Category: Outreach

Have you ever signed up to receive emails from a company and noticed how they start addressing you by your name and slowly entice you to purchase things you’ve looked at on their website? That’s the magic of an email sequence. As a B2B executive, I’ve found that mastering the art of email sequences can significantly enhance my marketing operations by boosting engagement, promoting sales, and nurturing customer relationships.

What is an Email Sequence?

An email sequence is a series of pre-written emails sent to different segments of my email list according to a predetermined schedule. These emails are triggered by specific actions taken by subscribers, such as signing up, browsing, or making a purchase. By leveraging email automation software, I ensure timely and relevant communication with my audience without manual intervention.

Types of Email Sequences

Email sequences fall into two main types: trigger-based and time-based.

Trigger-Based Sequences: These are activated by specific actions taken by the subscribers, such as subscribing to a list, abandoning a shopping cart, or making a purchase. These sequences are highly responsive to individual behaviors, making them highly personalized and effective.

Time-Based Sequences: These are scheduled based on time intervals, such as sending a follow-up email one month after a purchase or a reminder email six months after inactivity. Time-based sequences help maintain consistent engagement with my audience over time.

Advantages of Email Sequences

The primary advantage of a well-crafted email sequence is its ability to drive sales and revenue. By segmenting my audience and tailoring messages to address their specific needs and behaviors, I can convert prospects into loyal customers. Additionally, email sequences help me:

Promote sales by guiding prospects through the buying process.

Engage with customers by providing valuable content and updates.

Retain customers by keeping them interested and satisfied.

Cultivate brand loyalty through consistent and personalized communication.

Here’s how I perfect my email sequences:

Define My Objectives: I start by clearly defining the goals of my email sequence. Whether it’s onboarding new customers, re-engaging inactive subscribers, or promoting a new product, having a clear objective guides the content and structure of my emails.

Specify Triggers: I identify the actions that will trigger each email in the sequence. These triggers could include subscribing to my list, downloading a digital product, making a purchase, or signing up for an event.

Design the Structure: I determine the number of emails in my sequence, the timing of each email, and the overall duration of the sequence. This planning helps ensure a coherent and effective communication flow.

Create Compelling Content: Crafting emails that are clear, concise, and compelling is crucial. Each email should have a strong subject line, a clear message, and a call-to-action (CTA) that guides the recipient towards the desired action.

Use Email Software: I implement my email sequence using reliable email automation software. This software handles the automation, tracking, and analysis of my email campaigns, ensuring they run smoothly and effectively.

Test My Sequence: Before launching my sequence, I test it with a small audience to ensure everything works as intended. This step helps identify and fix any issues with the triggers or content.

Track and Analyze: I continuously monitor the performance of my email sequences. Tracking metrics such as open rates, click-through rates, and conversions helps evaluate the effectiveness of my campaigns and make necessary adjustments.

Examples of Effective Email Sequences

Understanding different types of email sequences has helped me tailor my strategy to various marketing goals. Here are some standard examples I use:

Welcome Email Sequence: This sequence is crucial for making a good first impression. A typical welcome sequence might include a warm welcome message, an overview of what to expect, and a first-purchase incentive. The goal is to engage new subscribers and encourage them to explore my offerings.

Onboarding Email Sequence: This sequence aims to educate new customers about my products or services. It might include tutorials, usage tips, and support information. The objective is to help customers get the most out of my product and establish my brand as a helpful and reliable partner.

Re-engagement Email Sequence: Designed to re-engage inactive subscribers, this sequence can include updates about new products or services, special offers, and requests for feedback. The goal is to rekindle interest and convert dormant subscribers back into active customers.

Lead Nurturing Email Sequence: Particularly effective in B2B marketing, this sequence guides prospects through the customer journey by providing valuable content, building brand authority, and establishing trust. The objective is to nurture leads until they are ready to make a purchase.

Event Email Sequence: This time-based sequence promotes events such as webinars, product launches, or renewals. It includes pre-event announcements and reminders, as well as post-event follow-ups to gather feedback and drive additional engagement.

Conclusion

Email sequences are a powerful tool in automated email marketing, enabling me to communicate effectively with my audience at scale. By understanding the different types of sequences and following best practices, I can leverage these tools to drive sales, engage customers, and build lasting relationships. Whether I’m welcoming new subscribers, re-engaging inactive customers, or promoting a new product, a well-crafted email sequence can significantly enhance my marketing efforts and contribute to my overall business success.

Super Benji is the software of choice for crafting personalised email sequences. Just define your ICP, specify your triggers, and provide your client list, and let Benji nurture your leads at scale!

Imagine receiving an unsolicited email from a recruiter whose strategy involves sending 50,000 emails daily, all to secure just one lead. This means 49,999 inboxes are cluttered for a single phone call. If each recipient spends five seconds reviewing and deleting that message, it equates to 70 work hours wasted.

And even when that one lead is found, there’s no assurance that that lead will be enthused about your offering! This is the problem of B2B spam, which has been curbed in recent years due to sophisticated filters, but despite the increased sophistication of our inboxes, there are still rogues running huge and untargeted plays.

Each day, we’re forced to navigate through a flood of emails, many of which are irrelevant and downright intrusive. The definition of spam is “unsolicited messages” sent at scale, with unsolicited meaning it’s not asked for or requested.

Given that spam now accounts for between 45% and 56% of all email traffic worldwide, or an estimated 162 billion spam emails sent daily, this means that every other email received is considered spam!

In this article, we’ll look at some of the factors around B2B email marketing, before analysing the factors influencing deliverability, so that you don’t end up with the undesirables. After all, there’s nothing worse than spending time crafting an interesting, relevant, and deeply personalised email, only for it to be sent down because some fumbling algorithm misunderstood your intentions.

A whopping 41% of marketers admit that email is their most effective marketing channel, and 77% of marketers have reported an increase in email engagement in the last 12 months, both of which point to the continued prevalence of email as a marketing and sales channel.

Aside from the obvious problem of B2B salespeople using spray-and-pray methods to send irrelevant messages, B2B email marketing is plagued by a number of suboptimal lead generation and distribution methods:

1. Purchased Email Lists: B2B marketers are more likely to buy email lists, thinking it’s a quick way to gain contacts, but this often leads to high spam complaints, hard bounces, and spam traps. You can’t buy permission, and these lists often include outdated or inactive emails, causing serious deliverability issues.

2. Rented Email Lists: Renting lists might sound better, but it’s fraught with similar risks. True list rentals should ensure that the list owner manages the email distribution, uses their sender name, and includes their unsubscribe link.

3. Distributed Subscriber Acquisition: B2B subscriber acquisition is often decentralised, making it hard to enforce permission standards.

4. Rogue Distribution Lists: Sales teams sometimes create their own email service provider accounts, leading to rogue distribution lists.

5. Event-Based List Growth: In-person events are a common source of B2B leads, but they often involve paper forms, leading to transcription errors and high bounce rates.

6. Form-Based Lead Generation: Report download and webinar registration forms are common B2B lead generation tools. However, pre-checked opt-in boxes or buried consent can lead to high spam complaints and the use of secondary or temporary email addresses, which eventually bounce.

Spam not only clutters communication channels and erodes trust but also has significant environmental impacts. A study by McAfee revealed that the carbon footprint of a single spam email is 0.3g CO2. Multiplied by billions, the annual carbon footprint of spam is equivalent to around 3 million petrol cars running non-stop. The energy and water required to cool data centres and the e-waste generated are a relentless burden upon the ecosystem.

In such a competitive inbox environment, personalised and targeted communication is crucial. Research shows that personalised emails can lead to a 28.57% increase in click-through rates. B2B companies should invest in segmentation and personalization strategies to craft messages that resonate with their audience.

Additionally, understanding and mitigating the seven core email deliverability factors is key.

Unlike B2C brands, B2B companies face unique challenges, including the scrutiny of corporate email servers and stringent IT policies. Moreover, as corporate email platforms like Google Workspace and Outlook 365 gain traction, B2B email deliverability is increasingly mirroring B2C norms.

61% of marketers say improving email deliverability rates is a big challenge, and yet in 2023, the average email deliverability rate was 85.7%! Thais means that 14.3% of emails never reach the intended inbox; of those, 6.3% of emails land in spam folders, and 8% of emails are undelivered.

As such, inbox placement now hinges on seven core factors: infrastructure, volume, email content, bounces and spam traps, spam complaints, engagement, and reputation.

1. Infrastructure: Choose a reliable email service provider (ESP) that supports email authentication standards like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC to enhance deliverability.

2. Email Volume: Maintain consistent sending patterns and gradually ramp up email volumes to avoid scrutiny. Small senders benefit from shared IP addresses, which stabilise volume. Studies show consumers prefer to receive emails from their favorite brands just a few times per month, so anything more than once a week maybe be considered spammy.

3. Content: Ensure clean, properly coded emails without malicious elements. Avoid URL shorteners and links to websites with poor reputations.

4. Bounces and Spam Traps: By following good subscriber acquisition practices, you should aim to avoid high bounce rates and sending to spam traps which signal poor practices and damage deliverability.

5. Spam Complaints: Keep complaint rates below 0.1% by ensuring users opt-in, providing easy unsubscribe options, and maintaining email relevance.

6. Engagement: Email engagement is the fourth most important metric for B2B marketers for measuring B2B content performance. Manage inactive subscribers and use segmentation and personalization to boost engagement.

7. Reputation: Maintain a good sender reputation by balancing quality and quantity in email lists, as mailbox providers weigh multiple factors to calculate reputation.

Focusing on these factors will ensure your email is delivered, opened, and hopefully read. The challenges of B2B spam are significant but not insurmountable, and the benefits of having a strong email marketing presence shouldn’t be understated. After all, 59% of people say that email marketing affects purchasing decisions, and 60% of consumers made a purchase thanks to a marketing email they received!

Avoiding the pitfalls of B2B spam and focusing on infrastructure, volume, email content, bounces and spam traps, spam complaints, engagement, and reputation ensures that your email ends up in the inbox. It’s time for your message to be read!

We have traditionally been told that large scale, unsolicited messages are spam. But what if the unsolicited message is so deeply relevant and personalised to the prospect that they would feel foolish saying no! This is Super Benji’s modus operandi. Benji demonstrates that, by cold emailing prospects with a hook that intrigues and an offer that speaks to the individual, unanticipated messages at scale are only considered spam when they are unwanted, not unsolicited! Try the demo today to see how Benji can land your offer squarely in your prospect’s inbox, at scale, without ever resorting to spam.

Let’s face it: B2B sales outreach can be a real headache. Here are the common pain points that make sales professionals want to pull their hair out:

1. Time-consuming research
2. Ineffective personalisation
3. Inconsistent follow-ups
4. Low engagement rates

Enter Super Benji: Your AI-powered sales sidekick that’s here to save the day (and your sanity)!

How Super Benji Transforms Your Sales Process

Hyper-Personalisation at Scale

Super Benji is like a digital detective, scouring LinkedIn, newsfeeds, and even industry papers to craft messages that’ll make your prospects think, “Wow, are they reading my mind?”

Customized Content: Benji tailors your messages so well, you might start feeling a little jealous of its writing skills.

Targeted Messaging: It identifies pain points and offers solutions faster than you can say “closed deal.”

Optimizing Email Cadences

Timing is everything, and Benji’s got it down to a science.

Strategic Timing: Benji knows the perfect moment to hit ‘send,’ like a sales-savvy time lord.

Flexible Scheduling: It adjusts email frequency based on engagement, so you’re never that annoying “Hey, just checking in” person.

Simplifying Follow-Ups

No more dropping the ball on follow-ups. Benji’s got your back.

Automated Reminders: Timely follow-ups without the awkward “Sorry for the delay” messages.

Adaptive Messaging: Crafts follow-ups based on past interactions, like a conversation chameleon.

Key Features of Super Benji

Advanced Prospect Research: Gathers data faster than you can Google a prospect’s name.

Personalised Messaging: Creates content so tailored, it’ll make your prospects feel like VIPs.

Optimized Email Timing: Schedules emails at the best times, because 3 AM is rarely the right time to pitch.

Automated Follow-Ups: Consistent follow-up sequences that won’t make you feel like a broken record.

Multi-Channel Integration: Plays nice with your favorite tools like LinkedIn and HubSpot.

CRM Synchronization: Keeps your CRM updated without you lifting a finger.

Predictive Analytics: Uses machine learning to forecast buyer behavior, like a crystal ball for sales.

Value Proposition Highlighting: Articulates your unique selling points clearly, so you’re not just another face in the crowd.

In a nutshell, Super Benji is like having a sales assistant who never sleeps, never complains, and always remembers to follow up.

It takes those mind-numbing tasks off your plate, so you can focus on what you do best: closing deals and crushing quotas.

Let’s face it: cold outreach can be a real challenge. You’re trying to drum up new business, but it often feels like you’re shouting into the void. Sound familiar? Don’t worry, you’re not alone. Let’s explore why automating your cold outreach might just be the game-changer you need.

You’re at your desk, crafting the perfect email to a potential client. You research their company, find a clever opening line, and hit send. Repeat this 100 times, and suddenly it’s dark outside. You’ve spent your whole day on outreach. Now imagine if you could do all that in a fraction of the time. That’s where automation comes in. It’s like having a super-efficient assistant who never tires and is always ready to work.

Quality Over Quantity (But Why Not Both?)

“But wait,” you might say, “won’t automation make my emails sound impersonal?” Not if you do it right! Modern automation tools like Benji are smart. They can personalise emails so well, recipients might think you spent hours crafting them just for them.

Benji, for instance, digs through LinkedIn and newsfeeds to find the perfect hook for each prospect. It crafts personal messages in your voice that turn contacts into contracts. It’s like having your cake and eating it too – personalised touch at scale.

The Numbers Game

Cold outreach is partly a numbers game. The more lines you cast, the more fish you’re likely to catch. But there’s a catch: You only have so many hours in a day. Automation lets you reach out to way more potential clients than you could manually. In fact, Benji can 10X your capacity! This allows you to focus on what you do best – closing deals.

Consistency is Key

We’ve all been there – starting strong with outreach and then… life happens. Meetings pile up, deadlines loom, and suddenly your outreach efforts are gathering dust. Automated systems don’t have bad days. They don’t forget to follow up. They keep your outreach consistent, which is crucial for building relationships and closing deals.

Data Insights

Ever wish you had a crystal ball to see what works in your outreach? Automation tools come pretty close. They track opens, clicks, replies – you name it. This goldmine of data helps you refine your approach over time.

The Cost Conundrum

“But isn’t automation expensive?” I hear you ask. Sure, there’s an upfront cost. But think about it this way: How much is your time worth? How much revenue are you missing out on because you can’t reach enough potential clients? In many cases, the return on investment from automated outreach can be huge. It’s not just about saving money – it’s about making money.

The Human Touch (Yes, Really)

Here’s a secret: Good automation actually frees you up to be more human. Instead of spending hours on initial outreach, you can focus on building relationships with interested prospects. It’s like having a team of helpers qualifying leads for you, so you can step in at the perfect moment.

As one client put it: “Ironically, it’s taken AI to put the human touch back into outreach.”

In today’s fast-paced business world, manual outreach is becoming less of an option and more of a liability. Your competitors are likely already automating. Can you afford to be left behind?

Automating your cold outreach isn’t just a nice-to-have anymore. It’s becoming necessary to stay competitive, especially for small businesses and startups trying to punch above their weight.

So, why DO you need to automate cold outreach? Because it saves time, improves quality, increases your reach, maintains consistency, provides valuable data, and ultimately helps you land more clients with less effort.

It’s not about replacing the human touch – it’s about enhancing it. Automation handles the heavy lifting so you can focus on what you do best: building relationships and closing deals.

As one satisfied user shared: “Benji has transformed the way we reach out to potential clients, ensuring everyone receives the Morgan Stanley silver service, at scale.”

Ready to give it a shot? There are plenty of tools out there to help you get started, with Benji being a standout option. Your future self (and your bottom line) will thank you!

In the words of a happy client: “Benji takes our cold leads, and they come out sizzling!” Try automating your cold outreach today and experience the benefits of personalised, effective communication at scale.

When it comes to B2B sales, the sales process is longer and more complex than in B2C, the services more complex, and the B2B buyers are more ‘rational’ and long-term than consumers. This all points to the fact that personalisation, which could be more elaborately termed ‘building personal relationships and sculpting individualised purchasing experiences’, is a key to B2B sales, and in 2024, the significance has never been more pronounced. According to McKinsey, today’s fastest growing companies drive 40% of their revenue through sales personalisation efforts! From prospecting to closing deals, personalisation serves as the cornerstone of effective sales strategies, enabling businesses to forge meaningful connections, tailor experiences, and ultimately drive revenue growth. But what does personalisation mean, beyond writing a first name on the subject line of a cold email? And how can personalisation work through each stage of the B2B sales process? 

Prospecting:

Personalisation fundamentally transforms the prospecting phase of B2B sales by enabling businesses to precisely target and engage potential clients. In 2024, advanced data analytics and AI-driven algorithms empower sales teams to decipher intricate patterns of customer behaviour, preferences, and pain points. Leveraging this wealth of information, businesses can craft hyper-personalised outreach campaigns that resonate with the unique needs of each prospect. 

Whether through tailored email sequences, customised social media interactions, or personalised content offerings, B2B sales teams can establish rapport and credibility from the outset. For instance, leveraging personalised video messages addressing specific pain points or industry challenges can capture the attention of prospects and set the stage for meaningful conversations.  Indeed, buyers have now come to expect a personalised experience – as McKinsey points out, 71% of consumers anticipate some kind of personalised interaction in the sales process. Demonstrating a deep understanding of the prospect’s business landscape, personalisation done the right way can build the foundations of long-term relationships. Done poorly, prospects may feel anonymous, and actually be put-off by having their name used in marketing copy. 

Nurturing and Engagement:

As prospects progress through the sales funnel, personalisation continues to play a pivotal role in nurturing relationships and sustaining engagement. Personalised account-based marketing (ABM) strategies enable businesses to curate bespoke experiences for key stakeholders within target accounts. By aligning messaging and content with the specific pain points and objectives of each decision-maker, B2B sales teams can drive consensus and streamline the buying process. 

Moreover, providing segmented customer experiences affords better understanding of the customer, and in turn utilising this data to better serve the customer using techniques such as interactive chatbots, AI-driven email sequences, and personalised website experiences. 

Closing Deals:

In the final stages of the sales cycle, personalisation emerges as a decisive factor in driving conversions and closing deals. By leveraging predictive analytics and machine learning algorithms, B2B sales teams can anticipate when a buyer might be surging and tailor their approach accordingly. In 2024, intelligent sales enablement platforms empower representatives with real-time insights and recommendations, enabling them to personalise pitches and address objections effectively. 

Furthermore, interactive pricing models and personalised negotiation frameworks allow businesses to adapt to the unique preferences and constraints of each prospect. Prospects are typically already more than halfway through the decision-making process when they reach out and the decision-making process is increasingly long and complex and features many key interests, sometimes in different departments. By offering flexible payment options, customised service packages, and value-added incentives, B2B sales teams can be allowed to be adaptive and flexible with clients’ wishes.

Post-Sale Engagement:

Even after the deal is closed, personalisation continues to drive value by nurturing post-sale relationships and fostering advocacy. In 2024, CRM platforms equipped with advanced predictive analytics capabilities enable businesses to anticipate customer needs and deliver proactive support and guidance. Through personalised onboarding processes, targeted training resources, and proactive account management, B2B organisations can maximise customer lifetime value and drive referrals.

Buyers are far more likely to make repeat purchases from brands that provide personalised, relevant offers. In the era of subscription-based models and recurring revenue streams, personalised retention strategies are paramount in safeguarding long-term profitability and sustainable growth.

Caveats: 

Despite all these obvious benefits of further personalisation, and the vast improvement it can bring to many a buyer’s experience, individuals are increasingly wary of giving away their data, and may be negatively influenced by hyper-personalised sales messaging. One study indicated that around 40% of buyers do not prefer their data to be used.

Personalisation has emerged as a linchpin in the realm of B2B sales, reshaping how businesses identify, engage, and retain clients in 2024. But initiating sales with wide-ranging prospects and personalising each is very time-consuming, which is why organisations are unlocking new competitive advantages by harnessing data-driven insights and well-trained AI to do the dog’s work and chase leads, freeing capacity to grow. 

Super Benji has this advantage. He is highly personalised, both to your distinctive message tone of voice, and to your prospects, and has been trained to anticipate the best time to engage a prospect based on their own activity. Benji identifies opportunities like only an augmented intelligence could, before drafting decisive communications trained in your dialect, and perfecting with feedback.

If you’re tired of scrolling LinkedIn and messaging prospects generic outreach in the hope they buy, let Super Benji can sniff out leads and proposition them, when the time is right, and in your tone.

Let’s face it: cold outreach can be a real challenge. You’re trying to drum up new business, but it often feels like you’re shouting into the void. Sound familiar? Don’t worry, you’re not alone. Let’s explore why automating your cold outreach might just be the game-changer you need.

You’re at your desk, crafting the perfect email to a potential client. You research their company, find a clever opening line, and hit send. Repeat this 100 times, and suddenly it’s dark outside. You’ve spent your whole day on outreach. Now imagine if you could do all that in a fraction of the time. That’s where automation comes in. It’s like having a super-efficient assistant who never tires and is always ready to work.

Quality Over Quantity (But Why Not Both?)

“But wait,” you might say, “won’t automation make my emails sound impersonal?” Not if you do it right! Modern automation tools like Benji are smart. They can personalise emails so well, recipients might think you spent hours crafting them just for them.

Benji, for instance, digs through LinkedIn and newsfeeds to find the perfect hook for each prospect. It crafts personal messages in your voice that turn contacts into contracts. It’s like having your cake and eating it too – personalised touch at scale.

The Numbers Game

Cold outreach is partly a numbers game. The more lines you cast, the more fish you’re likely to catch. But there’s a catch: You only have so many hours in a day.

Automation lets you reach out to way more potential clients than you could manually. In fact, Benji can 10X your capacity! This allows you to focus on what you do best – closing deals.

Consistency is Key

We’ve all been there – starting strong with outreach and then… life happens. Meetings pile up, deadlines loom, and suddenly your outreach efforts are gathering dust.

Automated systems don’t have bad days. They don’t forget to follow up. They keep your outreach consistent, which is crucial for building relationships and closing deals.

Data Insights

Ever wish you had a crystal ball to see what works in your outreach? Automation tools come pretty close. They track opens, clicks, replies – you name it. This goldmine of data helps you refine your approach over time.

The Cost Conundrum

“But isn’t automation expensive?” I hear you ask. Sure, there’s an upfront cost. But think about it this way: How much is your time worth? How much revenue are you missing out on because you can’t reach enough potential clients?

In many cases, the return on investment from automated outreach can be huge. It’s not just about saving money – it’s about making money.

The Human Touch (Yes, Really)

Here’s a secret: Good automation actually frees you up to be more human. Instead of spending hours on initial outreach, you can focus on building relationships with interested prospects. It’s like having a team of helpers qualifying leads for you, so you can step in at the perfect moment.

As one client put it: “Ironically, it’s taken AI to put the human touch back into outreach.”

In today’s fast-paced business world, manual outreach is becoming less of an option and more of a liability. Your competitors are likely already automating. Can you afford to be left behind?

Automating your cold outreach isn’t just a nice-to-have anymore. It’s becoming necessary to stay competitive, especially for small businesses and startups trying to punch above their weight.

So, why DO you need to automate cold outreach? Because it saves time, improves quality, increases your reach, maintains consistency, provides valuable data, and ultimately helps you land more clients with less effort.

It’s not about replacing the human touch – it’s about enhancing it. Automation handles the heavy lifting so you can focus on what you do best: building relationships and closing deals.

As one satisfied user shared: “Benji has transformed the way we reach out to potential clients, ensuring everyone receives the Morgan Stanley silver service, at scale.”

Ready to give it a shot? There are plenty of tools out there to help you get started, with Benji being a standout option. Your future self (and your bottom line) will thank you!

In the words of a happy client: “Benji takes our cold leads, and they come out sizzling!” Try automating your cold outreach today and experience the benefits of personalised, effective communication at scale.