This post is not about AI, automation or data enrichment. All Important stuff, but... not as important as the psychology of how to get a prospect to respond; something that most sales orgs don't seem to really grok.
See the image below and/or continue reading...
To maximize response rate, there's two things to optimize: offer attractiveness + a prospect's awareness.
1️⃣ Offer attractiveness = perceived impact / (cost + effort)
If all you have to offer someone is the purchase of your product, the cost + effort is probably high. Hopefully, the impact is high too. But, it's gotta be really high & it must be obvious to them. If they don't perceive a high impact (or are skeptical of it), then it doesn't matter how big the impact can be.
You can Increase your chances of getting a response by creating a more attractive offer. Usually, that means creating a free (or low cost) offer that requires little (or no) effort for them, yet still has an impact.
This is why we (at Databox) give away access to KPI & business process benchmarks & enable our partners to create their own proprietary benchmarks too. (See here: https://lnkd.in/ePbpdrz7) It's also why we provide a generous free trial & have invested a lot in making the setup of our product quick & simple.
You could also start with a free or low-cost ebook, real book, webinar, event invitation, access to a research report, etc.
The key thing most salespeople don't get: the goal of the offer is not necessarily to make a quick sale, it's to start a dialog & relationship that can make a future sale possible. The sale could end up being quick, but the goal here is to just get a response.
2️⃣ For awareness, your response rate will be highest when your prospect is aware that they have a problem, that a solution exists & that your company/brand has that solution.
While individual salespeople can't influence this much, you (as a company) can do 2 things.
First, you can do marketing & advertising. The more you do, the more aware people will be of the problems you solve, the solutions(s) you provide & your brand.
Second, you can pay attention to signals to determine whether an individual is aware. Starting with your website visitors & working backwards to people asking questions online, it's more possible than ever to determine awareness by monitoring prospects. Like creating attractive offers, marketing is key here too. More marketing = more signals.
Too often, I see small, unknown businesses try prospecting where they cold pitch their services. It rarely works for them, as shown in the bottom left of the chart. They think it might because they see big, well-known companies doing it, who are at the bottom right of the chart.
tl;dr: Prospecting works best when you are creative with your offer & you do marketing/advertising that creates signals your salespeople can leverage to initiate contact.
Update: Corrected image in comments.
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