The ABM Way of Doing Cold Calls and Cold Emails

Account-based marketing(ABM) strategies are one of the hottest trends in sales and marketing. This strategy usually involves targeted emails, unique website pages, pay-per-click ad campaigns, and social media. But your ABM efforts must be complemented by calling and emailing your prospects in which a lead generation services provider may efficiently carry out.

In an account-based marketing strategy, your aim is to create a customized experience based on a prospect’s specific problem. Every form of communication should be a part of your account-based marketing strategy. Tell them by phone, email, and display advertising that you understand their pain points and can provide the correct solution.

Today, let’s look at the unique ways of doing cold calls and cold emails in the ABM sphere.

Monetize the Call

You cannot go into a cold call at the very end of a sales cycle and expect everything to just fall into place. What you should practice here is to leverage the connection which means that whenever you get a favorable response to a call, you have to make sure that you have a clear understanding and plan of how you’re going to monetize your first engagement with them.

When you do this, you have to be quick in determining the current phase of the purchase journey your contact is in right now. You have to engage with them in the appropriate nurturing activities to be able to get the desired response. These may also be considered a bit accelerated since you’re on the phone with your contact but if you add inviting them to a webinar or online seminar, or other valuable events you may have is a great option to give to your most responsive and receptive phone calls.

Personalized connection

Nothing is more personal than a phone call. Hearing a voice, finding a shared interest, and talking about commonalities in your personal lives help prospects engage with you on a human level. Harvard Business Review even points out that an emotional connection is much more valuable to measure compared to overall customer satisfaction. Develop an emotional connection with your customers by reaching out and discussing their concerns. Make it clear your business is run by actual people and that you care about and understand your prospect’s problem. Phone calls accomplish this faster and to a greater degree than blog posts or emails.

Deliver a Persuasive Pitch

With the conversational intro and light-hearted chuckles out the way, your prospect will eventually ask you to explain why you’re calling. Before you answer, have your USP ready, and acknowledge that your prospect is probably working with a competitor, or has a list of competitors they’re considering.

Your USP quickly shows your prospect that you understand their industry, their challenges, and their company. Talking about your prospect’s challenges means you’re going against the grain – most cold callers will just shamelessly sing their company’s praise here.

You, on the other hand, are talking about them and asking questions they’ll answer “yes” to. This builds momentum and empowers your cold call with a persuasive close.

Avoid being too sales-y

It’s natural to want to jump the gun and ask to set a meeting right away—after all, that’s the whole goal of cold emailing. But remember the saying, “Slow and steady wins the race.” That is also true for successful cold emailing. Think about the solicitors who ring your doorbell, fake a two-minute conversation, and then immediately slam you with a sales pitch about a product you’ve never heard of. Whether or not the product could benefit you, you’re put off by the experience. It feels forced, in your face, and quite frankly, like an invasion of privacy.

If you start thinking of emailing the same way you think of treating people face to face, you’ll soon realize that starting a conversation with “let’s set up a meeting this week!” is a sure-fire way to make people feel uncomfortable and put off. Start slow and open the conversation like you would if you were meeting someone new in person.

Add value

Too often, we see companies so excited about their product or solution that they forget that no matter how good your product/service is unless you can get people to buy in and realize their need, your product won’t get far.

If you can’t add immediate value or demonstrate what the possibilities could be, it will be hard for your prospect to be excited about a possible meeting or partnership. Human nature tends to be more complacent, and if people are comfortable and happy with where they are, why would they change? It’s your job to convince your prospects that the risk of staying the same is greater than the risk of changing to your product, service, or solution.

Conclusion

Cold emailing and cold calling has been around for decades and it’s not going away as long as email addresses and phone numbers exist. Whether you take these tips into consideration or not, remember that you’re connecting with real people. We are overwhelmed with contacts, yet somehow we tend to only pick out the ones that matter because we can tell it’s from a human that has something important to say to us. Add the “human” into your emails and calls and genuinely care about the person you’re reaching out to, and that’s the ABM way of doing cold calls and cold emails.