alone.

The point of social engineering is not to trick your prospects, but to simply get them on the phone where you can start a deeper conversation about how your business can help improve their lives. Social engineering is not black and white, and requires some creative thinking and extra work to carefully build the appropriate list (like building a list of companies hiring a specific role that are likely to need your services/product). However, when you master it correctly it has an incredible untapped potential that your competitors won’t be able to easily replicate.

Just make sure to not come off as insincere or sneaky! To avoid this, don’t overdo the flattery too much, and also be prepared to flow with this same approach if the prospect agrees to an appointment. Otherwise you will be screwed and lose all credibility!

Our next explains how to create credibility in your cold emails with case study sentences.

3 Cold Email Subject Lines that Grab Eyeballs

March 5, 2015 By Heather 4 Comments

How eye catching are the subject lines in your cold emails?

Maybe you’re sending out hundreds, or even thousands of cold emails, but how many are actually being opened by your prospects?

The subject lines which always grab our attention engage us on a personal level, either by addressing an existing need or offering some kind of benefit.

Unfortunately many subject lines rely heavily on vague and uninspiring tactics for getting their prospects to open. Generic subject lines like, “can you connect me to the right person” or “don’t miss this opportunity,” are outdated and overused.

Like many of you, when I find these emails in my inbox, they get sent straight to my trash folder. If you’re using subject lines like these, and not consistently achieving at least a 30-40% open rate, your prospects aren’t opening them either.

So what makes a great subject line?

Here are 3 examples of high performing subject lines that you can learn from to help you connect more effectively with your prospects and boost your cold email open rates:

Cold Email Subject Line that Evokes Competition & Fear of Loss:

SUBJECT: how competitive is {!Company}’s sales team?

This particular subject line was sent to hundreds of prospects and had a solid open rate of 45.5%.

Why was it so effective?

It uses fear of loss, which is a powerful motivator for your prospects. No one likes the feeling that they’re missing out on a competitive advantage.

Great cold emails present a problem while offering prospects a solution. If you can pique your prospects’ interest enough to open your cold email, then you can use the body of your email to show your prospects how your product/service can help them prevent this loss.

People respond to messaging that evokes emotion and thought. Whether it’s fear, intrigue or the desire to be better, if you can make your prospects stop and think about their problems, you’re more likely to get them to open your email and read it.

Compelling Cold Email Subject Line That Promises Value With Numbers

SUBJECT: 10x {!Company}’s traction in 10 minutes

Subject lines that offer some type of value also perform well in cold email campaigns. This subject line generated 16 new customers for a B2B company.

All your product’s bells and whistles don’t impress your prospects much. If you want to motivate your prospects to open your emails, your subject lines need to give them something of value in return.

If you’re going to state numbers that are too good to be true, you need to back up your claims with social proof like examples from case studies and testimonials.

When your prospects open your emails, they’re investing their time in your message. If the benefits of your product/service are made clear, you’ll help make that investment less scary and painful.

How to Leverage Social Engineering & Intrigue in Your Subject Lines

SUBJECT: Question about employee loyalty at {!Company}

Think about your cold emails as beginning a conversation with your prospects. Instead of having a one-sided conversation about all the slick features your product/service has to offer, try to engage your prospects in a deeper discussion.

One of the most effective ways to engage your prospects is to ask them a question about the current state of a relevant part of their business. .

Asking a question makes your cold email seem more personal and less salesy. Whether you actually ask a question like “What indicators are {!Company} using to assess its customer health”, or offer the promise of a question like this subject line above, questions engage your prospect’s mind with intrigue.

For more tips on writing better subject lines and cold emails, register for our webinar on Friday March 13th at 1pm PST with Close.io CEO Steli Efti.

I Smell Words: Copywriting and Synesthesia

February 28, 2015 By Heather 5 Comments

Think the colors of “The Dress” are interesting?

What if you could smell and taste emotions, temperatures and words?

What if every smell you inhaled instantly triggered a string of memories that were forever associated with that particular smell? (Not to mention every cross-linked emotion you associated with that smell.)

For me “mosquitos have always smelled like ice,” and laying by the warm fireplace tastes like bitter acid in my mouth.

I have synesthesia, and the rarest of kinds.

My sense of taste and smell are linked with many other senses including hot and cold, fear, anger, sadness, pain and so forth. I even have acute sensations associated with different words.

Every smell means something different to me, and emotions take on their own flavors, literally.

Synesthesia, Math & Copywriting

For as long as I can remember, writing and math have always been two of my most favorite things. But for me, they’re not exclusive.

The great copywriters like John Caples, Oglilvy, Sugarman, etc all emphasized the importance of viewing copywriting as much of a science as an art. However, I’ve always perceived copywriting and languages as some kind of mathematical equation.

I’m not sure if it’s the synesthesia or a coincidence that I connect copywriting with math, but I do know I naturally perceive the world as a series of patterns. Learning new languages like Japanese, Korean, Arabic or Cantonese was never an art or right brain activity for me, but instead something more robotic and mathematical like a computer.

I don’t know if this is good or bad, but it is what it is.

Whenever I’m writing copy–for a blog post or one of our clients’ cold email campaigns–there’s always a right and a wrong. Before I even start writing, I already know there’s an optimal configuration of words and sentences that I need to aim for. My only challenge is to make the paper match the equation I see in my mind, and so copywriting is really more like deciphering a code inside my mind than a freeform experience.

My mind knows there’s a correct order of words to convey the strongest emotions to create the most persuasive copy, and anything less is imperfect to me.

Sometimes this drives me crazy because I can’t quite get the paper to match the formula I see in my head, and so I obsess for days and hours until it’s perfect.

My Synesthesia & Math Driven Copywriting Formulas

It’s a little bit hard for me to deconstruct my own thought processes and reverse engineer my mind to understand my own copywriting equations, but I’m working on it.

Here are a few things my mind regularly focuses on when making decisions around my copywriting:

Positive or Negative? (What emotion do I want to elicit with my message? Do I want to propel people with fear or honeypot them with desire? Great email campaigns often alternate between positive and negative emotions.)
Minima, Maxima, or Average? (Once I’ve decided if I want to convey a positive or negative sentiment, I then decide how extreme or not I want to be. Do I want to have a powerful Call To Action that everyone will respond to, and risk getting unqualified leads or scaring off more timid people, or should I be more gentle and incept ideas into my readers’ minds?)
Direct or Indirect? (Should I be aggressive and direct, or should I be gentle and try to “honeypot” the reader? There’s a time and a place for both, but my email campaigns usually start more gently and become increasingly more direct over time.)

Once I’ve determined which effect I want to give my reader, my mind works backwards like “reverse induction” used in game theory.

I first choose the pattern/structure of the copy I want to create. I have many formulas I use for my email campaigns and copywriting. Before writing a cold email campaign I architect the general order of emotions I want to evoke. Once I’ve decided the emotion for each touch-point of my 8 emails, and then I start crafting them.

For every email I can choose from a number of patterns in sentence structure based on the effect I strive to create based on the 3 decisions above. After that all I have to do is find the right words to match those patterns. I’m fortunate that my mind naturally assigns numbers to every word on a positive/negative scale based on the intensity the emotions those words evoke.

Here’s an example of how my mind scores some words:

Idea: +3

Tip: +2

Advice: +2

Suggestion: +1

Comment: 0

Critique: -2

I score them this way based on how negative or positive I perceive the connotations of these words to be (in most scenarios–their connotations could change in some cases). Notice that I have scoring systems for nouns and not just adjectives.

Once I’ve weaved together my beautiful pattern of words to create the right emotions I’m attempting to elicit, I pause and review everything on a macro and micro level to make sure it’s correct, reviewing the formulas in my head.

I smell the joy of success and accomplishment every time I create a perfect pattern of copy.

So now you know the “big secret” behind my copywriting and cold email campaigns…. (Shhhhh, don’t tell anyone!)

PS: “The Dress” was orange and blue to me.

4 Cold Email Mistakes Even KISSmetrics Made

February 25, 2015 By Heather 8 Comments

Nobody is immune to bad cold emails.

Not even companies like KISSmetrics, who has enchanting web copy and an amazing blog.

Whether it’s the first cold email or the last, nothing kills your cold email campaign faster than bland, un-targeted messaging.

This week I’m making my anonymous email critique public to show how even great companies, like KISSmetrics, struggle with creating personalized emails at scale. We’ve always been big fans of KISSmetrics’ product and are in love with their content, but even their cold emails need some tweaking.

So if you’re looking to improve the performance of your campaigns, here are a few lessons learned from KISSmetrics’ cold emails that you can learn from.

KISSmetrics Email #1: The Intro Email

Subject: Contact Us

Good afternoon, I was looking to connect with a member of your marketing team who might have an interest in learning more about KISSmetrics.

I’d love to share some best practices on how we are continuing to help SaaS businesses like yours increase sign-up conversion rates with our optimization and analytics platform.

I have attached a .pdf sharing more. Please let me know the best time to connect with your team.

Cheers,

Cold Email Mistake #1: Making your subject lines an afterthought

“Subject:Contact Us”

As I scroll through my inbox each day, it’s obvious that most of companies fail to understand the importance of subject lines. Too many companies focus on crafting the body of their message, but still neglect their subject lines.

Subject lines are the first step in engaging a cold prospect with your message. If you don’t grab their attention immediately with this one line, no one will ever even get to your Call to Action.

The problem with this subject line is that it’s vague and not compelling enough to pique my interest. It doesn’t tell me anything about the product or how it can help me. If I can’t tell how the product you’re selling is relevant to my business by the subject line, chances are I’m not going to open it, and neither will your prospects.

Cold Email ProTip #1: Effective subject lines make prospects think and wonder, leaving them wanting more. Avoid generic lines like, “contact us” or “last chance.” These subject lines look exactly like all the others filling you prospects’ trash folders. If you want your prospects to take notice, you need to engage them on a deeper level. You can do this 2 ways: 1) pose a question about their business for example, “Question about {Company}’s email conversion rates” 2) offer a piece of valuable advice like, “idea to 10x {Company}’s conversion rates.”

Cold Email Mistake #2: Turning off prospects with generic, mass messaging

“Good afternoon, I was looking to connect with a member of your marketing team who might have an interest in learning more about KISSmetrics.”

Increasing your open and response rates is all about reaching out to your prospects with highly personalized, targeted messaging. Your prospects want to feel special and know that you understand their pain points and needs. They’re not interested in all the things your product can do; they only want to know how you can help make their lives better.

There is nothing personal about this line. It’s a perfect example of a standard, untargeted email that is easily overlooked.

When I receive emails asking to speak to the “right person,” I (and everyone else) immediately knows that you haven’t done your homework and didn’t take enough time to understand me or my business needs. You shouldn’t be sending out cold emails if you don’t know what type of prospects you’re sending them to.

Cold Email ProTip #2: Yes, it is possible to write personalized emails on a mass scale. The key to successful personalization at scale is developing your buyer personas. Think about your optimal customer: Is it CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, VP of Sales, or marketing managers at tech startups? These are very different roles, each with its own unique responsibilities, so it doesn’t make sense to send the same message to each of the personas. Make sure your messaging is addressing the specific needs of the prospects you’re targeting.

Once you’ve established who your customer is, you can easily create a highly targeted list of prospects. This list enables you to send emails to prospects who are more likely to be interested in your product/service. With this list you can address each prospect individually with custom inserts like, {First} and {Company}. These extra touches give cold emails a more personal and conversational feel that resembles a “one-on-one” even though it’s mass.

KISSmetrics Email #2: The Breakup Email

Subject: Trying to connect one last time…

I wanted to try one final time to ask for your guidance. I understand that this is an extremely busy time; I was hoping you could connect me to the right person to determine if person-based analytics are a fit for Online Media Group Inc.

In the meantime, I will send you some information now-and-then regarding upcoming webinars and events that will allow you and your team to assess the value of KISSmetrics at your own pace?

Cold Email Mistake #3: Relying on your prospects to access your value

“In the meantime, I will send you some information now-and-then regarding upcoming webinars and events that will allow you and your team to assess the value of KISSmetrics at your own pace?”

As long as you continue feeding your prospects the same valueless message, no matter how much information you dump on them, you won’t change their minds.Your prospects aren’t wowed by your company’s awards or the endless list of features your product has to offer. They’re only concerned with what kind of value you can add to their lives.

It isn’t your prospects’ responsibility to determine the value of your product/service.

Don’t be lazy.

You need to spell out the value for them in a way that’s compelling specifically to them. Think about the problems your buyer persona faces on a daily basis. How can your product/service help solve these problems and make their lives easier?

Cold Email ProTip #3: When demonstrating the benefits of your product/service, it’s always better to show your value rather than just talking about it. Including social proof is a great way to prove that you can offer real benefits to your customers. Prospects are more likely to say “yes” when you can point to tangible results from real customers, so take the time to invest in a solid case study. This will ease your prospects’ doubts and make it easier for them to take the next step with you.

Cold Email Mistake #4: Leaving your prospects hanging without a call to action

The goal of a cold email campaign is to get your prospects to act. Don’t expect your prospects to research your product/service on their own time. Whether you want prospects to click through to your website, or schedule a demo, your emails need to tell your prospects exactly what you want them to do next.

The issue with this email is that it lacks a clear call to action. Your CTA should reiterate why you’re reaching out and offer a compelling reason for your prospects to respond.

Cold Email ProTip #4:

Frame your CTA around open-ended questions. Avoid yes/no questions that are easily dismissed by your prospects. Instead, ask questions that will make them stop and think like, “when’s a good time to talk?” or “when do you have 5 minutes to discuss xyz”

Your prospects are more likely to respond when you’ve set a clear time limit on your conversation. Asking someone for just 5 or 10 minutes of their time is more appealing than trying to sell them on a demo before you’ve spoken with them. This approach is less imposing and will help take the dread away from the call..

If you’d like to see more advice on cold email campaigns, check out our “Fool-Proof Guide to Cold Email.”

How to Reverse Engineers Sales & Customer Success

3 Cold Email Subject Lines that Grab Eyeballs

Cold Email Subject Line that Evokes Competition & Fear of Loss:

Compelling Cold Email Subject Line That Promises Value With Numbers

How to Leverage Social Engineering & Intrigue in Your Subject Lines