Every business wants to grow and every business wants to land that sweet meeting with their ideal prospect. Especially if you’re part of the sales team in your company, you know it’s true.
Among the many important roles in every company, sales and business development belong to the crucial ones. Cold outbound is quite an important part of these roles and the challenge always lies in making the first contact without having any previous business relationship with your prospect.
Whether it’s cold calling, or in what we’re going to talk about here, cold email, the question still stands, how can you send a personalized email if you are not yet in personal contact with the recipient? After spending so much time researching and learning about your prospect, you also need to make your approach as effective as possible but also personal enough to be able to add value.
The one strategy that has proven itself effective is BASHO email.
What is BASHO?
A BASHO email is a personalized email that’s commonly directed at specifically the decision-makers of the company, and your main goal is to get an initial phone call with a decision-maker in order to secure a meeting.
Now, let’s discuss how to craft a successful BASHO email that will ultimately land you a meeting with your ideal prospects.
Understanding Pain Points
You may never have spoken with your prospects before, so you won’t know them on a personal level just yet. But the best way to get their attention is by knowing their pain points. Do in-depth research online as well as visit their website and social media channels to find out what they’re struggling with and address those pain points in your email.
Add a Personal Touch
In order to keep your email personal and relevant, let your sales team look into their social media for various interests such as traveling, food, sports, and any other flash-point that your prospect will recognize upon seeing your email and prompt them to open it. Don’t hesitate to add a little bit of good humor where it’s appropriate so that the tone of your email doesn’t seem too rigid and “sales-y“.
Time-based Scoop
Most business development reps use company scoop events like personnel moves or even funding events as a great opportunity to reach out to other previous users. The key is referencing a specific and relevant event and on top of that adding a personal touch. An added bonus is if you’re able to relate to the event you referenced yourself and therefore create an even more personal connection with your prospect.
Taking the Goodwill Approach
A good BASHO email is personalized and relevant. Great BASHO emails, on the other hand, are also generous. If during your research you stumble upon something that your prospect is especially enthusiastic about, use that to hook your reader by relating that interest to your product/service. You want to show them that you actually took the time and effort to really do in-depth research on them.
Value your Cadence
You want to show your prospects that you understand the challenges that are specific to marketing and use appropriate language. This is where your account-based marketing (ABM) comes in. It’s more important to offer them targeted, marketing-specific value prop paired with your hyper-personalized sales presentation to make it successful.
Conclusion
It is quite difficult to truly stand out from the crowd especially with an email. However, if you can find common ground with your prospects and show them that you truly understand their pain points and that you care about helping them rather than selfish gain, people respond.
Writing an email isn’t difficult, all it takes is lots of research and most importantly being helpful and empathetic towards your prospects.
