Telemarketing Software Featured Article

Recently I was meeting with matchmaking CEOs in India, and the trip was quite productive. Since the initial meet and greet was no time for a hard sell, however, I opted to close the deals by email.

While not selling hard during the initial meeting felt like the right move, when I got back to my hotel room I realized that in many cases I needed something a tad stronger than just an email pitch; really what felt pitch perfect was a quick call and then a follow-up email to seal the deal.

Thankfully a recent blog post by Genie Parker at VanillaSoft, Voice Mail and Email: The One-Two Punch, landed in my inbox at just the right time for this sales effort.

As Parker noted, the combination of a voicemail and a follow-up email is a powerful one-two sales punch. The voicemail sets up the sale, and the email is the call to action that makes it easy for a prospect to respond.

The initial voicemail should be short, advises Parker—ideally no more than 15 seconds. It should be a friendly message, left during business hours, and serve as a soft-sell pitch that grabs attention but doesn’t push too hard. Call ID should be on in case the prospect wants to return the call, but almost more crucial is letting the recipient know you’ll be following up with an email.

It is in the email that the hard selling occurs. And since email is easier to act upon, and will most likely be viewed when the prospect has time to respond, this email makes for a better vehicle for the details and the call to action.

In the email, advises Parker, you should ensure both that your name is listed on the ‘From’ field, and that the subject line is clear and a reminder of the voicemail you just left. Make the email personal, too—or at least hide the boilerplate nature of your email follow-up.

Start by briefly restating your purpose for reaching out, and keep the follow-up email brief and to the point. Think call to action. As we all know, long emails drown the key ideas we’re trying to communicate in a sea of verbosity and secondary details.

Follow with contact information, of course. Without easy follow-up contact information, we’re making it hard for our prospect to respond. Of course they can hit the reply button, but we also want to include any necessary links and also a phone number they can dial to get back to the interactivity of a one-on-one call.

Closing deals is an art form, and a part of that art is knowing the right communications vehicle and how to combine these touchpoints properly. Voicemail and email go hand in hand, as the blog by Parker at VanillaSoft ably outlines.