Email outreach is a proactive process to connect with potential clients. When it comes to functioning for outbound sales, both marketing and sales teams contribute.
Marketing teams take over the creative aspects like creating email copies and designing the email. Sales can look after lead profiles, target messages, timing, and other approaches to sending those emails.
Often, sales teams would mention pricing, including details of SaaS subscription billing so that readers know whether the offering is usage-based or subscription-based. Moreover, there can be a link to book product demos or schedule a meeting so readers get enough opportunities to learn about the product.
With cold email outreach for outbound sales, your SaaS product can unlock a direct, scalable method to initiate important dialogues. Cast a wider net, target specific prospects, and personalize communication to drive both – initial engagement and long-term conversions.
Let’s explore some tips to start.
#1. Forget Quantity, Embrace Quality
Not long ago, we saw how cold emails were used for mass-targeting.
SaaS companies would send out tons of emails with the hope of getting a click from a few customers.
The math was: the more outreach emails you send, the better your chances of landing a lead.
But the times have changed now.
Continue with this high-volume approach and chances are, your email will likely end up in the spam folder rather than a new client.
Thus, the new mindset for cold email outreach is about quality, not quantity.
So what are quality outreach emails?
Laser-focused targeting
Build a highly specific Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). Here’s a template for starters.
Image Source: Pipedrive
Go beyond the basic demographics to understand your customer profile’s pain points, motivations, business, and how your solution can help them in decision-making processes.
Deeply-researched personalization
Surface-level customization won’t cut it. Show that you understand the prospect’s company, industry challenges, and the potential value you can offer them. All this should be communicated as a part of your first email outreach.
Focus on relationship building
Your cold email outreach should start with a legitimate intent. Do not push for sales; instead, build a relationship. For this, consider asking questions, engaging in a dialogue, and offering valuable insights.
Here’s a sample to understand this.
Image source: Emailchaser
This approach takes more upfront effort, but the results speak for themselves.
With this, set yourself up to witness higher open rates, more engaged conversations, and a sales pipeline filled with qualified leads genuinely interested.
#2. Hyper-personalization is not an option, but a necessity
he average person receives around 121 emails a day. So, bombarding users with generic marketing messages is no longer effective.
That’s where hyper-personalization comes in.
Setting up the outreach emails for outbound SaaS sales needs focusing on the people you target. If those emails feel mass-produced, it’s likely the readers will dismiss it.
Here, hyper-personalization helps break through the noise and engage your prospects meaningfully.
For starters, a generic subject and a “Dear [First Name]” greeting can not fool the readers anymore.
Because your users are smart enough to spot a mass-produced email a mile away. And also, continuously sending such emails may hurt your sender’s reputation.
Here’s what you can do instead.
Leverage data
Use all available customer data to understand your prospects.
What information should it include?
- LinkedIn profiles
- Company websites
- Industry news
- Previous interactions and engagement metrics like email open rates, click rates, and the content that engaged them
- Public financial reports, etc.
The more you know about them, the more you can personalize your outreach.
The above data can then be used to —
- Customize your greetings: Use the prospect’s name and reference a recent achievement or position change noted in their LinkedIn profile without being spooky!
- Tailoring outreach message: Align the SaaS solution’s benefits with the goals or challenges identified from their company website and industry news.
- Engage contextually: Track previous interactions or content they engaged with where your email would feel like a continuation of an ongoing conversation.
- Cite specific data points: Let your email contain data points such as industry trends or financial performance to back up your claims. This shows the value of your SaaS product through the lens of data to signify its importance.
Use personalization tools
There are a few tools and software that help automate personalization while remaining genuine.
These tools let you insert personalized elements into outreach emails, track engagement, and adjust your approach based on your collected data.
Here are some tools to get started —
- Outreach.io — To create personalized templates that automatically insert variables like the prospect’s name, company, or other custom fields.
- HubSpot CRM — To set up personalized workflows, send follow-up emails, or trigger actions based on specific criteria, such as email opens or link clicks.
- Yesware — Offer templates and merge tags to personalize emails quickly, coupled with tracking features. It also helps determine which messages are most effective.
#3. AI for Outbound Sales Outreach
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has changed many aspects of business, including email outreach for outbound SaaS sales. Sure, the role of AI in sales is evolving, but still there are a few opportunities that drive email personalization to boost efficiency and success rates.
With AI, forget repetitive tasks and generic emails. Instead, brace yourself for laser-targeted prospecting and hyper-personalized messaging – all at scale.
Here are different ways to use AI for sales outreach emails.
Use of AI and NLP in email outreach
A branch of AI is natural language processing (NLP) which understands and generates human-like text.
Sales and marketing teams can use it as follows.
- Craft meaningful email content efficiently: AI can help create engaging and relevant content that resonates with each recipient.
Here’s an example for quick understanding.
Image source: Close
Use this capability to —
- Analyze audience responses: AI tools assess how recipients interact with your emails, providing insights to refine future campaigns.
- Trigger appropriate follow-ups: Timing and tailoring automated follow-ups based on user engagement, enhancing the chances of conversion.
Leveraging AI for email management
There are several functions that AI can perform to manage outreach email. It means a few other critical tasks that require human intervention can be automated.
For instance, tools like Emarsys leverage AI-powered algorithms to segment leads based on their responses to engage them effectively.
Here’s where AI makes a difference:
- Prospect identification and qualification: AI-powered tools analyze vast amounts of data to surface leads that align perfectly with your ideal customer profile (ICP).
- Personalization at scale: Use AI to tailor onboarding messages based on firmographic data, job titles, industry trends, and more – going deeper than simple name personalization.
- Predictive analytics: Analyzing past email campaigns can offer future predictions with AI. It features algorithms that evaluate the effectiveness of past campaigns and prospect interactions. This helps to forecast which strategies will likely yield the best outcomes.
- Email optimization: Email copies with compelling subject lines can cause high open rates. Involve AI to get through suggestions for impactful subject lines based on the sentiment analysis of email text so that your outbound sales email is well received. Also, AI plays a major role in email A/B testing, helping marketers continuously refine their approach and improve overall email performance.
Different technologies and tactics are redefining outbound sales emails for SaaS brands. While cold outreach is not outdated, adopting a few strategic workarounds can yield better results. The tips provided above offer a good starting point for sales and marketing teams. When executed correctly, cold outreach in SaaS can effectively reach the right targets.
It’s time for SaaS brands to think of outreach emails as more than just tools for generating sales. By pivoting towards building relationships, you’ll send messages that are more likely to achieve the desired results.
