Selling to Large Corporations: How to Use E-mail Effectively

To get into big companies today, you need to be able to use email effectively and honestly, I find this to be one of the best prospecting tools out there right now. Now, I’m not talking about spam, those email blasts that you might send to a hundred gazillion people that all say the same messaging. That is not what I’m talking about. If you want to use email effectively, you are crafting personalized messages that the person you’re trying to reach knows that they were written explicitly for him or her because that’s what makes a difference. So, here’s what you need to think about. The first thing those people see is they see the subject line and you need to write away in your subject line, say something that’s going to capture their attention. If you were referred, put that in the subject line, “Referred by Jane Smith.” If you have some ideas about a project that they’re working on, write in the subject line, ideas regarding reducing your operational cost in the plan. Make sure it’s tempting to them about their business issue and shows that you’ve done your homework. Now, you get into that email, you only have 90 words to work with, 90 words because it’s viewable in the previous screen. If you go beyond 90 words and they have to scroll down, the likelihood of them reading it is not good. So the 90 words, what you have to do is not introduce yourself, “Hi Bob, this is Jill Konrath with XYZ Company.” You have to get right to the point and you need to say it, “Bob, in doing research on your company, I noticed that…” and so you mention something that shows that you’ve done your homework and then you mention something about your value proposition. “We’ve been working with other companies to shrink time to market on new product introductions. I might have some ideas that could be valuable for your firm.” Finally, you invite them to engage with your company. “If you’re interested, we can send you a white paper on that topic.” You’re not closing necessarily for the appointment right away or you might say, “Here’s a link to something on our website that could be of a high value” or “Here’s an invitation to a webinar that we’re doing.” So you invite them and you engage them about connecting with you on a business reason. It’s a simple message, less than 90 words. It’s really all focused on their company, what you can do for them, and the business value that you could provide. It’s part of your current entry stragegy, leverage it on a 1-2 punch with voicemail, email and you’ll be able to get your foot in the door of large corporations.