No B2B appointment setting can yield terrific results without well-thought email outreach. Email is a powerful tool, sometimes underestimated, yet a complex one. Email marketing entails massive ROI with an average return of $42 per $1 spent. However, an email marketing campaign is far more than simply scribbling a bunch of narrative emails. It’s not just an email. It’s a cold outreach letter that should be able to hook the attention of an uninterested individual and gradually – through a series of carefully crafted emails – turn them into a loyal customer.
Writing effective emails involves a handful of writing skills (from headline writing skills to reader-oriented writing) and the knowledge of the industry, marketing, and psychology. The landscape of email marketing is changing all the time, so many businesses choose to hire professional and knowledgeable appointment setting firms to carry out all pre-sales stages.
For instance, B2B appointment setting at Belkins company has never been easy, but the team’s experts managed to come up with a few proven strategies that showed great results. They’ve shared their best experience in this article.
Before we dive deeper into email marketing tips, let’s take a look at the obstacles and essential elements you need to keep in mind when creating outreach campaigns and/or outsourcing services of appointment setters.
What Should Appointment Setting Firms Know?
When it comes to B2B cold email outreach, the main obstacles everyone comes across are spam filters and email fatigue.
- Spam filters are used by email service providers who are powerful guardians protecting their clients from being swamped with unsolicited and unwelcome information. After all, there is a thin line between spam and a cold email. Thus, any professional appointment setter should know spam triggers and how to avoid being blacklisted by the filters. There are many tricks; for example, each email user is assigned a mailbox’s status based on their email reputation score, which can be negative, positive, or spam. If your Sender Score gets flagged as negative, it spells the end for that mailbox, and you better create a new one.
- Email fatigue is an obstacle many lead generation companies and appointment setters come across when their recipients get overwhelmed with incoming emails. You probably can sympathize with your subscribers who simply cannot process the sheer number of emails. Nevertheless, a clever email outreach campaign is able to account for all factors resulting in email fatigue, so keep an eye on your CTR, open rates, and conversion rates. When professional appointment setting firms get down to work, they target the right audience and personalize the templates properly, keeping the right ratio of message quantity and timing.
Whoever you choose to carry out appointment setter services for your business, you need to make sure that they know all the rules in the book like the back of their hand.
Things to Remember for B2B Appointment Setting
Successful B2B sales development, which B2B appointment setting is part of, rests on three pillars: strategy, adaptability, and technology.
Strategy for appointment setter companies
It is quite pointless to launch an email marketing campaign without a clear-cut blueprint. Data and knowledge lay a foundation for an efficient strategy to create a powerful email marketing campaign. Any B2B appointment making service starts with learning your company and services/products you provide from A to Z. It also includes tailoring email outreach to the well-thought sales funnel and follow-ups.
Adaptability for B2B appointment setting
Although there are certain email outreach rules and requirements, there is no ready-made formula for creating a well-performing email outreach. Anyone who wants to score deals through email marketing needs to be prepared for constant changes. Not only does each email sequence and audience type require personalization, but they also need a specific metrics-based approach.
It may include selecting particular content, retargeting, or offering a promo code to make up for your subscribers’ email fatigue, as well as switching from pay per appointment to another form of payment for B2B appointment setting. In other words, those who are in charge of email outreach are to handle any challenges it may bring.
Technology for appointment making services
As soon as you come across any obstacles or issues in email marketing, it is highly probable that there is a technology to handle it. Wonder how to increase conversions? Use B2B email tracking and monitoring tools. Want to send bulk emails through Gmail or Outlook? Install MailChimp or Moosend as they are suitable for high-intensity email campaigns and convenient CRM. Want more sophisticated appointment setting software? Find tools allowing for the seamless event and round-robin scheduling.
10 Pro-Email Marketing Tips for Professional Appointment Setting
Keeping in mind the email fatigue and spam filters and getting equipped with the right strategy and best practices, let’s see what many appointment setters may forget about when launching an email outreach campaign.
In this article, we will share the most useful email marketing tips to help you get the most of your current email campaign and have an excellent appointment set with little to no effort.
Use Automation to Facilitate Your Processes
Use automation to improve conversion rates and scale your campaigns. Advanced email services usually allow users to create personalized and pre-written email templates and integrate them with CRM systems. Advanced tracking services typically include automated follow-ups and can work in the background mode while an SDR is closing deals.
Lead Nurturing Is a Priority
Little mistakes along the way can distort and negatively affect the whole picture. When lead generators and appointment setters see their mission in making deals and selling products, they miss an opportunity to build nurturing relationships with prospects. However, a relationship lies at the core of the client-business dyad, even in B2B. Keep a nurturing relationship with the prospect in your mind. You will find out how to segment the lead database, write a unique introduction and follow-up script, keep silent when the prospect prefers to stay quiet during a low season and get active when the prospect’s work context changes. If you adopt a nurturing attitude, prospects will appreciate your outreach approach.
Advanced Copywriting
Any copywriter knows that headline is the king. In cold emails, it is the subject line and the preheader. In many instances, the subject line is the only thing that a prospect quickly glimpses before deleting an email. A preheader is the first line of an email you see when you check your inbox. Basically, it doubles the length of your subject line. This is why you should create a compelling subject line and catch the prospect’s attention by placing meaningful information early in the text. The “from” name is also important as it affects the way prospects will treat your email.
Hook Prospects with Reciprocity
In contrast with B2C, B2B marketing is more benefit-driven. For you, it means that the emails you send need to communicate the value you offer as soon as possible in the most succinct form. It also means that you should add some value to each email from the sequence of follow-ups you send. Remember that if you give something valuable to your prospects, they’ll want to do something for you in return. Thus, a relationship can be established. Think what you can offer: You can start cooperation in social media with the industry experts, share followers’ attention, or offer a free bonus (membership, course, eBook, etc.)
Target the Company, Not Individual
The first rule of copywriting is to keep the audience in mind. Your audience is B2B, which means that you should appeal to the collective rather than individual problems when you write about benefits and pains. Focus on the prospect’s business rather than the prospects themselves since this will allow you to keep your outreach campaign relevant. For example, if you want to sell water, you should not refer to the lead’s personal preferences but mention some health benefits of drinking your water that can boost the team’s productivity.
Stick to the Right Timing
You probably already know that the best practices are associated with sending out emails at the right time. For example, Monday mornings are universally believed to be a bad time to launch a cold outreach campaign because people rake through their mailboxes and simply overlook your email. In a wider sense, not only the time of the day when you hit the send button matters but also the day of the week, the season, and the overall context different people live in. Experts recommend to rely on tracking metrics and notice particular patterns your prospects might develop. If you are meticulous enough, you will find the best time to do email outreach.
Account for Email Rendering
It is essential to take into account not only the audience you’re writing for but also the devices they will use to read your email. Depending on the prospect’s operating system, email service provider (ESP), and screen size, the emails you send will render differently. It is impossible to create versions for all potential renderings, but you can check out where your prospects are opening your emails most of the time and make sure they are responsive.
Don’t Get Tired of Continuous Testing
No one can create a perfect email outreach campaign from get-go. Your sales pipeline is changing and evolving. Your knowledge base grows. Even timing can have crucial importance for open rates. Therefore, you must put your emails to the test all the time throughout the campaign. Run A/B testing to figure out the right cadence, adjust your targeting, and make sure the timing is right.
Be Ready to Get Off the Script
Cold email outreach is based on scripts and templates. Nevertheless, the current need for adaptability and flexibility may require to come up with fresh and genuine ideas. Professional email marketers rely on hard data, so if you’ve noticed unusual changes in CTR or received an angry reply, it may be the time to create a more heart-felt response. Follow your instincts to understand whether the situation needs a creative approach.
Negative Result Is Still a Result
Don’t get easily frustrated by negative responses and people who unsubscribed. If prospects don’t want you to bother them anymore, look at it as though you were cleaning the premises. Your sales pipeline will become more robust and productive if it contains only the leads who want to stay. Treat getting negative responses as the necessary experience and adjust your strategy accordingly.
Wrap It Up
To run successful email outreach campaigns and set quality appointments, you need to learn the ropes. Find out how to strategize correctly, pick the best time and day for emails, and schedule follow-ups. Learn how to try out different templates and approaches and track hard data and statistics.
It is not easy. Cold emailing is complex.
It is tricky. Cold email outreach needs constant tweaking and adjusting.
It can be frustrating. Email marketing may seem not very rewarding at first, but as soon as you learn how to tackle problems, you will reap amazing results.
Ultimately, if you find cold email outreach too difficult to handle, you can always hire any of the leading B2B appointment setting companies to do it for you.