Is Email Prospecting Still Worth It?

Posted September 24, 2024 in Sales Brew

It has always been a difficult task for salespeople to reach the prospects they call and email each day. They call… and they email… and they keep following up, wondering if anybody will ever do one critical thing: answer the phone and/or reply to an email.

While certainly not a new development in selling, engaging with prospects has become increasingly difficult. If we go back to 2009, it took around 8–10 outreaches on average to engage with a prospect. In today’s world, that number has risen to 16–18 attempts. What we have found, though, is that most salespeople quit after fewer than 5 outreaches. And to make matters worse, research shows that 75% of business owners will not answer a call from someone they do not know!

So, if you’re feeling beaten down and discouraged by the lack of response to your outreach efforts, you are not alone. We all know that to truly uncover a real business opportunity, it requires actually getting on the phone with your prospect and having a conversation. Therefore, our “success” is often linked to the phone call. It would be easy to assume that emails are ineffective and poses the question: is email prospecting still worth it?

The Question: Is email prospecting still worth it?

Absolutely. Unequivocally. Without question! An article by Lane Harbin of Emma by Marigold states, “the most popular online activity for adults is sending/reading emails. 85% of internet users spend their time this way every single day.” So, here’s the difficult truth—email is not dead, it’s our approach that’s suffering.

Email Prospecting Tips

Here are 3 things you can do to pump some life back into your prospecting and email efforts to increase the likelihood of engaging prospects:

Your first outreach attempt should be an email. Most salespeople I work with start with a phone call. If that’s working for you, I don’t want to discourage you from continuing. However, remember that 75% of business owners and decision-makers will NOT answer a call from someone they do not know. So why would we start that way? I recommend starting with a short, concise email explaining why you’re reaching out, how you help people like them, and that you will be calling the next day as a follow-up to the email. When you call the next day, they still might not answer, and that’s okay. But because your email—explaining who you are and what you do, along with notice that you were going to reach out—went out first, it increases the chances the prospect will answer the call.
Don’t go into too much detail in your first outreach email. At this moment, your prospect doesn’t care how long you’ve been in the industry, what makes you and your company different, or that you are just reaching out to connect. Your prospects have busy lives, their own priorities, and other things they are focused on. They care about two things—their problems and if you can make those problems go away. Your email should speak to those pains. Briefly explaining how you’ve helped people and businesses like theirs will do more to engage your prospects.
Add a read receipt to your emails. I don’t know many salespeople who include this when sending emails. Sure, a prospect could delete the email and click “no” when the read receipt notification pops up, but most don’t go to that trouble. They’ll accept the message, and it will sit in their inbox. At the very least, this gives you confirmation that they received your email (i.e., it didn’t get sent to spam or junk), allowing you to reference that outreach in future communications.

Staying Committed to Outreach

If you speak with any one of my partners, they would have more than three recommendations and suggestions for increasing your email prospecting success. But personally, I’ve seen these three have the biggest impact on my efforts. The hardest part, I believe, is staying committed to the outreach. Remember, it takes 16–18 attempts to engage a prospect, but most give up after 5. The same is true for your competitors. To put it simply, if you commit to out-calling, out-emailing, and out-outreaching your competition, you will already see greater success.

From Alex Cole-Murphy, Sales Development Expert
Anthony Cole Training Group