Keeping Warm This February: How to Stay on Your Prospect's Radar

So you’ve reached out to your list of prospects last month and reply rates are lagging (as is tradition early in Q1), however, you know that your ICPs’ calendars are starting to open back up. So why aren’t they replying to you in droves to book a demo with you?

In reality, we all know that outbound is a highly competitive space; we’re all trying to get the limited attention of a select few decision makers through saturated channels which can lead to some fairly gimmicky (or even downright desperate) follow-ups.

Forgive the blanket generalisation, but top decision makers don’t want to take time out of their busy schedules to respond to irrelevant, soft messaging. While they may read and appreciate your well-researched email, if your CTA isn’t appealing enough then they won’t bother. We mentioned last month that it’s better to reach out in January with this softer messaging as it keeps your company in their mind during a time where we don’t generally expect them to reply. However, now that calendars are opening back up, we can readjust our messaging, cadence, and follow-up strategy to greatly increase our chances of booking that meeting.

Unfortunately, it isn’t just as simple as tweaking your CTAs and calling it a day. Throughout the years, we’ve found that adjusting cadence, messaging, and how we use each available channel can lead to some serious replies in February. In fact, over the last two years we saw a ~29% increase in replies for February when compared to January thanks to this tweaked approach.

Cadence

We’re usually wary of recommending cadences with the blanket reassurance that it will guarantee a response. Different industries and offerings require different spacing between touchpoints in order to generate results. However, we can say for certain after working with many different clients across many industries that this time of year does require a tweaked cadence. 

Assuming you took full advantage of January’s fairly unique prospecting environment to make introductions with a fairly spaced out cadence, now would be the time to tighten it up. We generally like to compare setting a cadence to tight rope walking: veer too far on either side and you’ll fall off (their radar). You want to find that perfect balance that reminds them of your offering and keeps you at the forefront of their mind without being overbearing or even downright annoying. 

We’re working under the assumption that you already reached out to the prospect and they are at least two weeks into your sequence. With the softer messaging used in January laying the foundation, you can now up your frequency to around 5 touchpoints a week. We generally go for around 4. This includes:

A personalised follow-up email

• More on the tone and content below, but this follow-up email should always address their problem and include a relevant and enticing CTA.
• You can follow up from here with “bumps” i.e. sending them case studies or asking if {{colleague}} is more suited to pick up the conversation etc. It’s important to note that personalisation in these bumps goes a long way.

LinkedIn outreach. 

• Assuming you’ve used this channel initially to connect with the prospect, a voice note tends to get great results, otherwise a connection request or InMail could also yield good results.

A phone call

• Connecting over the phone is easier said than done but is such a powerful sales tool when it comes to booking meetings.
• Having already been in contact with the prospect via other channels first, you’re in a great position to spark a conversation.

Post phone call email to recap the conversation.

• This is to ensure that the prospect doesn’t hang up and forget you. A friendly recap with any case studies, hard figures, pricing, etc. that they may have enquired about greatly increases the chances of getting a positive reply from them.

These are, of course, spaced out throughout the week as to not suffocate your prospect. Every step laid out above is to ensure that the prospect keeps you on their radar but the real magic lies in your messaging.

Messaging

When we say “aggressive” messaging, we’re not telling you to bully your prospects into submission. This is rather the inverse of the ‘soft’ messaging used in January. When you know your ICP is too busy implementing new strategies at the start of Q1, they’re not going to take the time to respond to a cold email. In that case, some introductory messaging addressing the problem that they have and how your solution could potentially be a good fit is more welcome. Especially when more personal outreach channels such as direct mail are utilised. However, when these new strategies and processes are already underway (or in some cases reviewed and scrapped), you’re able to come in with this more ‘aggressive’ messaging. 

For example, our first touchpoint (Direct Mail) has extremely soft, introductory messaging that is heavy on personalisation. It signs off with:

“No need to RSVP (needless to say), I'll be in touch again directly and hopefully we can find some time for a chat to see if there is a fit.”

The following message is more problem/solution-oriented. We let them know that if they have time we’d love to talk over some ideas about how their outbound could be more effective and efficient and end it with:

“With the economy still looking uncertain, would you like to hear it?”

Further down the sequence, after a few ‘bumps’, the messaging becomes a bit more direct. Researched warm calls will push for meetings with the Head of Sales. The use of variables in the CTAs make them stand out more. Even including a calendar link on certain campaign types.

This method of starting out softer and then gradually (yet politely) pushing for a meeting has been a highly effective strategy for us over the years.

Channels

Generally, effective outbound doesn’t just stick to one single channel. You could put 10,000 prospects on blast in a cold email sequence if you’re quite happy with a 1% reply rate, many of which won’t necessarily be positive. But this only works if your TAM is extremely large and your contract values aren’t too high. For those of us that target a niche and have higher contract values, the way we reach out matters.

You cannot go wrong with a healthy mix of Direct Mail, Email, and Phone outreach. LinkedIn outreach can be effective but only for a select group of highly engaged contacts. Ask your Marketing team to hand over a list of candidates and you can use some automation tools to make this part of the outreach a lot easier. 

It takes an average of 8 touches to book a meeting. People appreciate variety; it’s easy to forget a company or its representative if they’re only ever seen in one specific place. However, your company is far more likely to remain on their radar if they receive a highly personalised handwritten physical note from you, followed by a highly relevant email, then a researched warm call from you. Of course, these are to be spaced out, and - as stated earlier - the messaging needs to be adapted for the stage they’re in.

Need help?

We know that a lot of this can be time consuming and sometimes even daunting! If you’d like a more cost-effective way of reaching out to your prospects in a way that protects your brand and gets results, then feel free to contact us today to book a quick demo. We’d love to show you what your outbound could look like with Leadable’s solution.