About This Episode

Email Sequence is a key ingredient in a sales campaign, but it’s not enough on it’s own.

It’s like having a taco without a shell, or spaghetti and meatballs without any sauce. 

Good, but not great.

After spending some time coming up in the sales trenches together, special guest Jeff Swan are back together to riff about where Jeff’s career  has taken him. As the Founder and CEO of RevUp, Jeff has developed some strong strategies to “rev up” a sales campaign, with Email Sequence at the tip of the spear. 

A self professed “Marketing Exec with sales DNA”, Jeff walks us through an in depth tour of successful sales plans in these strange and challenging times.

Email Sequence: Silver bullet or killer component

Creating a sales strategy should always be a carefully planned act based on data, industry knowledge, target market and more. Creating a sales strategy amidst a pandemic adds another layer of thought and considerations. 

It’s tempting to focus on emails alone, especially given some of the numbers that are being released, like in this article from Media Post stating email open rates are up between 16% and 22%, with a whopping 44% open rate for government sent emails. 

While this is exciting for sales and marketing folks, it’s just not enough.

But, it is an incredible weapon in the overall arsenal, so let’s look at how Jeff approaches developing an email sequence for his clients. 

Tell your prospects a valuable story

Each email sequence has its own agenda, and so it’s own rhythm and number of emails, but most sequences sit between about four and seven touches according to Jeff. 

These can be a mix of automated and manual emails or all automated emails, depending on your market and the nuances of your buying or sales process.

So, if you can tell a compelling and valuable story in 3 emails, great! If it takes 7 to get it done, that’s great too. Just ask yourself these questions before you hit send:

• What are you trying to accomplish?
• Is the message engaging? 
• Does the message speak to the reader?
• Does the message bring value to the reader?
• Are you thinking about the overall rhythm of the sequence?

These questions will help keep you on point when putting together your plan. 

What about the rest of your strategy? 

Sales cannot live on email alone…

“The fact is that email sequences don’t replace calls.” 

What’s the best conversion rate? 

According to Jeff, the best conversion rate is:

 “One that keeps going up.”

So when you look at the conversion rate for your email sequence, don’t stop there, even if the numbers are better than ever. When you start adding channels, things get even better.

• Phone touches
• Voicemails
• LinkedIn invites
• Social touches 

These are all the things that are going to be increasing the likelihood of connecting with that prospect and moving the conversation forward.

Jeff, and everyone else in sales, understands that picking up the phone can be frightening, awkward and downright unpleasant! 

Now that so many people are working from home, and the entire business process is somewhat confusing, and etiquette is evolving, it’s even more understandable to be a little “phone shy”. 

But, if you want the best results, and you are committed to moving your sales cycle forward, the dreaded calls so need to be a part of your plan. You got this!

No one knows your buyer like you do. 

As we are all adjusting to these unprecedented times, while there are tons of strategies, articles, stats and opinions, at the core of it all is you. These are your people. Your buyers. Your product. Tap into all of the resources, and bring people in to help you carve things out, but at the end of the day, you really do hold the answers! 

Trust in your knowledge, skill and instincts!

 Now get out there and bring in that business! Go! Scoot!

For more engaging sales conversations, subscribe to The Sales Engagement Podcast on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, or on our website.

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