Sales Messaging - The 4 key elements that make your sales outreach effective.
Sales Messaging - The 4 key elements that make your sales outreach effective.
Hey - it’s Alex!
Today, I will share with you:
1️⃣ 3 Actionable SaaS growth tips
👉 The 4 key elements that make your sales outreach effective.
👉 The 4 steps to run powerful outbound sales sequences
👉 PAS Framework - The most famous copywriting framework
2️⃣ ’Best tip, failure, and learning’ by Machiel Kunst (Founder of bluebird)
3️⃣ 1 Software tool recommendation (Instant Data Scraper)
… that will help you quickly grow your SaaS product 🚀.
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1. Sales Messaging - The 4 key elements that make your sales outreach effective.
The 2 main reasons why you can’t sell your product are:
You’re building a product that does not really solve a problem —> no one needs it (really)!
Your messaging is off —> no one will discover and test the product, even if it’s good!
I would even say without message-market fit it’s hard to achieve product-market fit.
Because no message market fit —> no meetings —> no users/customers —> no product feedback —> no PMF (product market fit).
So having powerful messaging is essential for the success of your business.
Messaging plays a crucial role in all your growth channels - but especially for your outbound sales motion.
4 key elements for a powerful message
Only if you combine all 4, you will book more meetings, or get more sign-ups.
1️⃣ The right leads.
It is all about your ideal customer profile (ICP)(Make sure to check out the 2 parts of a powerful ICP). You need to know who they are.
Make sure you have clear written down answers on:
🔶 their roles
🔶 the responsibilities
🔶 their status quo (how they do things right now)
🔶 the problem/challenge they (normally) have
🔶 the dream situation
🔶 what's holding them back
Once you know who they are, you can start to create lists and build segments. This way you can write powerful messages that resonate with them.
2️⃣ The timing
The problem you are solving for them needs to be urgent.
Otherwise, you are not on their priority list. Or maybe priority no. 50.
Which means you will not close the deal.
A great tactic is to make use of trigger events (they are awesome for email icebreakers) & lead qualifications (like SUGAR).
3️⃣ The channel
You need to meet your prospects where they are.
If you are active on Twitter, but your ICP doesn't even know what this is, you will not book any meetings.
A clearly defined ICP also includes what channel they hang out on and the best way to engage with them.
--> Test different channels to see what works
4️⃣ The messaging
Do you understand your ICP?
And know their pain points?
Can you provide value and insights?
Do you speak the same language?
In the end, copywriting is simple if you know who your ICP is, what problems/pains/challenges they have, and what they care about (their goals, aspirations etc.)
That’s why I highly recommend creating your own messaging framework.
It includes messaging elements that you can copy&paste on the different ‘channels’ like email, website, sales demos etc.
Messaging Elements
🔶 Personas & Companies
🔶 Status Quo
🔶 Pain Points
🔶 Desired State
🔶 Objections
🔶 Your Product Type
🔶 New Capabilities
🔶 Top 3 Killer Features
🔶 Benefits
🔶 Social Proof/Trust
🔶 Alternatives
So now you know the 4 key elements of a powerful sales message.
Let’s see what steps you need to follow to write powerful outbound sales sequences.
2. The 4 steps to run powerful outbound sales sequences.
Follow these steps to create cold emails that stand out and generate results for your B2B SaaS company!
𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗽 𝟭. 𝗕𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗱 𝗹𝗶𝘀𝘁(s)
First, you need a list of prospects. Focus on prospects that belong to your ICP.
Find databases where you find your ICP. Most probably Linkedin Sales Navigator can help.
But there are many more sources you can use. Build lists/segments of around 50 with similar criteria. This way you can build highly targeted campaigns.
𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗽 𝟮. 𝗚𝗲𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲ir 𝗲𝗺𝗮𝗶𝗹s
Once you created a list of leads, you need to get their emails.
There are many tools like hunter, evaboot, findymail, lusha or dropcontact.
Make sure to only use validated emails - otherwise, you will see high bounce rates.
𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗽 𝟯. 𝗘𝗻𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗵 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗱 𝗹𝗶𝘀𝘁
That's when you add more info to each lead that allows you to send relevant and personalized emails.
Trigger events or Icebreakers are your friends.
The best ways to find relevant information are Linkedin profiles (personal and company pages) and company websites. It could also make sense to find further info on websites like Crunchbase, Capterra, Kununu etc.
𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗽 𝟰. 𝗕𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 (𝗺𝘂𝗹𝘁𝗶-𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗽) 𝗰𝗮𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗶𝗴𝗻𝘀
Now you have a list of relevant prospects with relevant info you can use to write personalized emails (at scale).
Prospects normally need more than one touchpoint to take action. So run campaigns with 3-7 steps.
Great tools to do this efficiently are Lemlist or Lagrowthmachine - they even allow you to go multichannel mixing email, LinkedIn, and calls in your campaign.
𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗽 𝟱. 𝗪𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗺𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗮𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗴
Now you have a list of relevant prospects and build a multi-step campaign.
So now you need to actually write the messages (emails and Linkedin DMs).
Here are some specific tips:
💥 Add personalization with icebreakers💥
Personalization doesn’t mean writing completely individualized emails per prospect.
Individualization is not scalable, but personalization is scalable.
As long as you build a list of prospects that share the same problems, you can use the same body of the email - and add personalization with custom variables.
Check out the TAPSA framework.
💥 Structure is key 💥
Keep the message short.
Short sentences.
3 to max. 4 paragraphs with 2-3 sentences max.
New lines to make it easier to read.
Add a clear CTA to make it easy for them to move forward.
💥 Make it clear what you want (CTA) 💥
Always have a CTA in your message. There are 2 types of CTAs. The interest-based CTAs (soft) and the specific CTA (hard).
Interest-based CTAs ask open questions like
How do you currently face XYZ? or Is XYZ currently a priority for you?
Specific CTAs ask for a specific action like
Are you free for a quick call next week?
Most of the time soft interest-based CTAs perform better.
💥 Use the P.S. section 💥
The P.S and the first sentence of your email are the most read sections.
Because most people just skim your email. It's great to deliver some value (e.g. share a free resource with them).
3. PAS Framework - The most famous copywriting framework
The TAPSA framework basically applies the rules of the famous PAS framework.
It's a highly effective framework for powerful copywriting and messaging.
You can make use of the PAS Framework for all different copywriting challenges:
🔶 website copy
🔶 sales presentations
🔶 email marketing
🔶 landing pages
🔶 elevator pitches
🔶 your ads
PAS stands for:
1️⃣ Problem
Lead with the problem.
The problem needs to be specific. Being specific guarantees that the recipient feels ‘Hmm, true. I also have this problem, let’s read on…maybe it’s interesting for me’
Example: Scheduling calls with clients and partners is a lot of emails back and forth. Takes 10 minutes per meeting...
2️⃣ Agitate
Once you get the attention, your job is to go deeper to show that you really understand them.
Make the problem more emotional, tangible, and scary...
You need to highlight what it means to have this problem (how much it hurts).
Now you have their attention. They know how much it ‘hurts’.
Now you can pitch your ‘painkiller’.
Example: It takes you 3-4 emails to find a suitable time for both, and 1 out of 4 meetings are getting postponed last minute. Sometimes you're just bored with scheduling new meetings, but you know it's important to hit your sales quota.
3️⃣ Solution
Show them that you have something that fixes their problem (your pain killer).
Example: Simply send a shareable link to your calendar and let prospects book a suitable time in your calendar. Save time for both parties. Focus on more important tasks.
P.S. It sounds like Calendly.
💡 Best tip, failure, and learning by Machiel Kunst (Founder of bluebird)
Tip: How to hire the right salespeople
Are you in the market for top sales talent to help drive the success of your SaaS business?
Here are some tips to help you identify and hire the best salespeople:
🔍 Look for relevant experience: Focus on candidates who have experience selling similar deal sizes and technology with similar complexity. Also, look for someone who is mission-oriented and cares about your company's vision.
💪 Assess their sales skills: Use The Challenger Sale methodology to assess a candidate's sales skills. Look for candidates who possess the five key skills of teaching, tailoring, taking control, commercial insight, and building relationships.
📈 Look for a drive to self-improvement: Look for those who are competitive with themselves and constantly strive to improve their own performance.
Now that you know what to look for in a top-performing salesperson, where do you find them? Here are a few places to start:
🔎 LinkedIn: Use LinkedIn to search for candidates with relevant experience and see if they have any endorsements or recommendations from past colleagues.
👥 Referrals: Reach out to your network and ask for referrals. Referrals can be especially valuable because they often come from people who know the candidate personally and can vouch for their skills and work ethic.
💻 Online job boards: Use online job boards like Indeed or Glassdoor to post job openings and search for candidates with relevant experience and qualifications.
👉 Check out Machiel Kunst’s blog post on how to hire the right sales people.
🧠 Do you want to be next and share your best tip with 1200+ SaaS professionals? Reach out to me via Linkedin.
💪 1 software tool recommendation (Instant Data Scraper)
Instant Data Scraper is a Chrome extension that enables you to extract data from web pages and export it as Excel or CSV files.
The UI is simple (even though it looks a bit old-fashioned), but it works quite well.
Below is an example of extracting all companies on Kununu in seconds.
P.S. Check out my list of best software tools for SaaS startups for more inspiration.
Happy growth 🚀.
TL;DR
Leads, Timing, Channels & Messages need to come together to make your sales outreach effective.
4 steps to run powerful outbound sales sequences: Find ICP, get emails, enrich data, build campaigns, and create messages.
PAS Framework (Problem-Agitate-Solution) is the most famous copywriting framework
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