Mock Sales Sequence for Xplenty
In this article, I will be walking you through a cold email sequence I wrote as if I was a Sales Development Representative for Xplenty. Xplenty is a data integration platform whose target audience are retail, advertising, and hospitality companies. Their product functions in the cloud and allows the company to migrate its data to the platform, presenting analytics and insights all in one central location. Those insights are crucial to business decisions.
If right now you were to hover over to your search engine and type in “How to write cold sales emails?” about a thousand different variations will pop, claiming they have the magic template that’ll get you the sale. It’s a bit ironic, the salesman being sold the perfect template, which probably won’t work in reality.
Sales straddle the line between art and science.
Let me explain. You could write up the most eloquent, beautiful, even poetic sales pitch in the world and still see no reply. Blood, sweat, and 25 superfluous words won’t reel in the sale.
So what will? Oh, I know!
I’ll just load up my cold email with cold hard facts, statistics, specks, and all the works. By the time they are done reading that email, it’ll be a guaranteed hit.
Nope.
At the end of the day, yes, formality and deliverance of a quality product are essential. The effectiveness of cold email can be boiled down to “what customer pain are you solving?” This is known definitely as a Value Proposition. This will be at the center of every email I formulate.
I’ve had no formal training or experience in sales, but I did watch roughly 4 hours of a sales training video called Flip The Script, and also, yes, I did scour the internet for the perfect cold email template. Here are a few key concepts I learned that you could apply when writing cold emails.
- Subject Line: This line’s sole mission is to get the person to open the email. No click-bait, but it needs to have a personal touch to pull in the recipient.
- Hook: This tells the recipient you know something about them. Maybe they wrote an article? Attended a seminar? Find something to stand out from the standard blast email. Again, personal pull.
- Solve Problem/ Value Proposition: This is crucial to this formula. You may have all the best hooks and subject line, but if you are not solving their pains… what’s the point? This is where you can drive in a problem they are having, and whoop here comes you swooping down like an angel to solve their problems. Yes, that’s right; you can take all their troubles and worries away.
- Call To Action: Get them at least to reply is the key here. It’s a small ask, but beginning the conversation opens the opportunity to set up a meeting.
I will be targeting a Chief Technology Officer for this example. My research involved targeting him on linked in. From there I dove into his profile and any other relevant social media outfits I could leverage for this email sequence. Now we’ve got our outline prepared, let’s dive in.
Company: Xplenty
Subject Line: 7 Tips to Pitch Your Data Strategy to Your Team- great post!
Hi [Person],
I loved your article on 7 Tips to Pitch Your Data Strategy to Your Team.
What if you could “streamline operations” while “reducing costs” and “improving revenues.” Well, that’s what we’ve done with companies like Samsung, Ikea, and many more! We’ve freed developers by taking the “data mining” component out of their range of responsibilities with a seamless extract, transform, load (ETL) process accompanied by analytical insights.
There’s no need for extra investments in hardware, software, or additional personnel. In fact, one of our customers claims it “breaks the dependency on R&D.” Data insights would now be accessible to the whole team. If you could see that kind of improvement, what would that mean for your business?
If you give me just 10 minutes of your time on December 15th at 3pm or 17th at 10am (CT), I’ll tell you how.
Best,
Nesto Rivas
What I did here was some background research into a specific CTO. Found a blog they wrote, put it in the subject line, and quoted it throughout my pitch to let them know this is not another blast email. I’m emailing them intending to solve their problem. Using a customer review to show what we could do for them and then following up with “what would that mean for your business” frames this deal in a way that says look at all this upside you’re missing out on.
Follow Up/ No Response
Subject Line: Are you behind the power curve?
Hi [Person],
I can only imagine how busy a CTO can be-so I wanted to send a follow-up. Last Wednesday, I mentioned how our extract, transform, and load (ETL) process can vastly impact your company with polished analytical insights with no need for extra hardware, software, or personnel.
How would you like if you could decrease spending and overhead while gaining comprehensive customer insights and long-term strategy optimization all at your fingertips? We’re talking small adjustments that could have significant ramifications on your entire team!
If you give me just 10 minutes of your time on December 21st at 3pm or 24th at 10am (CT), we can discuss possibilities.
Either way, I’ve enjoyed your most recent blog on COVID-19 and data science. Keep up the great work!
Best,
Nesto Rivas
The subject line is attempting to pull him in with the thought his competition is leaving them behind. In one of his blogs, he pointed out that 52% of companies are not taking advantage of data integration services. I’m flashing the idea that Xplenty could cut the unnecessary spending into extra personal, software, and hardware. Also, having all the strategic insights readily available would only be to his benefit. Either way, is utilized as a more lax nudge since he did not reply to my initial email.
Follow Up/ No Response 2
Subject Line: Let’s get you that bonus
Hi [Person],
Would it be crazy if you could see an increase in your bottom line as soon as next month, just by making a small adjustment to the way you integrate data?
Yeah, many of our customers like Caterpillar thought it would, but we’ve been able to cut spending, provide customer insights and long-term strategy optimizations!
Think of all the savings you could expect. You could probably give yourself and your whole team a big fat bonus, plus still, have plenty of revenue leftover.
Let’s schedule a call on December 29th at 3pm or 31st at 11am (CT.)
All the best,
Nesto Rivas
Last email. The subject line is all about him. Start with a strong question to get them to dive deeper. Name drop to showcase our strength in clientele while flexing our problem-solving capabilities. I circle back to him and his team. This time with a bit more “in your face” what we could do because I’m trying to showcase that with Xplenty, not only could we increase his bottom line, but bonuses all around! Who wouldn’t want that? Here I don’t play with a lax email or nonchalant approach. I want to get them on the phone and get this deal rolling.
Takeaway
Sales are the grunt work of any business. It’s the department responsible for the largest portion of revenue. As an SDR it’s a numbers game. However, every time you pick up that phone or send an email, those people are not just numbers. You need to make them feel that you have their best interests in mind. They have problems just like everyone else. No gimmicks, or used car salesman tactics. A lot of the secret sauce appears to be genuinely believing in your product and what it can do for your potential customers. Try taking these core concepts and molding them to the needs of your customer when sending those cold emails. It will always be a work in progress but, you’ll probably see a better response rate than copying and pasting the same email.
