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Everyone says cold email is dead. So, they prioritize LinkedIn & calling.
However, contrary to popular belief, I think that email is the most important channel within outbound sales.
Not because it is perfect… but because it does a few things that the other channels can’t.
Let’s take a look at the 3 main outbound channels:
Calling
Pros:
- Fastest feedback & you can cut through the noise the quickest.
- Best for real conversations + extracting information
- Intel gathering
- Least amount of effort, create lists & dial until you get pickups, can do high volume
Cons:
- We are continuing to see pickup rates decrease… call screeners are impacting calling heavily
- If no one picks up, there are no “artifacts” left behind
- Conversations can disappear if not captured properly / information left out
- At times, can require high amounts of skill
Pros:
- Easy touchpoint
- Social proof / selling
- Lighter ask + gets face / company in front of prospect
Cons:
-Connection dependent / need prospects to be active on platform
-Easy to ignore
-Not great for depth
Pros:
- The only channel that persists
- Always delivers your message
- Can be forwarded internally
- Holds context over time
- Center of multi-threading (more on this below…)
Cons:
- Time consuming
- Low reply rate
- Monitor health of domain (don’t mass blast)
Email is the Center of Multi-Threading
This is what separates email from the rest of the channels laid above.
Say you connect with a prospect on a call, what do you normally do? You send an email recap, share resources, next steps, etc.
Get some light context from an IC on LinkedIn - you take that information to a decision maker over email.
Calls don’t always get picked up. LinkedIn doesn’t always get accepted.
Email is the one channel where you can almost guarantee that your:
-Name
-Company
-Message
gets in front of your prospect.
Email is what connects everything together.
An opportunity I’m working on right now came exactly from this motion.
I was prospecting hard into an account. Calling & LinkedIn wasn’t giving me anything. At the same time I was also sending emails, which I always do.
About 2 months pass after I decided this account was no longer worth my time… then boom, a VP replies to my email.
He didn’t answer my calls or even accept my LinkedIn request.
But he was reading my emails…. the seeds that I was planting into the account months ago.
Priorities & goals had shifted within the org & his team started feeling some of the pains that my company solves.
He knew exactly where to find me, all he had to do was look up my company in his inbox.
Email is the only channel that allows this at scale.
Calls disappear. LinkedIn gets buried. Emails sit & can always be found again.
Another rare characteristic of email that often gets overlooked in that prospects forward emails internally ALL THE TIME!!
Something else that can’t be done with other channels.
Sales is all about timing. Email allows you to work on your prospects time, not yours. That is why the VP example responding to my message worked.
It is important to note - email does not work nearly as well with out using the other channels effectively.
Email is just where multi-threading lives, it has very unique characteristics that calling & LinkedIn can’t achieve.
However, in order to be most effective with email, you need to multi-thread. Call the ICs, get information. Connect with mangers on LI & gather some more context.
Then you can craft up emails to the decision makers within the org to have an accurate hypothesis of what matters to them.
Email is where the early stages of the deal will begin & progress. Not anywhere else.
There are incredibly unique features to it…if used correctly.
Pretty much all GTM orgs are using AI to run automated email campaigns. While there are benefits from this, like starting conversation that never would of began.
However, I also think it can diminish your brand’s goodwill & trustworthiness. I personally think that AI email campaigns should only be used on tier 3 target accounts, nothing else (maybe an article for another time).
Multi-threading, using email correctly, and sending high value messaging with accurate hypotheses is how to cut through the noise & get responses to your emails.
Start taking advantage of the unique characteristics that email has if you aren’t already.
Until next week.
– Rook ♜
ps… I respond to all messages