Podcast episode
Writing better emails with data-backed optimization (Will Allred, Co-Founder & COO @ Lavender)
30 Minutes to President's Club11 May 202229 min
Description
Join the most tactical sales newsletter in the world: https://hubs.ly/Q01-R33G0 FOUR ACTIONABLE TAKEAWAYS Avoid using first names or commands in your subject lines. Use unsure tones (e.g. typically, usually) instead of informative tones in your emails. Never ask more than one question in an email. Sending 50 word emails yields better results than 125 word emails. PATH TO PRESIDENT’S CLUB Co-Founder & COO @ Lavender RESOURCES DISCUSSED Join our weekly newsletter Things you can steal 30MPC Training: 30mpc.com/training
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like a to-do list item for Armand, even though it might get his attention, the second he sees that, like the sales trigger is up for him. Am I getting all of that right? Yes. And so when I coach people on how to approach email writing subjects, et cetera, I actually “stray away from the more personal type information.” And it's not because it's not effective or interesting or catches their attention. It's because it's really hard to scale. You know, if I'm looking at somebody's hobbies and trying to personalize 20 plus emails a day, it's not going to be effective.
Am I getting all of that right? Yes. And so when I coach people on how to approach email writing subjects, et cetera, I actually stray away from the more personal type information. And it's not because it's not effective or interesting or catches their attention. “It's because it's really hard to scale.” You know, if I'm looking at somebody's hobbies and trying to personalize 20 plus emails a day, it's not going to be effective. I'm going to have to come up with like a Google spreadsheet of here's every possible hobby on the planet and how you could tie it back to what we do.
But you're able to do these things at scale Yeah, and I mean one of the things that you're hitting on is probably one of the biggest misconceptions about Personalization which is Personalization we really capture this idea of like personal and we overemphasize on it when in reality when we should be talking about personalization is “It's really just having a valid reason for showing up and interrupting them within their to-do list” And so my favorite framework the way that I like to show up is one create some context But to tie that context for how I got there back to a problem immediately so that they know this is gonna be a relevant conversation and so for each persona, it's a byproduct of
personalization is It's really just having a valid reason for showing up and interrupting them within their to-do list And so my favorite framework the way that I like to show up is one create some context “But to tie that context for how I got there back to a problem immediately so that they know this is gonna be a relevant” conversation and so for each persona, it's a byproduct of Going through and understanding what problems you solve for them what the external triggers are that showcase that they might have those problems and then building a
Yeah, some magic recipe. It's literally just you have these problems. We can solve those problems So on the point of like the personalization One of the things that you put in the prep doc is it's really hard If not impossible to book a sales meeting if your email doesn't even get opened and there's two things that impact the email open “It's the subject line and then the preview text because those are the things that the person sees before opening said email” And it sounds to me like you've got some ideas around like What you do preview text wise may be tied to personalization and I'm sort of curious Like what is the best practice as it relates to what it should be putting in those first? 70 or so characters that the person sees before the email gets opened. Yes, so
Yeah, some magic recipe. It's literally just you have these problems. We can solve those problems So on the point of like the personalization One of the things that you put in the prep doc is it's really hard If not impossible to book a sales meeting if your email doesn't even get opened and there's two things that impact the email open “It's the subject line and then the preview text because those are the things that the person sees before opening said email” And it sounds to me like you've got some ideas around like What you do preview text wise may be tied to personalization and I'm sort of curious Like what is the best practice as it relates to what it should be putting in those first? 70 or so characters that the person sees before the email gets opened. Yes, so
And this kind of ties back to those informative tones. We want to give them information so that they know what they need in order to make a choice and they're not making a choice. They're not in that mindset. What we forget is our job as sellers is not to inform, but to build curiosity when we're prospecting. “And that starts with understanding their scenario and it stops well before you're giving them” that extra detail about what you do and how you do it. So the most I'll ever say about Lavender and a cold email is maybe I'll use a customer to tell some of my story. Right? Like we help the team at Sindoso 4x their positive response rate within 30 days.
And this kind of ties back to those informative tones. We want to give them information so that they know what they need in order to make a choice and they're not making a choice. They're not in that mindset. What we forget is our job as sellers is not to inform, but to build curiosity when we're prospecting. “And that starts with understanding their scenario and it stops well before you're giving them” that extra detail about what you do and how you do it. So the most I'll ever say about Lavender and a cold email is maybe I'll use a customer to tell some of my story. Right? Like we help the team at Sindoso 4x their positive response rate within 30 days.
In Prospecting
Curious, do you have any feedback on my last note? What I'm doing there is I'm reminding them why I'm there, like, again, showcasing in their inbox that I did my homework and setting up that prompt to go check out something else that I've sent them in a more thoughtful way. “So regardless of what number follow-up it is, you have to remind them of the context” in which you got there in the first place. Yeah. One thing that I've seen really successful is any thoughts, parentheses, by the way, I saw XYZ, just a quick note that shows you're not using the same thoughts as every single other person in the world, shows that you tailored two emails, even though it probably