Today, the name of the game is automation. If your business is not embracing the power of automation then, like the proverbial weakest buffalo of the herd, you are going to get left behind and die.
To make sure that you don’t find yourself at the back of the pack, I’m going to be teaching you about the power of email sequences.
We all know how powerful email marketing can be. But imagine if you could reap all the benefits of email marketing without having to lift a finger? Because that’s what happens when you combine automation with email marketing. You get the ability to generate more leads, conversions, and sales, while you sleep!
To really stress the importance of why you need to embrace email sequences now I’m going to throw a few fun facts at you.
- Fun Fact #1: According to Salesforce businesses that take advantage of email automation average a 32 per cent boost in sales and revenue compared to those that don’t.
- Fun Fact #2: According to Campaign Monitor for every US$1 spent on email marketing an average of US$44 is made in return.
- Fun Fact #3: According to a survey by Venture Beat 80 per cent of respondents reported an increase in leads after automating their sales pipeline, and 77 per cent saw their overall conversions increase
Now if that doesn’t sound good to you then I don’t know what will. But, just in case, you’re not entirely convinced then here’s one last fun fact:
- Fun Fact #4: As of 2017, on average, 51 per cent of businesses have integrated some form of automation for their sales and marketing. Another 58 per cent of B2B businesses have a plan in place to adopt automation technology within the following year.
So if you haven’t started using email sequences then you’re already behind the curve, but I’m here to help you catch up and come out on top.
What’s in an email sequence?
Before getting into the meat of things, let’s quickly make sure we’re all on the same wavelength regarding what is and isn’t email sequences.
You may have heard similar terms during your travels such as email automation, drip campaigns, or sales cadence for example. What they all essentially boil down to is creating a strategically automated process with your emails. Where, based on specific triggers of your own choosing, you’ll automatically send off a specific series of emails.
Also Read: The 5 elements of the perfect cold email
Anytime you’ve received a welcome email from signing up to a newsletter, or been sent an email receipt of your latest purchase, you have been witnessing email sequences in action.
What I’m here to talk to you about today is how you can use email sequences to help you prospect more cold leads, nurture pre-existing leads, and in general help, you automate those time-consuming tasks that keep you away from selling.
Qualify leads and prospects
One of the most time-consuming sales tasks in the world is cold outreach. I cannot even begin to tell you the number of mornings I’ve spent sending out email after email, continuously copying and pasting the same thing over and over again. It commits the double sin of not only being incredibly mind-numbingly boring but also wasting huge amounts of time.
And while sinning, in general, can lead to a whole host of fun and shenanigans, in this scenario, it’s more tedious than anything else.
With email sequences, you can vastly cut back on the amount of time you spend sending out cold emails and quite literally double your results. Just ask the folks at Innovation Asset Group, who saw a 400 per cent increase in their sales pipeline by automating their cold outreach process.
How this works is very simple:
You have to create three or so emails for your sequence. You have your initial outreach email and a minimum of two follow-up emails. From there you can create a process where anytime a lead doesn’t answer your initial outreach email your follow-up email will automatically be sent, and if they don’t reply to that then the next email will automatically be sent.
The amount of time between each email can vary between different individuals and teams, but you can see how this drastically reduces the amount of time following up with cold leads.
By using this incredibly simple email sequence you never have to worry about following up with cold leads again as it’s all being done for you automatically in the background. You only have to worry about the people who bother responding to your outreach in the first place.
This way you can focus on actually having real conversations with real people, instead of copying and pasting the same bit of text from sun-up to sun-down.
Never lose momentum again
As all salespeople know, anytime a prospect shows interest you have a limited amount of time to follow up and connect with them before they lose interest in your business.
According to Harvard Business Review, on average, companies take up to 42 hours to respond to an online sales lead. This is shocking, especially when you consider that prospects are seven times more likely to become qualified leads when contacted within the hour of expressing interest.
But until we find a way to stay awake for 24 hours every day that doesn’t involve the violation of several statutes of the Geneva convention; salespeople can’t reasonably be expected to respond to each and every single inquiry within the hour.
This is when an autoresponder can come in pretty handy.
Anytime a lead shows interest in booking a consult, a demo, or a call, you can have a process where they are immediately sent a follow-up email within the minute, let alone the hour. Add in strong CTA and a scheduler, and you’ve drastically improved your chances of converting those inbound leads into sales.
Also Read: The key digital marketing tips to help small businesses thrive
According to GetResponse’s Email Marketing Benchmark report, triggered emails like the one I described above average a 45 per cent open rate.
Even if they aren’t interested in speaking with a salesperson yet, you can still ensure that you’re nurturing that lead with your email sequence. If they don’t book a call, then set up your email sequence so that they’ll automatically be sent content relevant to their interests.
Add in some personalisation tokens, and a few details unique to them to really increase your chances of getting a response. To maximise your results consider using including these sales email templates we’ve already prepared for you.
Keep leads engaged, no matter what
There are times when a lead will just go cold. The reasons behind this are about as numerous as the number of regrettable tattoos on Adam Levine.
Having a lead ghost on you sucks, but that doesn’t mean that you should give up on following up. Master entrepreneur James Altucher once emailed a billionaire investor for over a year before finally getting a response. I’m saying that you keep going until you get a response. Even if it’s a no, you don’t stop until you get an answer.
It’s almost an epidemic the number of salespeople that use something like Excel or Google Sheets to keep track of who they should follow up and when. Save yourself the trouble and set up an automated sales cadence built specifically for following up with ghost leads.
The general rule of thumb is that you don’t want to follow up any more than six times if you’ve never interacted with that person before. Following that, set up an email sequence with six emails spaced out over a couple of months.
This way, you can be sure that you’re constantly following up with them. The great thing about email automation is that you can schedule all of your emails ahead of time, leaving you free to focus on other leads. If they never end up replying to any of the emails, then too bad; move on; at least you’ve disqualified a bad customer.
But before you even get to that point, you can make sure you’re constantly engaging and nurturing your leads. Keep your leads warm by creating an email drip campaign that ensures you’re always staying at the top of their mind.
Create an automated email campaign dedicated solely to delivering relevant content to their inboxes. Don’t allow for a break in communication. That is the key to sales email automation. Depending on what pages they’ve visited, what lead magnets they’ve downloaded, or what webinars they’ve attended, create email sequences triggered by these specific actions.
Also Read: How Intelligent Automation can help power the future workplace
This way, you can ensure that, no matter what, your audience is constantly being engaged with things that interest them.
Conclusion
What is your most valuable resource?
It’s not money. It’s your time. What you do with the time you have ultimately dictates whether or not you’ll be successful.
With that in mind, why on earth would you waste your time on something like manual data entry? You are in sales, are you not?
To make the most out of your time, you need to embrace the power of automation. It isn’t some far-off future technology like jetpacks, and flying cars; automation is already here and if you’re not taking advantage of it by now then you’re already falling behind.
By embracing email sequences as part of your sales strategy not only are you going to save yourself more time to work on things that actually matter? But you’re going to double your efficiency and success rate effectively.
When it comes to doing cold outreach, following up, and qualifying leads, you don’t need to be wasting your time with them anymore. As I’ve just demonstrated, they can easily be automated, and it’s so easy that you can quite literally do it right now.
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