In your business, how many times have you picked up the phone, called a new prospect, and been met with genuine interest (and maybe even excitement) on the other end of the line?
Not very often, right? And that’s normal.
Typically, when salespeople or businesses owners reach out to prospects initially, they’re greeted with skepticism, resistance, or objection — and that’s assuming they get a human on the other end of the line at all. Over time (and with persistence), great salespeople often quell prospects’ skepticism and overcome their objections. But that process can be exhausting and many salespeople give up before they ever reach the critical tipping point.
Now, what if I told you there was a way to eliminate much of that inefficient early phone tag and improve the likelihood that contacts not only took your first call, but also set up a first appointment? Sounds like some sort of impossible sales panacea, doesn’t it?
It’s not. In fact, warming up a target market before salespeople reach out to prospects for the first time is actually as simple as changing the way you think about email lead generation and nurturing campaigns, and investing a little bit more time into executing those campaigns.
A Better Way to Approach Email Lead Generation Campaigns
Almost all email campaigns share a very specific purpose: To drive leads.
The problem, however, is that many salespeople and marketers mistakenly assume that in order for an email campaign to be considered a success, it must deliver high open, click through, or response rates. And while those metrics are important, the reality is that they don’t tell the whole story.
After all, unless you write emails specifically asking for a response, chances are that your best possible outcome is a click through. And while a click through is a definite sign of interest, it’s not a sign that a contact is ready to move into the sales cycle.
To take that step, you need to see a pattern of click throughs, which indicates that a contact is paying attention to your content and that the topics you’re discussing are important to his or her business. Only then can you truly begin to understand what your contacts are interested in and grasp how ready they are to take the next step in their journey.
One Tip that Can Drastically Improve Prospect Interest
So, here’s my advice for business owners and salespeople: Don’t call prospects after you’ve seen just one or two click throughs. Instead, warm up your contacts with extended, consistent email nurturing. Once you see that a prospect is clicking through consistently, you’ll know it’s time to involve a salesperson.
Extending an email campaign until that point can deliver a handful of very significant benefits. Namely, your prospects will be more prepared and receptive, and your salespeople’s gain access rate will skyrocket.
Yes, I know, you’re probably thinking that you need leads right now, not weeks or months from now. But if you’re willing to invest some time into extending your email campaigns, you’ll not only generate a higher volume of leads, you’ll also produce higher quality leads who know your business and actually want to speak with you. And before you know it, you will be able to generate leads right now.
