How many times have you been excited to receive an automated email? How many have escaped your trash folder? And how many actually convinced you to buy something?
When it comes to emailing potential prospects, there’s plenty of room for error. When done right, email can be an extremely effective tool for engaging and converting prospects. When done wrong, it can be a deterrent to potential members. So how do you know if your emails are striking a chord with recipients?
One good test is to check how many of the 4 Ps of Sales Effectiveness your emails achieve. The 4 Ps of Sales Effectiveness provide an empirical way to measure best practices of prospect engagement by testing performance in four main categories. Is your approach personalized, prompt, persistent, and high performing?
In this portion of our four-part series on the 4 Ps of Sales Effectiveness by Conversica, we’ll take a look at how personalization can help you better connect with potential members, as well as how a Member Engagement Assistant can help you achieve that personalization when reaching out to prospective club members.
MAKE IT PERSONAL
Sure, adding a name helps. But there are many ways to personalize an email that go beyond finding a name and running with it. In fact, each level of personalization is tied to the likelihood of garnering a response and achieving successful engagement.
- Sending an email from an email address associated with an individual rather than a company increases email click through rate by 31%.
- Emails with personalized subject lines are 26% more likely to be opened.
- Emails that include signatures are 23% more likely to produce a response.
- Emails that resemble a personal letter are opened 137% more and clicked through 129% more than graphic-heavy emails with generic “to” and “from” fields.
In an annual study commissioned by Conversica to track inbound lead engagement efforts by international companies across nine major industries, companies exhibited a significant downturn in personalization when compared with the previous year. Companies were scored from A to F dependent upon their initial email response’s inclusion of five key elements:
- A personalized greeting
- An individual sender rather than company, team, or department name
- A signature or contact information
- An indication that the sales associate moved the conversation forward
- Personalized context in the form of a reference to the prospect’s initial request
In one year, the percentage of companies who received an A grade decreased from 72 to just 38.
TOOLS FOR PERSONALIZATION
So how do you get help getting the grade? It can take a lot of effort to make sure each of your prospects receives the personalized attention they deserve. And that’s just for first contact. The amount of work increases exponentially with each follow-up sent, or once a back-and-forth conversation begins.
With a Member Engagement Assistant, powered by Conversica, you’ll meet all five personalization criteria necessary for an A rating. You’ll also streamline the process of contacting and following up with prospects. Every email is addressed to a specific person and sent from an individual—displayed in signature, subject head, and sender email address—which greatly increases the email’s chances of being opened.
A Member Engagement Assistant always communicates with next steps in mind. She drives the conversation forward by calling prospects to direct action. And she’s motivated to produce results, even when it means putting in extra time. When a prospect says they’re not the right contact, she requests the correct information and then opens communication with the new contact.
Schedule a consultation with a member of our team to learn how a Member Engagement Assistant can help provide a personalized and more successful approach to managing and converting your prospect.
